Comments on: Olive – a web app for web designers

By: Adam

Adam — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 19:45:20 +0000

Hi Sarah,

Just a question?

Whats the domain name going to be for the software, olive itself would have been ok, since its not long winded, ie minutedesigns.olive.com wouldnt have been so bad, but since olive.com and all the other domains are taken, what was you thinking about?

By: Dan

Dan — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:31:06 +0000

Just a thought, seeing as a lot of us web designer types have iPhones, are you going to include an extra iPhone friendly interface/stylesheet?

Would be pretty sweet… or even an iPhone app to check your Olive for new requests and do basic organisation on it…

Maybe one for the future

By: Emily

Emily — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:15:21 +0000

Very impressive looking app – what a great idea. I look forward to having a go. If you haven’t got enough Beta testers already count me in!

By: Mel Kirk

Mel Kirk — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 21:07:51 +0000

It sounds absolutely fab Sarah – can’t wait to start playing with it, and the fact that it’s beautifully designed just makes it all that much more pleasurable

Congrats x

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:13:26 +0000

Without trying to get into it to much (on PayPal) … PayPal offers plenty seller protection too. Google Checkout also isn’t covered by the FSA.

My advice on payments (online)
Use PayPal Express checkout initially. It’s pretty easy to get set up. Use this to get you going. We’re using this currently.
Then add WebSite Payments Pro if you want to take credit cards from users with no paypal accounts. More of a pain to integrate I’ll grant you, but if you already have PayPal not a bad way to go.

Both allow for recurring payments and subscriptions.

After that make a decision if you want / need to integrate Google checkout as well. Personally I think two many options are confusing and I’m a big fan of Paypal or Credit card options.

Any problems with these give me a shout. We’ve done it and I still have some friends at PayPal who can help.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:16:09 +0000

Ah you posted before I finished writing mine, well Google Checkout support would be great too. And having you host it has it advantages there, for non technical people or people with little time to mess about on their hands its quite good.. What’s the uptime for the servers though and does a guarantee come with it?

“So the only information transferred will be things like the name of the client and information about the jobs” – My reason for SSL just got bumped

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:11:58 +0000

Paypal, yes/no.. If you cant provide proof of postage, then you loose, customer gets money back, virtual goods? They really really are asses when it comes to that, believe me, I’ve had experience personally with that. And their not regulated by the FSA, which means they can put a hold on your account, take all your money and you cant do a thing about it.

SSL. If you don’t think your clients personal information is important then I am afraid your seriously in the wrong business. It would severely increase customer confidence with visiting and external website.

For minimum arguments sake it should be a bolt on. Or at least free for unbranded “shared SSL” and of course an annual fee for 12months.

I am going to agree again with everyone else though £10 a month for premium is too cheap, £20 a month seems more like it +SSL Charge, seriously – OK you will get loads of people on-board for that price? But put the price up and put a discount of 50% up for the first 100 customers? or Just free for 3months?

For the people who are still not quite there with SSL, would you like all your details stored insecurely? Anywhere where a username and password are used, or personal data is kept, SSL should be used.

I make e-commerce websites, and sales go up just by poppin a shared SSL Certificate on the website, without even enabling SSL? Add it to eshop and buyer confidence is through the roof.

And I’ve sold on ebay as a power seller selling items at the average cost of between £75 – £300, we always kept proof of postage so there was never no problems with physical goods.

By: Adam Cooke

Adam Cooke — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:09:32 +0000

Re: Paypal
Paypal originally had a bad reputation for various reasons although in last 12 months, it’s take up around many internet sites has been huge and we are more than confident in using it as the payment processor for Olive. You will have the option to take payments offline and add credits to a client’s account without using Paypal itself.

Again, if the demand is high enough we may look into providing other payment services in the future, however, for now, we’ll be sticking with Paypal.

By: Adam Cooke

Adam Cooke — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:06:01 +0000

Adam: Thank you for your feedback.

Re: SSL/Data protection
The only information transferred between the browser and server is very basic client information – Olive doesn’t try to be a complete client management system – there are plenty of those around – so the only information transferred will be things like the name of the client and information about the jobs. Having said that, we will be adding SSL encryption to the higher paid accounts.

Re: Distributing this as a script
While some shared hosting platforms are beginning to introduce Rails hosting, quite a few hosts do not support it at this time and would exclude a significant proportion of the target market. This isn’t the only problem with distributing it in this manner, it would significantly increase the support load. By offering a fully hosted service, we assume the responsibility for ensuring everything is working correctly.

Re: Branding
The site will allow you to choose your own colour schemes and upload your company logo. However, if you wanted close integration with your website, you may be able to take advantage of the API for your clients.

By: Adrian

Adrian — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:00:18 +0000

I don’t think SSL is that big a deal for everyone. Having it as an option for the top tier accounts is fine. You want it you pay for it. You don’t want it, no problem.

I’d also dispute the PayPal thing. I’m former eBay though so I am biased. But the facts don’t play out. And plenty big businesses are using it now too. Boots for example. And you don’t have to pay with PayPal to use PayPal. You can just use it for credit card processing and it’s no different to any other payments gateway.