Techcrunch has a post about online "To Do" list offerings: Do More: Online To Do Lists Compared.
I use lists as much as (or more so) than the next guy, but I’ve never used any of these new "Web 2.0" lists. In fact, I use a novelty item to record my lists: a pen and paper. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. My transient lists are written down on paper (like weekend to-do lists and the like), but my more permanent lists, say a list of TV episodes I haven’t watched/downloaded (or have, as the case may be), are stored in a text file with notepad. It isn’t completely ideal for roaming (paper’s only great if you remember to take it with you). Sometimes for more "urgent" material that I’d like to take around with me, I’ll use Outlook and its ‘Notes’ or ‘Tasks’ features.
So I’m slightly amazed that companies can build a business around the idea of something as simple as a list. Now I haven’t looked at any of these offerings (although I signed up for Ta-da List on advice of Techcrunch. But this is something I could envision a ‘list’ company doing:
- easy to create/rename/remove/reorder lists/list items
- add RSS feeds (a requirement these days) [Ta-da list’s RSS feed is sorta strange.] Mobile aware?
- share your lists (some read ACLs or other); maybe even shared editing of lists
- integration with calendar ("must do by this date", etc)
(There’s probably other things I’m missing.) The craze to webify everything of late that Outlook/Office had already quite seamlessly integrated (e-mail, calendar, lists, word procesing) on a client-side app is a little puzzling. Which leads to the aging debate of whether or not AJAX-enabled apps will render client side apps irrelevant. Eh. Some other time.
Back to lists. So what are each of these list companies doing that distinguishes them from each other? Do they have some technology that others can’t (easily) replicate? If you examine the points above they boil down to the same tenents that are needed for any service these days:
- ease of use
- standards to export/import data
- sharing
- integration
These themes are manifesting themselves in every single new offering coming out (or at least, attempt to; not everyone gets it right). It’s very cookie-cutter.
Oh, and I just realized I forgot something major. You need a way of monetizing your user base. That’s sort of important. I guess you display ads–it seems to be the buzzword of late. (Someone’s really gotta find some other model–or maybe this is really what works best? Hell, one of my managers mentioned that they now even have free flights with advertising which apparently is working really well for them.) OK, I’m going off on a tangent again.
So which of these list apps are going to sizzle? Which are going to be bought out by a big company? (Would a big company really buy any of these–what do these little guys have that M/G/Y couldn’t whip-up in-house? Disclaimer here: I didn’t really try out any of these offerings.) I remember there used to be a crappy to-do list gadget up on Live.com in the beginning. Someone should just fix it up and render all these small companies irrelevant 🙂
Let’s just say I’m not at all impressed with Ta-da list. I do like how it’s fast. But it doesn’t really do anything. I guess that could be why it’s fast. It’s so fast! 😐 Anyway, I need to go find a scrap piece of paper and a pen. Pen and paper are great for quickly scratching something down off the top of your head–the only flaw is that you need to find a pen that works. :p Let me know when someone builds something really compelling.
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