I call vaporware. Another example of a concept site with impressive demos is streamy.com. I wouldn't be surprised if these were "honey pots" of sorts to collect email addresses of specific demographics (in this case it seems to be different levels of web developers, whereas Streamy was aimed at the Digg/reddit news crowd).
The thing that sets me off is the statement: "As soon as your invitation code hatches we will send it to your inbox." Cute way of saying, "We'll send you and invitation whenever we feel like it; but in the meantime we will do whatever we like with your email address." I did notice the guarantee "We promise not to spam!", but honestly that promise is as strong as the typeface used to display it.
Another factor that tips me off is that they seem to be violating one of the basics of good web application design: HAVE A FOCUS!!! Like Streamy, there are too many things going on here that promise a lot of possibilities but seem too much to deliver realistically. I would believe them more if they took perhaps ONE or at most TWO of the things they claim to be releasing and said that this product should be available soon...
Given the technology they are developing, I would hope to see a blog article with some substance talking about some of the cutting edge technology that is at least tangentially related to what they are claiming to be able to deliver. Instead, there are some pics with text of little substance that seem to foster an image of "coolness" and design savvy but no indication that they have any real technical ability to deliver what they are advertising.
But of course, I could be wrong.... hopefully somebody here can disprove my cynicism (see the reply button below this comment Aviary people/developers/employees?!??!?!).
For what it's worth, I have received an invite from them. I played around a little with the one application that is available - Phoenix. It seemed to be pretty good software (but definitely still beta quality) for the 15 minutes I played around with it.
Interesting....I've been waiting for my invitation to "hatch" for sometime now. By all means, I hope somebody proves me wrong and I really do hope there is something to Aviary. But for some reason, their promiscuity in showing all of their "goodies" seems that they are quite desperate for some attention.
I will issue a public apology here to Avi and company if my invite does happen to "hatch", but as it stands, it looks like vaporware to me.
There's a short review and a link to some invites here: http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9868874-2.html
The writer I spoke to about Phoenix, the photo app, said it was mostly eye candy. I think the problem is that with so many projects they'll all be mediocre at best, if they happen at all.
fiaz - please email me at avi (-a-) worth1000.com and I'll send you an invite now to Phoenix and Peacock.
No apology will be needed either, I'm just sorry you had to wait so long.
I have received your invite and I have logged in, and I DO owe you and your entire team a great big apology.
It shows a great deal of integrity on your behalf that you took the time to register here and respond publicly. I really look forward to what you guys will be releasing in the coming months.
I'll tone down my skepticism in the future....in the meantime, all the best!!
Assuming they're not being outright deceptive, they've got some images posted to their software blog that were generated with their Phoenix app.
We shall see ...
That's the most insidious part: it is subtle. We cannot definitively say one thing or another, which is why I'm asking ANYBODY from a.viary.com to show the YC.News community something substantial.
For example: send an invite to somebody of high reputation at Digg/reddit/YC.News and have them spread the word. This is a simple strategy that not only will help a.viary.com but will also lend tremendous credibility to their development efforts, not to mention future potential.
I think the best example of my cynicism is tagsy.com:
http://tagsy.com
vs.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/tagsy.com
Notice any similarities with streamy.com and the old tagsy.com? I'm willing to bet streamy.com is total vaporware. They've had enough time to get beta testers and lend some credibility to the notion that they are not vaporware; especially given the fact that the Streamy demo on YouTube looked like a finished product! I have not seen the Aviary demo (where I work blocks YouTube), but I'm willing to bet that it looks like they've got something on the verge of being released (or in other words it is as impressive/polished as Streamy's demo on YouTube).
Fiaz, just following up with this:
- We offered invitations to Alexis O'Hanion at Reddit, Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing (and probably every reputable tech blog).
Aviary's videos were all sped up, but otherwise unedited save for the addition of music and closing title / picture screens.
I should probably do some due research/diligence before attacking:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/13/aviarys-incredibly-ambi...
Apologies as well to the entire YC.News crowd for the trolling above...it's easy to be skeptical, and I made the mistake of taking the easy road.
FWIW, a friend of mine recently showed me his Streamy account. Big apologies to the people of Streamy!