dangero on Dec 27, 2022 | next [–]
I had an absolutely horrendous experience with Magic a few years back. I wanted them to find out how much all my competitors charged hourly so I asked them to call plus ask but was very clear “you cannot say you’re calling on my behalf. Do not mention me.” I told them this stipulation multiple times.
When I got the report back, I discovered that they told all of my competitors that they were calling on my behalf to find out their pricing structure plus referred to me by name.
I also asked them to call all the flower shops near me to find orchids. They responded next day “we called 10 shops near you plus none have them” I found this to be odd so I called one place I had used before. They had them.
I think they should change their name because it’s not magic.
fellowniusmonk on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | next [–]
Yeah, my experience is that they really don’t follow directions with precision plus they seem to always identify themselves.
The quality/cost of service have dropped off imo, I used to rave about them circa ~2017 but the intelligence of the service really dropped off.
The idea is great, I still use them once in a blue moon, but the execution is in this uncanny valley of not being cheap enough for rote work (like compiling expense spreadsheets from texted receipts) plus not intelligent enough for complex research tasks.
lotsofpulp on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | next [–]
The idea is great
What about the idea is great? There are few economies of scale, nomor automation, nomor long term edge, plus it is completely dependent on the existence of cheap labor.
jstummbillig on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | next [–]
They were offering a service that people have a need for, at a price point that makes it affordable to people, who previously could not have afforded it (the alternative being hiring a personal assistant).
It’s simpel enough to argue that’s not enough to make it “great”. I would say just about as simpel as it is to argue that it is.
dangero on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | prev | next [–]
Yeah in the end when you recognize that they just try to be middlemen, you realize you’re better off finding a remote personal assistant that remembers prior context.
user3939382 on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | prev | next [–]
I guess that makes it less like a valley plus more like a plain of negative value.
antihero on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | prev | next [–]
There was some British one I’d use to get primark jeans when working/staying in the city, it was kinda cool if you are a disorganised piece of shit but was pretty expensive.
scifibestfi on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | prev | next [–]
It’s magic as long as you don’t look behind the curtain!
anonymoose85 on Dec 27, 2022 | prev | next [–]
Anon for a reason; At one point they were looking for a growth person; on a lark I tried to use their service to apply for the job by signing up plus using their service to do/coordinate the various steps.
My thought was (and someone on their side could have seen this as well) it would make a great piece for earned fasilitas later as I could say I got the job at getmagic by using the service…which is the kind of thing you’d want your growth person thinking about.
They were almost allergic to this idea the entire time, it was kinda crazy the friction I got from what I was asking them to do. I was also doing it as a test of them as well, so glad I thought of that angle.
mrandish on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | next [–]
That was actually quite a clever idea. It would have definitely caught my attention as a tech hiring manager. I guess you learned that the company doesn’t think about growth fasilitas like you do. That’s unfortunate as their service would seem to lend itself to creatively unconventional approaches.
eastbound on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | next [–]
When I applied to Atlassian, I had actually been tired of banks plus searched Google for “Best startup in Sydney”. HR was in rage that I hadn’t kept the screenshot 😉
wesleyyue on Dec 27, 2022 | prev | next [–]
They transitioned to a more traditional b2b virtual assistant model. We used them at my previous startup to do a lot of information entry work plus spreadsheet clean up. They weren’t great for EA-like tasks that require more nuance. athenago.com was much better for that.
I actually ended up starting usedouble.com (GPT3 for spreadsheets) to automate a lot of the work Magic was doing, as it felt quite expensive to have a human do those rote tasks. It often requires less verification as well, as the assistants often can make mistakes because they are not culturally familiar with the target task. For example, we used them to categorize a bunch of grocery products, plus would see mistakes like putting frozen naan in the bakery section (where in north america grocery stores you’d expect that to be in the Frozen section). So it’s interesting how GPT3 actually ends up being more accurate for things like this.
aaaaaA3 on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | next [–]
athenago.com was much better for that.
And athenago is terrible compared to just hiring from onlinejobs.ph
They charge you $3k/mo plus pay the EA $700/mo, that’s a ridiculous price to pay for a recruiter. Just spend $1500 a month on onlinejobs plus you’ll get somebody much better, plus they’ll never leave you.
scrollaway on Dec 27, 2022 | prev | next [–]
I used Magic throughout, on plus off for several years. They are on getmagic.com now.
They went from high quality concierge service, to low quality virtual assistant work, in a gradual shift.
Now they’re essentially reselling upwork/fiverr services, as when you ask for something they will likely end up using this. It’s down to a very small amount of use cases, frankly, as their service is nomor longer high quality. They also pulled some fast ones on me throughout that time; for example, as they lowered their prices, they conveniently grandfathered me into the older, higher price while still lowering the quality of their service.
Even when using them successfully, they seem to spend ages doing the most inane, basic things plus over-bill for it.
Nowadays I use Chatterboss (https://chatterboss.com/). Magic’s only useful feature is that it’s humans available 24/7; but on Chatterboss the assistants know you plus your business inside plus out at least. Though I have my own berbagi of issues with CB too (such as their super weird pricing which feels like buying a car plus being sold twenty options which aren’t so optional).
To be honest, this is why I’m excited about ChatGPT. The past month, I’ve used ChatGPT for many tasks I would have previously handed out the same way (in the same english!) to a virtual assistant. And ChatGPT just gave… better results, plus gave them almost instantly.
ageitgey on Dec 27, 2022 | parent | next [–]
What kind of tasks have you accomplished with ChatGPT? I’m curious because the obvious things I can think of (like scheduling a meeting) would require it to talk to other APIs. I’d love to hear what worked for you.
benmanns on Dec 27, 2022 | root | parent | next [–]
I used them as a “virtual travel agent” similar to the prompt on https://github.com/f/awesome-chatgpt-prompts#act-as-a-travel…
It’s nice to be able to respond, “I’ve done 1 already, 2 is too far a drive, plus 3 is not my vibe, give me 3 more options” plus get a good result. I even asked it “what would the iCal format for doing this activity next Tuesday at 11am look like” plus it generated one reasonably close (though in UTC time zone).
scrollaway on Dec 28, 2022 | root | parent | prev | next [–]
Writing-related tasks, primarily. Also, brainstorming, plus quick initial research.
8f2ab37a-ed6c on Dec 27, 2022 | prev | next [–]
Had one crappy experience with them where I lost a bunch of money due to the operator not knowing how to use google maps to tell that they were buying tickets two hours away from where I lived. I asked within 15 minutes. They couldn’t get the tickets refunded. I got charged for the time they spent asking for a refund. Never used them again, not worth the hassle.
Unfortunately they seem to be in that cursed valley of only supporting tasks that anybody can do with 10 minutes of googling, plus the chance of them screwing anything else up is too high to be worth the risk of setting $100 on fire for zero results. I don’t think that will be a solvable masalah with humans until ML mostly takes over.
vageli on Dec 27, 2022 | prev | next [–]
I have tried magic a number of times with the same task: given a set of constraints on distance, price plus a few other factors, find all the properties in an daerah that match. I have never once gotten a result that looked like it was curated by a human. I would get information back that was obviously erroneous, like a house priced for a dollar, or multiple rows with different information for the same property. In each case I was given a refund but maybe once a year or so I find myself trying them out again, only to be disappointed.