Many of the startups we come across are “beta” in name only – they’re feature complete, with thousands of users and only a few (if any) bugs. Combo, a new startup that is looking to offer users a central hub for communication across their social networks, isn’t any of these things.
Combo is a beta in the truest sense, and frankly, it needs work. Services update at random intervals, many of the links don’t seem to be working properly, and the interface itself is badly in need of a redesign. But the site is still in private beta, so it’s too soon to count it out. If you’d like to try it out for yourself, you can grab one of 500 invites here.
Combo’s current shortcomings are frustrating, because the site seems to have a lot of potential. Combo monitors and pulls recent activity from a plethora of services that include Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Digg, and over thirty others. Your activities are all aggregated as part of a “ComboStream”, while the “Watchbox” lets you monitor the activities of your friends.
The site also offers a strong mobile version that features all of the same functionality as the main site. For now the site supports the iPhone, with planned support for more mobile platforms in the near future. Using the site on my iPhone was painless, and I was able to send out a mass status-update to Facebook and Twitter without much trouble. At least, the site said it was updating these services – no update was ever sent.
Co-founder Aaron Raskin says that Combo isn’t just about activity streaming – instead, the focus is on becoming a communication and publishing tool. Key to this idea is the site’s universal address book, which compiles contacts from all of your social networks (and even your phone), allowing you to share content without needing to manually login to each social network.
Combo has a good idea, but its execution is flawed. Unless it can reinvent itself with a more intuitive interface, few people will turn to it instead of the social networks they’ve become accustomed to. The site will also see stiff competition from FriendFeed, which released an iPhone version earlier this week.
The link to the beta doesn’t seem to be working. (Redirects to landing.html on my iphone)
Might want to give them the heads up to turn the page on
While activating via the link in the email they sent, I got the :wrong PIN or you already signup” error. Tried two different email addresses, no luck.
sounds like a cool service. I just requested my invite, and will try it out as soon as they send it
Registration does not work for me. Get same message as #2
Curious thought here – is it just me or doesn’t it seem detrimental to the product that the screenshot you put in this post has to be blown up so much for the text to be comfortably readable? I understand the need to zoom in on web pages for the iphone (since most are designed for much larger screens) but shouldn’t native apps be more comfortable to read? Perhaps combo should reconsider the scale of their text, etc. to make it easier on the eyes.
Get same message as #2
I have tried but nothing seems to be working. They may be working on a great product but their website sucks.
Blog is not configured, Forum is not working. I think they have lots of work to do.
Combo co-founder here … good morning TechCrunch style!
Wasn’t expecting the article, oddly, and got TechCrunch’d.
The invite system works now. For the few people who signed up and had a problem, try your invite link again or simply sign up again. If you don’t make the 500 cut we’ll send you an invite.
Just to touch on a few features not mentioned above – Combo ties together your social networking, media sharing, communications and publishing tools into a single (apparently flawed!) interface. Combo is very beta right now, and that’s why we need some private beta testers to help us as we add a whole bunch of new features in coming weeks and months.
Right now from Combo you can upload photos to your various accounts and post Tweets and status message updates as well.
Thanks Jason for the article! We are truly beta and a startup in every sense of the word, but we are also building an amazing little application. We hope you all sign up and enjoy the ride!
One more thing – you can also upload videos to your synced accounts (that permit it) and get notifications of new messages, friend requests and more.
@5 – I think you’re saying the text should be bigger in the native app. The screenshot above might be a bit blurry – Combo for the iPhone has been formatted so that you don’t have to zoom in at all.
seems like a good idea in theory…there will surely be a few dozen similar sites popping up over the coming months..especially now that the facebook platform has been open-sourced
nice. i’ve been waiting for an app like this. time to take it for a test drive…
I’m actually not sure why this article is so harsh. I find the GUI quite nice compared to most websites/web apps I interact with.
I haven’t tried all the services, but the IM stuff works great.
Chad here, the other Combo co-founder. Just to clarify a few items from the article, we’re not just an activity aggregator at all, we’re a integrated social web dashboard. Since we are API based we can watch the activity of your friends, without requiring them to join our site. We also allow you to publish status messages and upload files to your account from our dashboard. We already have some IM features and will soon be releasing out integrated multi-IM client as well as a blog posting tool. While our initial focus has been on the iPhone, we are planning on releasing native versions for Blackberry and Windows Mobile as well.
i’m trying it out on my iPhone now – no invite problems. looks cool. thumbs up.
Sounds like the solution to an obvious problem: the social networking miasma. Too many @!#@ networks! Linking friend’s accounts in the background sounds awesome.
hey kids:
private beta. remember its a beta. i’ve been trying it out and it looks like it’ll be a rad tool. its a total pain point for me to check email social networks and everything else everywhere all over the place. this will fix that. nice work, combo. can’t wait until you reach the tipping point, and i know you will.
Fuck this techcrunch bullshit site. I seen you with your skirt down sonny. You squat to pee like a girl with a skinned knee. You smell me?
Combo works! its the future for all you social networking networkers. Get up and on now. I wont be giving late passes to those that dragged their feet, ya gig? I know you overstand, so lets do what we do while we doing it baby.
sounds like a great idea….looking forward to trying it out….
I think people are being overly harsh here. The beta is working fine for me and some of the features are really unique. I think this has some true potential once they manage to iron out the kinks. Good work guys on giving us somethings to make our lives easier!
Well, when they do have some time to build this out it could be the killer app for mobile users – everything you need, from all your accounts, in one place. Killer app.
Sounds quite interesting. I tried to get an invite but could not. Can anyone who got one tell how do they contct you ?
ALE-Xpressed
http://blog.ale.com.pk
@ 21: Ale
If the initial 500 invites are out then just email info@combo.com and we’ll send you one.
Looks very cool. Gonna give it a shot…
rock on! 5 sites, 10 sites, 100 sites in one – i’ve been dreaming of something like this. wish i’d had the wherewithal and the tech-know-how-ology to get it done.
can’t wait until it gets past beta.
So, it’s like FriendFeed except broken?
i think combo is awesome. i’ve been playing with it for a little while and it works really well. this is totally genius.
I’ve been using the beta and it works fantastic. What a brilliant app. Go Combo!
1. I’m surprised that a serious blog like TechCrunch don’t ask them how did they get the combo.com domain as those are pretty expensive today.
2. I myslef use Pageonce.com to aggregate all my infomration including facebook, linkedin, emailsm digg and lastfm
@ 25: No, FriendFeed is sucking info in, Combo is doing two-way syncs with all your accounts…so Combo syncs your Contacts and Content, as well as your Activity. Then it lets you send stuff out to your accounts as well. Big difference.
@28: Luck! We bought Combo.com from some very nice ladies up in Canada who didn’t really need it. It was a good deal for everyone involved.
I’ve been using my iphone and was able to update my facebook, didn’t have problems there, i haven’t had any problems recently… and given that its a beta i have been very impressed. looking forward to updates. I do wish i would be able to pass invites along to friends. when will i be able to do that?
This site is going to be amazing once they get past the beta phase– I can’t wait to start using it regularly. Have some patience Jason!
combo is making a good start of things. I know what its like to be in beta hammering out the fine details. my site, irovr.com, was launched about a year ago. best of luck to combo!
Been playing around with this site for a while; when everything gets fixed it is gonna be AWESOME.
what would the data portability people think about this app? Can the user actually download / control her aggregated photos, contacts and numbers et al?
hmm, sounds like the tech crunch reviewer is annoyed that the beta version is actually beta…the site sounds interesting though, i just signed up for my invite. on question not answered in the article though – is combo going to have a native app (with the SDK) for iphone this coming week?
The beta works just fine for me. I am able to check all the media outlets I have in the past and have been getting updates from my face book account.
I like the iPhone 3G meeting http://blogs.di...nc.com/iphone3G
@ 30 – Invites will be given out soon(ish) … we just need to see how the core platform reacts to 500 people first.
@ 34 – Good question. We’re committed to the concept of data portability and will be implementing some of the standards (oAuth, OpenID, etc) soon. In terms of downloading the meta-social graph, its something we really want to implement this year, but there are higher features on the list right now.