Dropbox for Wi-Fi? I haven't even gotten past the first page of instabridge and I already think the tag-line is more confusing then explanatory.
Do you anything that has to do with shared cloud storage or collaboration? If not, just don't compare to Dropbox just to try to seem disruptive or give yourself an 'air' of success even before launch.
Also: Frontpage explains nothing about what the service does. I would try boiling it down to a few short bullets or an effective one-liner instead of leaning on people knowing what dropbox does and somehow apply it to your model.
Though I agree that the tagline's a little confusing, the first two bullet points ("Never ask for a friend's Wi-Fi password again" and "Sync passwords between your tablet and phone") gave me a clearer understanding of what they're doing here.
Irrespective of the quality of their explanation, your cynical assumption (read: projection) that in comparing themselves to Dropbox they're just trying to "seem disruptive" or to put on airs is disheartening. I don't know these guys, but why not give them the benefit of the doubt? Couldn't they be comparing themselves to Dropbox for another reason – namely, that Dropbox is great at syncing, and that, just perhaps, their app is great at syncing too?
I really don't think the reply was particularly hostile. And I agree with it- "Dropbox for Wi-Fi" doesn't really make sense. I know why they've used it, but perhaps "Dropbox for Wi-Fi passwords" would be an improvement.
"Dropbox for Wi-Fi" just confuses me, because Dropbox already uses Wi-Fi.
Or just say "wifi password sync and share". I too had to think far too hard about the dropbox tagline, and the quip at the bottom about facebook. Came off far too tacky.
The idea though, instant classic, love it.
I just hope these things are features:
- I can easily see when a friend is trying to connect to my network and can grant access.
- I have to re-grant access after a password change. (no other way around the revoking access issue I can see)
Edit: Yes I have read their FAQ/Security section, I think it is incredibly stupid of them to act this way. I can see apps being built to show the password easily, I don't see why they think it will always require root (and that root is uncommon / hard to do), or why they think anyone gives a fuck about their ToS, or the "law" maybe its illegal for them to access data on their own phone in their country - others it is not.
The biggest concern I have on this issue that they are making people feel safer than they really are, people re-use passwords everywhere, friends are more than likely going to be the ones to check to see if your wifi password matches your facebook (and I'm more worried about that than some random war driver.)
Thanks for the feedback. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, while "Dropbox for Wi-Fi" being technically wrong it's the shortest way that we could describe Instabridge that most people grokked.
Do you anything that has to do with shared cloud storage or collaboration? If not, just don't compare to Dropbox just to try to seem disruptive or give yourself an 'air' of success even before launch.
Also: Frontpage explains nothing about what the service does. I would try boiling it down to a few short bullets or an effective one-liner instead of leaning on people knowing what dropbox does and somehow apply it to your model.