Old 43 Actions blog: olb.tumblr.com   |   Portfolio: OLBproductions.com

43 Actions Web App: 43actions.com


March 24, 2008
43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Color schemes. You can now choose a different color scheme for the toolbar and buttons. (This is a donor exclusive feature.) Bonus feature: The context and project for every item can now be visible as a badge underneath the action’s name when you view it in a list. This makes it much easier to see where an action belongs. Also, archiving of checked (completed) actions is now turned off by default. If you want to turn on archiving, click the “turn archiving on” link in Settings.

43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Color schemes.

You can now choose a different color scheme for the toolbar and buttons. (This is a donor exclusive feature.)

Bonus feature: The context and project for every item can now be visible as a badge underneath the action’s name when you view it in a list. This makes it much easier to see where an action belongs.

Also, archiving of checked (completed) actions is now turned off by default. If you want to turn on archiving, click the “turn archiving on” link in Settings.

March 18, 2008
New logo. In anticipation of the upcoming Color Schemes feature.

New logo. In anticipation of the upcoming Color Schemes feature.

March 17, 2008

43 Actions: Towards a native iPhone application. Assistance requested.

Apple recently revealed their plans for the “native” iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit). This was the announcement we had been waiting for for a long time, in order to start planning the development of native applications—applications that live directly on the iPhone, like Apple’s own apps—with the ability to interconnect and sync both with 43 Actions on the web, as well as (eventually) with Mac OS X Leopard services like the iCal and Task stores.

Here at 43 Actions, we have always strived to stay open and keep a more intimate relation with our community—as a gesture of respect to our valued users—so today we decided to reveal some internal information about the future of our business; something most companies would not very often discuss in public.

We’re not afraid.

Our team had secretly wished and hoped for something very similar to what was revealed in Steve Jobs’ iPhone SDK Keynote. We were very, very impressed by what we saw, and felt a great relief regarding the future outlook of creating a native version of 43 Actions; one free from the “offline-access” problem and with a more fluid and responsive user interaction than is possible with a web application today.

But—and this is a big but—we will most certainly need extra resources to pull off this huge new task. This SDK represents an entirely fresh code base and platform for all of us—a huge new playing field with as yet very early development tools and user interaction conventions, requiring a significant new investment in time and resources. We would need to hire at least one additional developer, a support person, and probably a marketing/community position as well.

In his keynote, Steve Jobs revealed the iFund, a new Venture Capital fund founded by the esteemed VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, with the specific purpose of providing funding for brand new applications for the iPhone and iPod touch mobile platforms.

We believe strongly that 43 Actions—with its already large (and seemingly quite pleased :)) user base—in this exploding field of online and mobile-accessible to-do lists and organizers (thanks in part to the significant rise in popularity of such books as Getting Things Done, and the general interest in “life hacking”)—is in quite an opportune position to get attention from Venture Capital firms such as KPCB.

We are thankful for any help you as a user can give us in this regard. It could be as simple as sending us your feedback and encouragement, giving us more valuable input from actual users—instead of just relying on faceless statistics—for reporting our market prospects and current user satisfaction with our funding submission.

Would we to receive funding—from one source or another—we could hire the few extra people we need to come through with this new goal of building a native version of 43 Actions; a brand new type of mobile productivity applications, living in conjunction with the web application as well as the Leopard services on your main computer—always staying in sync.

We thank you all for your encouragement and valuable feedback on this important matter, as we venture (pun intended) into future territories unknown!

P.S.: If you have a specific and valuable suggestion on how to help 43 Actions move towards getting funding, please let us know as soon as possible! The sooner we have the manpower and financial and creative incentives necessary, the sooner this will all be done—and ready for download onto your very own iPhone or iPod touch. (For phone and other contact information, please send an email to 43actions+vc [at] gmail dot com.)

March 16, 2008

Site donations

We have had some recent inquires from companies and larger groups, wanting to get access to the donor exclusive features; and we have now come up with some proposals. The categories are groups of 5+, 10+, 50+ and 100+ users. Please email us at “43actions+site_donation at gmail dot com” for more information.

Note: This is not a subscription model, nor is it a purchase of services with a contract of sale. We still categorize this purchase as a donation towards helping 43 Actions stay online (we draw very little revenue from the ads in the free service). Thus we can not assure support, low failure-rates (five-nines reliability) and other benefits implicit in a regular sales contract. We feel it would be careless not to to convey this information before You make a decision to invest.

Our future plans are still not fully ready for public disclosure. However, we can now say with some certainty that there will be at least a complementary “native” version of 43 Actions for the iPhone and iPod touch platforms. And, with further expansion of the 43 Actions enterprise (more info on funding coming soon), we will be able to run this more and more as a regular service, with regular contract implications for both individuals and business customers. For further inquires, please don’t hesitate sending us an email.

March 11, 2008
43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Next action. Here at 43 Actions we always strive to make the user interaction as quick and effortless as possible. The last thing you want when standing in the cue at the grocery store, trying to get your shopping list in order, is a complex interface. The new “Next Action” implementation we are launching today is really extremely simple, but is hopefully what most people will need to get through the day. It piggy-backs on the old “Flag” setting (which has been terribly under-utilized) and re-frames it as “Mark as active/next action”. Clicking this button (below “Check this action”) immediately moves the action to the top of the context or project it belongs to—and also makes it visually distinct. If you have multiple “active” actions, the most recently updated one is at the top. (Actions both marked and assigned a due date are placed above all others.) We continue to think hard about how to best implement some more advanced functionality—without compromising the user interface. But it leans towards not being fully feasible until we are finally running natively on the iPhone—oops, I think we said too much … ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H [message self-destructed] Bonus feature: now you can click the checkbox “add another” when creating a new action. You will then be sent to a brand new form to fill out your next action—saving lots of time! (Suggested by user Taavi.)

43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Next action.

Here at 43 Actions we always strive to make the user interaction as quick and effortless as possible. The last thing you want when standing in the cue at the grocery store, trying to get your shopping list in order, is a complex interface. The new “Next Action” implementation we are launching today is really extremely simple, but is hopefully what most people will need to get through the day.

It piggy-backs on the old “Flag” setting (which has been terribly under-utilized) and re-frames it as “Mark as active/next action”. Clicking this button (below “Check this action”) immediately moves the action to the top of the context or project it belongs to—and also makes it visually distinct. If you have multiple “active” actions, the most recently updated one is at the top. (Actions both marked and assigned a due date are placed above all others.)

We continue to think hard about how to best implement some more advanced functionality—without compromising the user interface. But it leans towards not being fully feasible until we are finally running natively on the iPhone—oops, I think we said too much … ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H [message self-destructed]

Bonus feature: now you can click the checkbox “add another” when creating a new action. You will then be sent to a brand new form to fill out your next action—saving lots of time! (Suggested by user Taavi.)

March 7, 2008

How much is too little?

Update: Thanks to a recent surge in large donation sums, our average donation has now jumped to $35. Thank you all for your continued support!

We have over the weeks received some very nice emails from users asking how much they should donate [in EUR]; how much the average donation is, etc. So here is the gist of it:

The average donation started out at around $20 around the MacWorld 2008 launch on January 15th. It has risen steadily and is currently hovering just below $30. Many users have donated even more, up to $50. Additionally, we have several users who donate a bit less, but do it regularly; some each week, some each month.

We find this “subscription-without-contract” solution quite good, and are investigating this model further. It provides a more stable revenue stream, making it easier for us to plan hirings and investments in resources and tools. Since we have so many users, we could probably survive even while setting a low basic subscription fee, in the order of around $5/month. (The basic service will continue to be free.) More on this topic later. No changes right now.

We’re so happy and thankful for your warm words of encouragement, and whatever you can spare financially to help us pay our personal bills—there are actually living, breathing people with monthly payments behind this coat of code and metal!—is greatly appreciated. Honestly. We really, really appreciate your generous contributions.

More on this very important topic soon, when we are ready to discuss the future of a “native” iPhone application. There was an announcement by some obscure fruit company regarding this very subject recently. Or so we’ve been told…

February 27, 2008

Trial period is over

Seven days (actually fourteen…) have passed, and the donor exclusive features are yet again available exclusively to people who have been graciously helping us along by donating.

These features include the Date picker, Jott integration and Agenda Summaries. Read more about all our donor exclusive features in previous blog posts, and see the full list on the 43 Actions About page.

Thanks yet again to all of you!

February 26, 2008
43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Twitter new actions. Now you can send new actions via Twitter to your 43 Actions Inbox. First, set your Twitter username in Settings. Then follow the “43actions” user on Twitter, and type a new Twitter message to this user. For example: d 43actions pick up jonas at kindergarten at 5pm Here “d” stands for “direct message”, “43actions” the 43 Actions Twitter user, and the rest is the name of the new action. We use your Twitter username—that you can now set in the 43 Actions Settings—to know to which 43 Actions Inbox we should deliver the new action. Since you are able to Twitter new messages via SMS, you can now add new actions to your 43 Actions account from any cell phone you own! As usual, this feature is available exclusively for our donors. 

43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: Twitter new actions.

Now you can send new actions via Twitter to your 43 Actions Inbox.

First, set your Twitter username in Settings. Then follow the “43actions” user on Twitter, and type a new Twitter message to this user. For example:

d 43actions pick up jonas at kindergarten at 5pm

Here “d” stands for “direct message”, “43actions” the 43 Actions Twitter user, and the rest is the name of the new action.

We use your Twitter username—that you can now set in the 43 Actions Settings—to know to which 43 Actions Inbox we should deliver the new action.

Since you are able to Twitter new messages via SMS, you can now add new actions to your 43 Actions account from any cell phone you own!

As usual, this feature is available exclusively for our donors. 

February 25, 2008

Now out of beta

Update: As you all have noticed, we kept the trial period going for an additional seven days. Tomorrow on Tuesday the 26th, we will again return to the normal order, coinciding with the launch of Twitter integration. To keep all the donor exclusive features activated, you can donate to 43 Actions using this PayPal link. Thank you!

To commemorate our launch of 43 Actions v1.0, we will turn on the donor exclusive features for everyone for seven (7) days, starting today. That includes the Date picker, Jott integration and Agenda Summaries. Enjoy the sneak peek week!

February 20, 2008
43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: API for adding new actions. Here is a neat new feature for our power users. You can now send a GET request using curl with the following command to add new actions to your 43 Actions Inbox: curl -X GET —basic -u username:password ‘http://43actions.com/item/create?name= action_name_here&notes= notes_here&context_name= context_name_here&project_name= project_name_here&flagged=true’ Important: The entire command should be on one line. There are two dashes ‘—’ in front of ‘basic’. The names for the context and project names must be exactly correct, including the capitalization and HTML-encoded characters. To flag actions, set flagged to true, otherwise just leave it out. Bonus feature: You can now add two or more actions with the same name. (Suggested by many users, including Oliver, who also requested the above mentioned API.)

43 Actions New Feature Tuesday: API for adding new actions.

Here is a neat new feature for our power users. You can now send a GET request using curl with the following command to add new actions to your 43 Actions Inbox:

curl -X GET —basic -u username:password ‘http://43actions.com/item/create?name= action_name_here&notes= notes_here&context_name= context_name_here&project_name= project_name_here&flagged=true’

Important: The entire command should be on one line. There are two dashes ‘—’ in front of ‘basic’. The names for the context and project names must be exactly correct, including the capitalization and HTML-encoded characters. To flag actions, set flagged to true, otherwise just leave it out.

Bonus feature: You can now add two or more actions with the same name. (Suggested by many users, including Oliver, who also requested the above mentioned API.)