Newsweek reviewer uses Heysan as IM workaround on iPhone | Hacker News Reader

Newsweek reviewer uses Heysan as IM workaround on iPhone

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"Sign up to try the pre-launch version of Heysan IM"

[enters email address]

"Sorry, the beta signup is not available right now, please try again later!"

That was lame... I did find http://m.heysan.com/ on Google though.

This is very good publicity..

Did Heysan change their product but retain the name? Just curious.

No, you just didn't know what their product was. It's not your fault. I didn't know what their product was either until around about demo day (two months into the Winter Founders Program). They've got some fruity MySpace widget that they built for marketing purposes and everybody thinks it's their product...their product is actually universal IM for mobile devices. Way cooler than yet another MySpace widget, eh?

Matters aren't helped by the fact that the widget was released months before the product (the product is still not properly launched, I don't think).

I had the exact same question; thanks for the explanation.

This does not seem to be very efficient branding. Either you haven't heard of them yet or you're left thinking something along the lines of "Looks like that widget company has given up and switched to mobile im, maybe Slide or someone scared them off"

For an IM web work around, I personally prefer Meebo (http://meebo.com) since it works for Google talk, Yahoo messaging, AIM, etc. It would be nice if they have an iPhone version available.

Heysan's advantage is that it runs (very well) on the crappy browsers most cellphones come with. I imagine, if anything, the iPhone has made Meebo more of a competitor to Heysan than before, given that the iPhone comes with a fully working web browser.

But congrats to Heysan on a great press hit and a great product!

thanks a lot!

Iphone is an awesome device - for sure. a lot of our american users are already using it. but the iphone is released in a country where people have computer access almost everywhere. compare that to South Africa which has 5 times as many mobile internet users as computer internet users. the landscape is very different

Gustaf, heysan

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