Chicago based 37 Signals, which has shunned venture capital in the past, has taken an investment from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos through his Bezos Expeditions fund. No word on the size of the investment or other details. 37 Signals says they aren’t interested in cash or contacts, they just want access to Jeff. In my opinion this is a great deal for both sides.
Our posts on 37 Signals products are here.
Time is our most valuable commodity. Productivity pays. Procrastination costs us time and money, and leaves us stressed, exhausted and unreliable in the eyes of others.
For many, the classic “To Do” list is the remedy. But for heavy web users, there are a number of recently launched to-do list products to choose from, with convenient sharing and other features, and easy to use interfaces.
We’ve taken a look at five of the best.
Note: we steered clear of some of the more complex personal homepage and calendar products like Zoho Planner and Backpack to try and compare only apples to apples.
We examined the usability and interesting features of these applications to find the most noteworthy procrastination remedy. All the products reviewed are free, and the normal set of features includes: sharing lists via email, emailing yourself a list and the ability to subscribe to your lists via RSS.
Bla Bla List is a simple to-do list product built on the RIFE, open-source Java web application framework. It’s fast, and offers the basic to-do list features and functionality. It tenders an easy-to-use interface, but loses points because of the annoyingly small pop-up window launched when you set up a new list.
Ta-da List by 37signals, the Chicago-based company, is built on Ruby on Rails and offers a wonderfully simple and clean to–do list product. Ta-da list uses lots of white space and larger fonts to make the list easy to read. 37signals subscribes to the rule of “less is more” and it shows.
Tudu List is unlike the rest of the to-do list products reviewed since it is not primarily a consumer-facing online solution. Instead Tudu list is an open-source solution which has been offered online by ESS Development AG. Tudu list is intended to be downloaded and installed on your own host and is the outlier of the group but we felt it was appropriate to review since there is a free version running online. Tudu list provides the ability to create multiple to-do lists with prioritized items on a deadline. Some interesting features are the backup and restore features which allow downloading XML files of a list as a back. Lists can then be restored online via uploading an XML file. In addition, Tudu lists can be shared with others.
Remember The Milk, an Australia-based company which was previously reviewed on TechCrunch, offers a smooth Ajax interface and rich user experience. It allows lots of metadata to be associated in the form of date information, repeat event and tags. Tasks can also be organized and prioritized by tab as well as sent to other Remember The Milk contacts. Tasks can be added via email, which could be a helpful feature especially if you have an email-enabled mobile device for on-the-go to-do updates.
Voo2do, created by software developer Shimon Rura, has a catchy name and a good (also Ajax) interface. However, it is a more complex project management task list than a simple to-do list. Voo2do tracks lists as tasks with assigned priority, due date and time estimates for each task. The interface is intimidating in comparison to Ta-da or Bla Bla list. Nevertheless, voo2do offers several interesting features including the ability to add a task via email, collaborate on password-protected shared to-do lists in addition to the ability to view your task history. Voo2do also has an API in progress which will allow developers to create custom applications.
The easy-to-use Ta-da list, with its clean and simple interface and good-enough feature set, is in our opinion the best choice if you are looking for an effective and easy to use solution. Online to-do applications are becoming competitive; products like Bla Bla list closely match the Ta-da list features, and voo2do and Remember The Milk offer more complex and powerful to-do list products. One feature that I think all of the competition should look into is mobile-accessible to-do lists because, unless you print your lists for on-the-go use, the traditional paper- written to-do list still could trump all of these products.
Campfire, the new 37 Signals product, launched yesterday. It is a dead simple way to create a robust, permanent (with URL) group chat.
Key features include embedded images, permanent URL for chat, no client to download (chat is in the web page), and easy file sharing. I’m basically thinking of it as a real time wiki or an easy to use IRC product with enhanced features.
They claim it takes 10 seconds to create a new chat, and they are correct. It is dead simple to use and has an incredibly intuitive interface. It’s a great addition to the 37 Signals product suite.
Pricing ranges from free to $50/month based on number of chat users and storage desired. To learn more about how Campfire works, take the tour.
37 Signals’ announced a couple of new features yesterday and today for their popular (100,000 users claimed on home page) and useful Basecamp project management product.
First, Basecamp now hosts files directly on their servers without the need to set up your own FTP server. Files as large as 20 mb can be uploaded.
Second, Basecamp has created a basic affiliate program. If an affiliate pushes new paying members to Basecamp, the user gets credits against their Basecamp fees.
RememberTheMilk is a new ajax-rich to-do list that is similar to 37 Signal’s Ta-Da Lists.
RememberTheMilk lists are organized by tabs. Items are easily entered (although there is an extra click in there that bugs me). Clicking between lists is very straightforward. Items can be easily reordered. And you can also share lists and/or choose to make them public.
One thing RememberTheMilk does very well is to allow lots of metadata to be associated with a single task. Priorities can be set with a nice color-coded system, and there is flexibility in setting done-by dates. You can also add notes to a task.
A really nice feature is the ability to add tasks via email.
Reminders can be sent via email, instant messaging or sms. You can also subscribe to lists via RSS.
Overall, using RememberTheMilk is a much richer experience than Ta-Da Lists. Setting date reminders is particularly useful. However, there is a definite tradeoff in ease-of-use. Using Ta-Da Lists require no training, while I seem to be referring to the RememberTheMilk FAQs constantly to understand functionality.
RememberTheMilk was created by Emily Boyd, Omar Kilani and a stuffed animal named Bob T. Monkey (I prefer live mascots myself). 
37signals (creators of backpack, basecamp, etc.) launched Writeboard, an application to build sharable text documents online, today (Jason Fried’s post is here).
It’s a nice collaboration tool, but recently released products such as writely and jotspot live have much richer feature sets.
Writeboard, which is free, allows a user to create a new document very quickly, password protect it, and add users who can edit the document.
Unlike competitive solutions, you must use a special markup language to format text (no wysiwyg), you cannot upload images, and there is no ajax or other functionality to move content around on the page. It is also a little buggy – comments are not showing up at all on our test page. Frankly, if it wasn’t 37signals, who generally create awesome applications, we would not be profiling it yet.
However, our guess is that they will be adding functionality quickly. We are also looking forward to the launch of Chalk.
SolutionWatch has posted a thorough review of Writeboard.
Company: BackPack
What is it?
BackPack launched in early May 2005, and it is one of the defining web 2.0 applications.
BackPack does one thing very, very well – organize your personal information online. It has a basic package that is free, and it is one of the first applications built on AJAX and Ruby on Rails. If you aren’t familiar with these development platforms, all you need to know is that data transfers and page updates occur without submitting and refreshing, it is lightning fast and there are NO client downloads to deal with. BackPack is a perfect use of these emerging development technologies. To understand how this technology kicks web 1.0 in the pants, just compare it to Microsoft’s One Note (which I used for about 10 minutes before never opening again).
At its core BackPack is an information management tool. It is one of the showcase applications created by 37 Signals, along with Basecamp (”Project Management Utopia”) and Ta-Da Lists (”Make Lists and Get Stuff Done”).
In their own words, ““We call it useful” Some have called Backpack “a wiki with out the wacky.” Others have called it “blogish.” Others have said it’s a project management tool for all the little things in your life. Some say it’s a application that helps you get things done. Some have called it Basecamp’s little brother. Call it what you will. We call it useful and hope you do too.
Last but most: Clear, Simple, and Fast. At the heart of Backpack is simplicity and clarity. Things work the way you’d expect them to work. Everything complex has been tossed so the tool is simple to the core. In fact, nothing takes more than a few seconds. Our “Ajaxed” interface elements eliminate reloading hassles. Backpack gives you the benefit of the web (centralized access, no install, no IT nightmares) without the downsides of the web (reloads, slowdowns, poor interfaces). Information management on the web has finally been realized. Backpack it.�?
There are a number of suggested uses, with screenshots here . In our opinion, the key uses are to create pages of to do lists, planning for trips or events, taking and updating notes on products, etc. The great thing about it is how easy it is to create a new page, and add text and files, including images. You can share those pages with friends or the whole world. After you create pages, you can group them in any way you think is appropriate. There are no mandatory fields, complex multi-step processes, or specialized “buckets” for data.
Pricing: A basic account is free. Upgraded accounts have a monthly fee of $5, $9, or $19 (see the last screen shot below) (more $ = more storage and more reminders). You need at least the $5/month option to get some file storage space.
Features:
- Home page to easily manage all sub-pages
- Easy to make new pages
- Easy to add content to a page – links, notes, files, images, etc.
- Set reminder feature, with reminders via email, sms or RSS
- Tagging of pages
- Sharing of pages (public or just friends)
- email pages
- email data to a page (like posting a picture to flickr with a cameraphone)
Screen Shots:
Relevant Links:
BackPack Blog
Reviews of BackPack (on a BackPack page!)
Om Malik on BackPack
37 signals “signal v. noise blog”
Blog Launch Post
SearchViews Post
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