Shimon Rura Launches New Project, Voo2Doo, a Project Management Service

Better than ta-da-list?  From Shimon:

Unlike ta-da list (and clone bla-bla list), voo2do tracks priority, due date, and time estimates for each task.  There is no notion of "lists" in voo2do— tasks can be grouped by project, but you can view and edit a bunch of projects together.  Voo2do does not yet support sharing your tasks with other people.  learn more »

Shimon's a smart dude. And he's learned a lot from developing frassle:

In voo2do, my priority from the beginning was to make something highly attractive and usable. As part of this, I wanted it to shine from the first moment you laid your hands on it, so I didn't announce it until it was fairly polished (i.e. now). This was very much unlike frassle, which focused on testing new ideas, has an excessively confusing interface, and was released piecemeal as I worked on it—and still isn't shiny.

Because the genre of voo2do—task tracking—is hardly new, the challenge was in making the tool easy to absorb and fun. I spent way more time than I ever thought I would crafting little 16x16 icons, experimenting with different color schemes, and fiddling with javascript fade effects. I made general attractiveness, ease of use, and ease of learning key goals in this project, and focused on those challenges. I also used this project as an excuse to teach myself about Ajax and other "web 2.0" gobbledeygook, so you'd better be using a recent browser.

I think I hit my target of creating an app that's useful, fun, and responsive, because I use it every single day and I don't cringe at anything. Of course, I'm biased, and I hope the early voo2do users will point out many areas for potential improvement. My own list of voo2do tasks has plenty of possible next steps.

Looking forward to checking this out. If I only had better time management skills! LOL.

Not sure about the whole business model. Would've went with a 1 month free trial deal. But, kudos to Shimon for shaking things up. I guess advertising is always a revenue source.

 

Comments

[Shimon Rura]

Business model? Advertising? Do I need a business model for a service that was fun and educational to build and costs practically nothing to run?

Well, maybe if it gets zillions of users, but I'll worry about that problem when I'm so lucky as to face it.

[Peter Caputa]

It is always tough to charge people after it has been free. So, you've basically chosen your revenue model already. It is advertising. If you should ever need or want an advertising model.

I wouldn't have launched it this way. If it is truly better than ta-da list, I would have charged the same thing.

Anyway, you aren't asking for advice. I am impressed that you've developed it. I am definitely looking forward to checking it out.

[Shimon Rura]

Pete, I'm never one to turn down unsolicited advice. Please feel free to critique anything public that I do. But in this case, I'm still doubtful there is any desirable model for charging people to use voo2do. It's such a cheap service to run, and cost very little to develop, that on the off chance there will be sufficient demand to make maintaining it actually expensive or difficult, I think I'll be able to leverage some part of that demand to help me pay for stuff. Maybe advertising, maybe paid accounts, maybe just donations. But right now, I can't promise the quality or reliability people expect from a paid service, so that's not really an option.

[hhh]

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