Written on July 8, 2008 – 11:06 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Alright, I’m getting in the mood for this post by turning on the theme song of Mission Impossible - as there’s now a web app which makes it possible to send messages that self-destruct. Privnote allows you to send somebody a message, which the recipient can only read once. After that, it will vanish and become irretrievable. Remember the notes Ethan Hunt received?
Although the comparison goes a long way, the actual destruction of the notes you send with Privnote isn’t that sexy. No exploding sun glasses or whatever, just a link that works only once.
On top of this, Privnote also supplies you with some insightful information. You can tell whether the link has been eavesdropped, and get a notification when the recipient clicks the link. But the best feature of all, you can withdraw the message if you suddenly feel sorry about it. How many relationships will that save?
Screenshots
The developers of Privnote have built the app by using Django and Python and run the service on a https-secured server. This looks all safe and sophisticated, but there’s one big security leak in the whole idea of Privnote, as recipients can just make a screenshot of the message - and save it for life. I don’t think there we’ll be a solution for that soon, so you might want to consider whether you really want to use Privnote for its original purpose.
Try the teenagers
To me, it more sounds like a way to have fun, or to give the message a little more weight. But I think there’s a target group that will be absolutely ecstatic when they hear about Privnote: teenage girls. Like they already secretly share notes in classrooms, they can now also send each other “secret” messages via the web. So this web tool is basically begging for a social network widget. I think the “send secret message” Facebook app will become a huge hit. And maybe Tom Cruise is still cool enough to be the mascot?
I hope you like that post!
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Written on May 29, 2008 – 2:00 pm
David Petherick, Next Web WebTipr United Kingdom
On the 7th of May, The Next Web wrote a story about Naked, who had revealed in an honest and simple way that they were having cashflow problems, and that their plans for launch were on hold until these problems could be resolved - to quote:
We will need to regroup, see who’s still on board, and work out a way forward. In the meantime we’ll do everything possible to keep the service going.
We’ll update you when we have more news.
The news is that TechCrunch covered this story yesterday, three weeks on, with a classic play on words: “Naked stripped bare - startup runs out of cash, enters liquidation” — having established the fact that the company had officially gone into liquidation. TechCrunch also felt at liberty, in faux investigative style, to cover some of the more salacious background involving revealing (shock, horror) alleged divorce law-suits causing the assets of the company’s investor to be frozen, and also selectively unearthing information about Naked’s investor, Robert Bonnier.
All great material for a soap opera, but not an approach to reporting a story that we think is correct. Why?
Well, at The Next Web, we chose not to publish any details about Naked until its future status was established - and it still is far from clear. We have maintained discreet and supportive contact with a number of sources close to the situation as the legal and fiduciary process has developed.
One good reason for our silence is that we at The Next Web have had the advantage of having access to the Naked Private Beta, and, having being rather impressed by the service, we felt it best to wait, and allow what is a complex and difficult situation to be resolved before making further comment, or revealing details that we have long known about. We intend to publish details from our sources here when there is a developed story that we feel will interest and benefit our readership. Making a dramatic, and possibly premature, pronouncement of death, is not an appropriate or helpful approach, in our view. As Naked said: “We’ll update you when we have more news.”
Probably the best way for any web company in liquidation to make sure the value of any IP sale is at a maximum is to keep the service running - and that’s the real news. Naked have remained true to their promise because the service is still 100% operational and online. It can be accessed on receipt of a private invitation from an existing user.
Get Naked: Videos describing how the Naked service works are here at http://www.getnaked.com/tour. You can request an invitation by writing to david@thenextweb.org - or if you are a Naked user, please feel free to add your details in any comments below.
Written on May 7, 2008 – 9:26 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
Next Webtipr David Petherick advised me to start using Naked a few weeks ago. That’s a small British start-up in private beta, which aims to give users a better way to communicate with people they really care about than the dozens of other social networks do. It allows you to communicate more freely, in private. Tools are status-updates, private messages and group messages. To me it looks like they’re trying to be a combination between Twitter and e-mail, aimed at a crowd who doesn’t know what Twitter is.
So Naked is into communication and you can tell by the way the team communicates with its users: friendly, open and no-nonsense. They know how to create the feeling of a connection with the service, sort of bonding 2.0. The ultimate example would be the email I found in my inbox a few minutes ago:
The Naked team
Being Naked is all about being open, even if that means sharing not-so-good news. Our start-up has run out of cash. Just weeks before opening up the service more broadly and igniting the buzz…
However, we haven’t given up the faith. We will need to regroup, see who’s still on board, and work out a way forward. In the meantime we’ll do everything possible to keep the service going.
We’ll update you when we have more news.
That’s what I call REAL transparency. And why wouldn’t they be? There are plenty of start-ups that keep their mouth shut while they slowly sink in the deadpool. How is that helping them? By sending out this email they get (1) attention from the press, (2) sympathy from their users, and (3) street credibility - because this really is pr 2.0.
Update: David has ten invites for you to see whether Naked works for you. Drop him a line: david@thenextweb.org
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