Jot Spot
October 6, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, Hosted softwareJot Spot: A hosted wiki service. They are to wikis what TypePad is to blogging. JotSpot (headed by the brilliant Joe Kraus) Note: I won't go be doing a comprehensive overview of the
features of every wiki (which are super cool) instead I'll focus on
what JotSpot specifically does well.
JotSpot is aimed directly at businesses. Think of it as Intranet 2.0.
Each page in a wiki (hence JotSpot wiki) is editable by any reader,
keeps track of versions, is searchable, etc. and JotSpot makes all of
these things quite painless and fairly intuitive.
JotSpot also offers full WYSIWYG
editing, allows users to set specific permissions on content, insert
widgets like calendars and drop downs, insert RSS feeds to syndicate
external content, send emails to and from any page and invite others to
participate and collaborate.
They also have spiffy "starter kits" that allow you to get up and running quickly with common functionality. I'm going to be kind of hard on JotSpot here, but it's only out of
love. I love what they've done, I think the application is extremely
well done, and I think Joe Kraus sliced the first loaf of bread, but
here's what I think they can improve:
I'm worried about their business model. Specifically that they are
essentially targeting businesses-only. I'm worried because the adoption
rate among businesses is very slow (resistant to change and new stuff,
clueless, slow adopters, etc). Typically something technical like this
takes off in the business-to-consumer area, and then those consumers
are employees, so they set it up at work and get their companies to use
the product. Jot has basically tossed this whole method of marketing. I think they ought to rethink that.
My other beef with JotSpot is that they are as ugly as a two year old Yugo. I
know wikis are kinda ugly anyway, but if Jot were to pioneer making
the wiki more accessible and less intimidating, more of an everyman
tool, etc. they'd be able to break the wiki out of the "hard core users
only" base that use it now. (And I think they desperately need that
given the above stated marketing challenge.)
The best way to do that is to make the interface inviting, easy to use,
attractive, familiar/friendly. Right now anyone that's not a Linux
weenie is probably reluctant to give it a whirl. Jot need a top notch designer to help them with everything, from branding, logo, and site design, to the application interface and default templates.
Take Odeo, they hired Dan Cederholm to do the design, and while still functional, it's also inviting,
well done, unintimidating. Plus it doesn't look amateurish, which
JotSpot really does. (Note: I think Odeo has some business model
problems, just talking about their interface).
Blogger.com is another superb interface that makes something fairly complex, quite accessible. They hired Doug Bowman to put the lipstick on, and it is the best signup flow on the whole Internet.
I think JotSpot should spring for a designer and do more for marketing than any feature set ever could.
Note, with JotLive they appear
to have a designer who is heavily influenced by popular web
applications, borrowing design ideas. Which isn't necessarily a bad
thing mind you, but I think they could (and should) lead instead of
following.
Examples:
JotLive screenshots I may be stretching it a bit, and I'm not saying it's a horrible
thing to draw obvious "inspiration" from other apps that work, but
like I said, I think Jot should lead instead. Starts at free for 5 users, and progresses to $49 for unlimited users. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
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Why is it the killerest?
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JotLive signup screen
Look familiar?
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Cartoon Bank
October 5, 2005 in 3 out of 5 stars, A serviceCartoon Bank: An impressive searchable database of 85,000 single pane cartoons pulled from New Yorker Magazine archives, including including all the cartoons ever published in The New Yorker. The Cartoon Bank, a New Yorker Magazine company Entrepreneurs seeking, for instance, to emotionally connect with an audience in a presentation--through humor, can use the site to search among tens of thousands of New Yorker cartoons, download one for $20, and immediately insert it into a powerpoint presentation.
Entrepreneurs can also commission New Yorker artists to create original cartoons for them--cartoons that can be used in all media: web sites, emails, brochures, etc.
It really is a massive collection, and nearly every search I've performed comes up with something. Varies: a cartoon for a presentation is $20, license for 500 printed is $50, several hundred dollars if you want to put one in your next book. Reviewed by Carson McComasWhat is it?
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Why is it the killerest?
Companies seeking to do better than a desk set as an executive gift can have an entire cartoon book created just for them. Every page, every cartoon, is selected individually to correspond to the client's business.
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The Big Moo
September 28, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A bookThe Big Moo: A book of business parables and riffs written by an all-star cast of business authors and thinkers. Seth Godin and 32 other super star authors like my favorites Malcom Gladwell (of Tipping Point and Blink), Tom Peters (of Re-Imagine) and Jackie Huba (of Creating Customer Evangelists). I really did love this book. Like anything Seth touches, this book provides lots of inspiration for how you can make decisions with your company/life that will help take you to the next level and not only survive, but define the future.
Seth's original idea is to become remarkable (as outlined in Purple Cow, read my mini-review at right). Remarkable = people talk about you. For an entrepreneur, this is a very good thing if they're talking about how cool/new/fast/fun/creative/clever etc. you are.
This book is billed as the next level above Purple Cow. The Big Moo is about becoming super-remarkable. I'm not sure we can keep upping the ante like this without diminishing the original Purple Cow idea (which is so good) so I think it's probably more like a companion book to Purple Cow and not so much a big improvement on it.
But that's not a bad thing. I love how the book is literally a collection of disconnected, but thematically similar stories or riffs. 1-3 pages each, quick and easy to read. Like most books of this ilk I dog-eared some favorites, scribbled notes in the back, underlined, circled and starred the stuff I thought was particularly relevant and interesting to me and my businesses. (My book now looks kinda like I let my 2yr old play with it.)
I think I'd describe this book as a collection of the very best blog posts from the very best authors on business. Pithy, inspiring and fun.
Some of my favorites:
1. Explaining how the Berlin Wall fell because of the actions of a few that started something. Ends with this:
This was the biggest change any of us will probably ever see in our lifetime. It took a month, it cost nothing, and it started with a handful of people in a town no one would ever have pegged as the birthplace of a revolution.
Remember that the next time someone says, "It can't be done." 2. The story of Brian Comelio who, in the face of freely downloaded music started www.ArtistShare.com where fans can get much more than just the music from an artist. They can also get a snapshot of the rest of the creative process. For example, music scores, videos of rehearsal sessions, interviews, and tutorials. This story was awesome because instead of crying in his beer about the inevitable, he did something quite remarkable indeed. Rare in the music industry. 3. A riff on the bell curve applied to business that I didn't think would be interesting but turned out awesome. It starts with the thesis that companies occupy a spot on the bell curve regardless of where the industry goes, then it ends with this:
4. "Ten Things Smart Start-Ups Know" which riffs briefly on the following points, all of them great stuff (had to be written by the brilliant Guy Kawasaki):
And then there's one by Tom Peters, that is unmistakably him, and it rocks! And finally, another thing that's killer, all proceeds from this book sale go to charity. The riffs are not credited to their authors. Seth thought this would be remarkable and less distracting, and I guess I'm remarking about it, but for me it was actually more distracting and annoying. I kept trying to divine the author! (And I actually think I did pretty well). I think more info is almost always better but that might just be me.
Also, I think pithy is good, but if you're looking for a well developed, hard hitting, in depth business tome, this isn't it. You can pre-order now on Amazon for $13.57 Reviewed by Carson McComas Google AdWords: Google's advertising service. It's the ads on the right hand side (and top sometimes) of nearly every search results page. Google advertising works on a simple principle. You pay Google each time someone clicks from the search results page over to your site. You pay a certain amount per "click" or visit. In return, the search engine places your ads in the results of relevant searches (you get to say what is relevant by selecting keywords). Those zany Google people Google AdWords is Google's way of allowing the little guy to advertise to scads of highly targeted prospects. It's killer because you can use it to grow your business. Yes you Mr. or Mrs. barely-has-a-budget entrepreneur. Google has put effective advertising within reach of the everyman (or woman) for what is arguably the first time in history. It's super simple to signup, super cheap to at least test it out, and once you get the hang of it, it can be deadly effective at helping you grow your business. I would probably put this resource in the top 5 killerest resources available to entrepreneurs, particularly those who use their website for something more than a digital brochure. Their traffic and click estimator blows chunks. The only way to really know is to run ads yourself and see what happens. Some of the quirks in the AdWords algorithm that determine where and when you show up in listings can be frustrating because placement is somewhat unpredictable. Only $5 to activate an account, then you pay a cost per click which varies based on the keywords you wish to purchase clicks for. Reviewed by Carson McComas Pocket Mod: A customizable personal organizer, on a single sheet of paper that you fold up and put in your pocket. Not sure... PocketMod maker, who are you? I'm a gadget freak like any good nerd should be, but I've never been able to consistently use a PDA. Plus they're too expensive and cumbersome, and organizers are bulky and hard to carry around. Nothing beats a folded up piece of paper. PocketMod taps into the folder up piece of paper idea helping you create a little booklet with killer little templates or guides for each "page." You can then carry around the days notes and keep them organized in any way you wish. I like the todo lists, the calendar and the graph paper. And it's not quite solitaire, but for those long meetings the games are quite handy to have as well. The monthly calendar might be more useful if it were a specific month instead of a generic month template. The first time I used it, the folding lines don't quite line up perfectly with the natural "folding in half" lines of a 8.5x11 page. (Practice helps this.) And the contacts are a bit US format centric (some more generic international ones might be nice too.) Free like your neighbor's Zucchini Reviewed by Carson McComas Writely: A web based document editor. (Kind of like a web based Microsoft Word). Upstartle, LLC It has all the stuff from Word that you actually use, plus some very cool collaboration features that make it great for sharing (you can invite others to share by email, they are then able to edit the document with you, or you can share/"publish" it read-only).
It retains the complete document history, so you can roll back to previous versions at any time.
You can upload a document to it, or create it there from scratch. It has rich document editing capabilities. You can also download documents as .doc (Word) files, HTML or zip. It will also allow you post to your Blogger blog (other blog support coming). As a hosted application, it has the inherent downsides associated. Namely: how do I work on a document when I'm on a plane?
It's also unclear what they will charge for the service when it leaves Beta (although they claim they will at least have some form of a free version). Free during beta. "There will be a range of free and paid options, depending on usage." Reviewed by Carson McComas Zimbra Open-Source Collaboration Suite: Previously known as Liquid Systems, Zimbra is the new name of the company, as well as its flagship product: an extensible open-source client/server system for managing email, contacts, and calendaring that can be accessed with either a slick, cross-browser, AJAX-powered user interface, or via desktop applications like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird/Sunbird, Apple Mail/iCal, and others.
The server that powers all this, Zimbra Collaboration Server, is written in Java, and sits upon familiar open source components like a MySQL database, a Postfix Mail Transfer Agent (MTA) (with SpamAssassin and ClamAV for anti-spam and anti-virus by default) and a Tomcat Web Application Server.
Has some other very cool features like message tagging, dynamic search folders, 3rd party tools integration.
Be sure to check out the Flash demo and then try the live demo yourself to see the power of this tool. Zimbra It's like someone put Gmail, Outlook, Mail.app, iCalendar in a blender, and whipped up an application that runs in the browser.
If you need a calendaring, mail, and contact management system and don't want to drop the cash on Outlook, give Zimbra a try for free. Well, it's not a hosted application, so it requires a Linux technician to install it, configure it and get it working on your end. This may be out of reach for many potential clients (and it's a shame). But the cost of having a technician set up and maintain this, for a small business may be a huge cost savings over other office productivity applications with which it competes. Free, but it wouldn't be free to setup (technician's time, and the hardward to host it). Reviewed by Brian Sweeting For those unfamiliar, blogs are becoming big business. Heavyweights on the scene like Nick Denton (Gawker, Gizmodo, etc) and Jason Calacanis (Engadget, Cinematical, etc) have proven that there can be big money made from highly trafficked blogs. Lone power blogger Darren Rowse announced to much attention recently that he's personally making well over $10,000/mo ($15K in July) in Google AdSense revenue from his blogging ventures. WorkHappy.net recently become a member of the 9rules family so it seemed appropriate to ask Paul a few questions about what he knows best. Not a problem at all Carson. We love your site and we are here to help our
members in any way possible. 1) You've managed to gain a fair amount of visibility online and I now see bloggers all over who are clamoring to become a part of 9rules. How were you able to drum up this kind of interest? In all honesty it was a lot easier than we thought it would be. We were very nervous before the first round of submissions opened up because we figured we would only get a limited number of sites that wanted to join. To our surprise after that first 24 hour round was over we received over 120 submissions. Once we began adding sites to the network, many people understood that we really were going for quality and some of the sites were already well-respected in their communities. This led to a lot more interest from other bloggers that wanted to join the network. 2) For a while you were building a group of your own blogs, much like Darren Rowse, and you had some respectable success. You were making north of $5,000/mo just with that, you sold CSSVault for some nice change (5 digits I think you said). What caused you to change your model with 9rules? Making money from blogs is not easy and making that much is really not easy. The effort I put in really didn't match the rewards in my mind. I have always wanted to be part of something big and simply working on my own sites was too limiting. There are only so many hours in a day and so much time and effort I am willing to spend on sites that I run. I enjoy tackling new challenges and running the CSSVault was no longer a challenge and I was quickly losing interest and I could see the decline in quality so I figured it would be best to sell it to someone who had more passion to run it. 5) Can you share some of your favorite sources of business inspiration and ideas? (e.g. certain blogs/books/magazines) Paul has agreed to respond to a few reader questions in the comments of this post if you'd like to ask him something I missed. Mint: Mint is the big brother of ShortStat, which was another Inman creation. Basically, the only question that Mint doesn't answer is why people come to your site. But other than that, it keeps the numbers in check while you're off having lunch. Shaun Inman Bad breath? Have a Mint. Not only does it freshen your server's breath, it also gives stats too. Not just stats, but a whole slew of stats. And on top of that, it's sexy. Green never looked this sexy. Since it uses Javascript to record hits, referral spam is greatly reduced, so you only get the most worthy of referrals. And if you're into that whole "Web 2.0" stuff, don't worry Ay-yax (AJAX) takes good care of this script.
For those beloved Mac users, Junior Mint can jump into your Dashboard and show your stats to you whenever you wish.
The most interesting part of Mint is Pepper...mint. So with these little Peppers, Shaun and other 3rd party developers can extend Mint to not only show more stats than you can take in a single serving, but also extend Mint for use as an API. Who knows what will happen after that. Live stat tracking? Site vs. Site stat battles? Endless I tell you! Importers. If users could import their data from other services, this would certainly remove a large barrier to switching. The core product should have came with all of Shaun's peppers included, but it was just an extra hassle to install them afterwards rather than just turning the features off. Documentation is a bit lacking at the moment, as many people have complained of difficulties during the installation process.
In opinions of a few, the price is a little steep, but if you really want it, you'll have some room saved in your bank. $30.00 Reviewed by Bryan VelosoWhat is it?
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The trick, is not to wait for your industry to change before changing where you are on the curve. The trick is to change your organization's instinctual location on the curve. If you get used to being exceptional, you'll probably stay there.
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Google AdWords
September 22, 2005 in 5 out of 5 stars, A service
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The PocketMod
September 16, 2005 in 5 out of 5 stars, Free, Productivity
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Happy Links
September 16, 2005 in Happy Links
Writely
September 15, 2005 in 3 out of 5 stars, Hosted "Office", Hosted software, Productivity
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Zimbra Open-Source Collaboration Suite
September 14, 2005 in 3 out of 5 stars, A piece of software, Free, Hosted "Office", Hosted software, Productivity
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Interview with Paul "Scrivs" Scrivens of 9rules
September 12, 2005 in A person, An interview
It always bugs me when people younger than me are way smarter than me. Especially when they're nice guys. Paul "Scrivs" Scrivens is barely 25 years old and already has a productive entrepreneurial effort underway building a loose network of high quality blogs under his "9rules" banner. When I asked him if he'd be up for an interview he replied simply: "Sure, I'm down. I'll try my best not to look retarded."
Not everyone that blogs is willing or able to generate a lot of traffic or earn 4-5 digits per month from their blog and being part of the network helps you a tiny bit if you wish to achieve those goals. The main aspect of the network though is the community that the members have built around it. I would not be surprised if you see some new projects coming out in the next couple of months from our members that have been collaborating within the forums.
Quality is rewarded everywhere we look. Quality products get buzz, but how many times does a quality blog get the buzz that it deserves? I think this is a big reason why many people are wanting to get into the Network. Our values match theirs and the same goes for our readers.
The 9rules Network is a small part of the vision I have for something much larger and much more challenging to achieve. With this concept I was able to bring together a talented group of individuals and receive feedback and ideas from a much larger group of people than I would have if I tried to continue doing everything myself. I never thought to myself I want to be financially okay. I always thought that I want to be a millionaire and blogging for myself wasn't a path I saw that happening with.
3) You recently changed your agreement terms for 9rules members shifting from an ad revenue split, to not sharing any ad revenue that a site generates. Are you nuts?
It only made sense to make this transition because the sites were putting in the work to generate the money so they should be the ones earning it. It also sets us up for implementing a project we have had in our heads for a long time now. The real driving force behind this decision though was the fact that we knew we could get even higher quality sites into the network without the worries of a 10-page agreement or complicated revenue structure and it has already paid dividends.
It was a choice between adding a couple more dollars to the bottom line or investing in a greater number of high quality sites which increases the value of the network in the long run. We chose the latter.
4) What advice would you give other bloggers out there trying to build traffic so they can cash in on advertising revenue?
Hmmm, I get asked this a lot and there is never one definite answer.
Wow, there would definitely be too much to list if I decided to list everything. Books I recommend anything by Seth Godin (and his blog) and Tom Peters. Both offer common sense advice, but it's stuff that we overlook so often in our lives.
Magazines I enjoy Wired and Business 2.0. Wired simply because it helps you see trends in the mainstream that you might want to try and jump on. In the blogosphere we are usually the early adopters so we tend to think every new trend will be hot, but it isn't really mainstream till it hits Wired and other publications. That usually gives you an idea of if it will really be successful or not.
As for blogs there are really too many to list because I think a lot of business minded individuals are seeing the value in maintaining a blog. Of course I would have to put WorkHappy on that list.
Honestly though, the best thing any person can do is read everything they can get their hands on. I run through multiple books and magazines a month and am constantly reading blog entries. I don't pretend to know everything and it's amazing how evident that is when you read a VC's blog for example.
Finally, experience is always the best teacher. There is only so much you can read without actually trying it yourself.
Thanks Paul!
Anytime Carson. Thanks for keeping a kickass site for everyone to read.Mint
September 7, 2005 in 4 out of 5 stars, A piece of software, Analytics
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