Postbag

Web and SaaS

media outreach contact search

SHOW HN2020

Postbag

Find journalists, bloggers and webmasters covering your niche

postbag.co

#journalist contacts#media outreach#blogger search#pr outreach

92points
47comments
#701of 3,028 in 2020
Top 24%of 2020 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

5 positive, 18 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 14 critical, out of 40 comments about the project. Thread score -0.28.

Idea: 3 for, 2 againstExecution: 0 for, 3 againstPerformance: 0 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 againstPrivacy: 0 for, 2 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Interesting idea and useful for finding contacts

    From 3 comments
    • Great idea! Would love to see a pricing model implemented as this is something I can see paying for.
      nyxtom on HN
    • My friend is an Investigative Journalist, I'll share the link with him! Great idea.
      instaheat on HN
    • Great job with Postbag. However, the signup process can be vastly simplified. Coming to the lists - it's a good start. I got a few decent leads for my space. What would be great…
      vishwa306 on HN
  • Monthly web crawls and JournoRequests feature

    From 1 comment
    • Based on our testing the difference is in quality of matched contacts, number of matched contacts and number of opportunities per search. Also, continuous outreach with monthly…
      sanjasarin on HN

Objections

  • Search results are irrelevant for many queries

    From 3 comments
    • I did a search on the word dyslexia (my product is heavily used by people with dyslexia), and most of the top results were based on articles that did not use that word at all.…
      gnicholas on HN
    • I tried two queries: “audiobook” and “rust programming language”. “audiobook” produced passable results. “rust programming language” produced 100% garbage: in its 167 Tier1…
      chrismorgan on HN
    • OK, gave it a try. 1. Sign-up process has too many pointless hurdles. If you have restrictions on the password format, mention them upfront rather than revealing them one at a…
      apankrat on HN
  • Signup flow is cumbersome, with password rules and email code confirmation

    From 3 comments
    • Some feedback: the signup process is difficult. I signed up, 32-char password, but it doesn't have a special character, so I had to regen. Ok fine, whatever. Then a captcha. At…
      orthecreedence on HN
    • OK, gave it a try. 1. Sign-up process has too many pointless hurdles. If you have restrictions on the password format, mention them upfront rather than revealing them one at a…
      apankrat on HN
    • I agree, too many steps. I already logged in, why do i have to type my email again?
      Spacemolte on HN
  • Opting sites out is hard; spam concerns for publishers

    From 3 comments
    • Aren't services like this one of the reasons that publishers gets dozens of spam emails every day? E.g. "I read your article [link] and thought this [link] would be a great…
      skilled on HN
    • How do I block my sites from appearing on your lists? I’m already spamming a lot with product and movie pitches and last thing I want is even more.
      dawnerd on HN
    • We aren’t going to let you do that as that would defeat the benefit.
      postbag on HN
  • Error messages and tooltips are missing or hidden

    From 3 comments
    • Agreed, I didn't use a capitalized letter on the password and the sign up failed. The error window appears outside of my viewport so I kept clicking the button and almost…
      systematical on HN
    • The buttons at the top are not super obvious, but there are no tooltips to tell you what they are. So I clicked on several and got a sense of what most do, but I didn't want to…
      gnicholas on HN
    • It's not clear what the icons in the top does? Tooltips or simply buttons with text when the screen is wide enough to support it would be great.
      Spacemolte on HN
  • Pricing not published during beta

    From 1 comment
    • No pricing for a service that cannot remain free. This never ends well.
      skmurphy on HN

Requests

  • Simplify the signup flow

    From 2 comments
    • Great job with Postbag. However, the signup process can be vastly simplified. Coming to the lists - it's a good start. I got a few decent leads for my space. What would be great…
      vishwa306 on HN
    • OK, gave it a try. 1. Sign-up process has too many pointless hurdles. If you have restrictions on the password format, mention them upfront rather than revealing them one at a…
      apankrat on HN
  • Add tooltips or text labels to buttons

    From 2 comments
    • The buttons at the top are not super obvious, but there are no tooltips to tell you what they are. So I clicked on several and got a sense of what most do, but I didn't want to…
      gnicholas on HN
    • It's not clear what the icons in the top does? Tooltips or simply buttons with text when the screen is wide enough to support it would be great.
      Spacemolte on HN
  • Include social handles and LinkedIn in contact info

    From 1 comment
    • Great job with Postbag. However, the signup process can be vastly simplified. Coming to the lists - it's a good start. I got a few decent leads for my space. What would be great…
      vishwa306 on HN
  • Fix contrast ratio for WCAG

    From 1 comment
    • Man.. From the title I was hoping this would be a way to find people doing long form writing on niche topics. For the site - Your primary color/white combo used for your CTAs and…
      Neff on HN

Questions

  • How does it compare to PitchBox?

    From 1 comment
    • ohsik, how does PostBag compare to PitchBox, which has been doing literally the exact same thing for a while now?
      eps on HN
  • How to block my sites from the lists?

    From 1 comment
    • How do I block my sites from appearing on your lists? I’m already spamming a lot with product and movie pitches and last thing I want is even more.
      dawnerd on HN
  • How to delete an account or sign up as a blogger?

    From 2 comments

Alternatives named

  • PitchBox

    From 2 comments
    • ohsik, how does PostBag compare to PitchBox, which has been doing literally the exact same thing for a while now?
      eps on HN
    • OK, gave it a try. 1. Sign-up process has too many pointless hurdles. If you have restrictions on the password format, mention them upfront rather than revealing them one at a…
      apankrat on HN
  • SparkToro

    From 1 comment
    • The discovery part might be interesting to compare to something like SparkToro [0]. [0] https://sparktoro.com/
      noizejoy on HN
  • Google News search

    From 1 comment
    • I did a search on the word dyslexia (my product is heavily used by people with dyslexia), and most of the top results were based on articles that did not use that word at all.…
      gnicholas on HN

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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