Coming up for air: Public Beta

What's the difference between an "early" beta and a "public" beta?  Oh, I don't know.. maybe stability, actual user ed, grouping, the ability to share jotts in simple and powerful ways... JottCast!!  Paseo, the Carribean joint down Fremont avenue knows Shree's voice (and order "tofu side and beans").  The office feels a little more cramped as the cast of characters has grown.  The Cascades are rarely "out", and it's dark by 4:30pm.  And funding from great people.

I remember back in the mid-nineties working on what would become Office 97, and the raging public (and internal) debate about feature bloat.  There was an argument that customers used only a small fraction of the features in, say, Word, and how we could radically simplify Office,  componentize it, sell stuff a la carte on line, etc. etc.  A guy from market research entered the discussion and pointed out that the problem with the "small fraction" notion was that everybody used a different small fraction.  There was a long tail of loved features in any of these products.  And besides, how did one win reviews if you couldn't out-feature the other guy?  So what does that have to do with Jott?   

Well, we've pretty much found from our early beta users that are a many different reasons to love Jott.  Some hard core users really want the task management aspect to be pushed.  Others really want a simple delegation tool.  Others didn't want the phone stuff at all and just wanted a ubiquitous list.  Most find the phone piece to be magic.  Others use it as a intermittent store for big ideas that they occasionally come back to.  Overwhelmingly though, it's about simplicity, and giving people a few tools that they can adapt to their lives, not the other way around.

So based on a limited sample, we're sticking to the mission of very simply helping people remember and communicate actions.  There's no system per se beyond super easy access, flexibility to adapt to how a given user wants to organize, and working with what you already have.   Some users will look at the whole product and see areas they don't care about.. and that's OK.  As long as a bunch of people feel like Jott is useful for the scenario they need.  Great.

Jott Networks won't code a long tail.  That'll come from jotters and all the ways they bend it.

Comments

[robert p]

I love Jott. A lot. Thanks!

[Sean Scott]

Are you guys thinking of making some of your tech available via an API?

I can think of a ton of super kool mashups I'd create.