Re: 1, I would also add that I think Journey may win because of our virality. If I send you a Journey, its a conveniently packaged experience that you can then share with your co-workers or boss for feedback and approval. Suddenly the buyer is empowered to properly sell the tool.
Re: 2, thanks! We're working on it and I think there is much more we can do generally though. It's a super hard problem to make something obviously interactive + compelling without adding friction for creator.
Re: 3, here you go :) https://jny.journey.io/p/3bbb55f82a224e399aafd2dc04f4f32b?em...
This is the same HN Journey but I've personalised it for you with a brief video message at the start (users can record these from within Gmail with our browser extension) - I also added LambaSchool's logo at the top (I just picked that one arbitrarily) as an example of hopefully making it feel even more personal.