In support of the quite excellent Cameron Moll, and his Charity Water campaign, Paste will be giving 100% of the money earned from new signups today to the campaign. We sincerely hope you love the apps, but we really hope you love that warm feeling you get inside knowing you’ve helped someone in need.
Visit one of our app sites to participate:
http://jumpchart.com
http://staction.com
http://getpaprika.com
Jumpchart is designed as a tool to collaborate with lots of people. It’s made to bring lots of users, and lots of content together in a pretty rapid and orderly way.
For the most part it works really well doing just that. There are cases though where Jumpchart can turn into a total cluster of client edits, and never knowing what is approved. This has been a sticking point for us for a very long time.
Non-Destructive Editing.
We thought about lots of ideas to help with this:
Thankfully we pushed past all of our initial ideas. About a month ago we started working on a full-on versioning system. We think this will help ensure that:
Code
This change has been an incredibly disruptive one to the underlying code for Jumpchart. In effect, the “page” which used to have supreme importance in our structure has been replaced by the “version”. It’s not just semantics though. It actually changes tons of the functions that drive Jumpchart, and even more of its database. Everything from the permissions system to the account system to the editing system was edited or rewritten. Big stress, but worth it.
Design
For a while now we’ve been doing something we don’t like to do. We’ve been “carving” little spots for new features. When we relaunched Jumpchart with a wider content area, and and improved nav bar we thought we had allowed lots of space for new stuff. We were really wrong. We ran out of space after about 2 revs, and unfortunately just started looking for the least evil place to stick things.
Today that’s all changing, as we’ve totally redesigned the footer. Now we have tabs to house each of the main page-level functions in Jumpchart. We think it cuts down on clutter, and helps reorganize the whole experience. Not to mention we have an ideal vertical space to store versions in now.
Moving On.
We’ve always charged for pages in Jumpchart. The page being a common benchmark for how big of a project you’re working on, and therefore how much our tool is worth to you. It also maps fairly logically to our cost in providing it to you -the more pages, the more use, the more space in the database, bandwidth, etc.
Now the page is replaced by the version… Which might make you worry that versions count against your page total. We’re very happy to say that all of our Super and Deluxe accounts will now have versioning built in at no extra cost, and that versions do not count against your page total. In effect, we’re storing every instance of your data at a page level, indefinitely across all your projects starting today at no extra cost for our top 2 accounts.
We busted our butts on this one, but we think you’re going to really dig it. Go check it out now: https://www.jumpchart.com/examples/
“I’m kind of weird, I love negative feedback. Unsolicited complaint means somebody cared enough to write it down, and then when you fix their pet peeve they transform into a fan. Plus you got to fix a real problem for a real person, which is pretty rewarding.”
http://ignorethecode.net/blog/2010/09/21/chris_clark/ via DF
ALS has left Tony Quan nearly completely paralyzed- except for his eyes. But his debilitating diagnosis hasn’t stopped him from creating great things- thanks to the members of Free Art and Technology (FAT), and their enabling eye tracking software.
Makes you aware of the true potential in development, and thankful for what you have…
- Read more about the project here.
Notice how content has become the byword for stuff on a website? There’s a simple explanation; it’s the same shit sliced differently.
For years digital media types have been creating new words to resell old ideas to existing clients:”Moving forward = vague description of actually doing work.
Low hanging fruit = the least amount of work completed for the same money.
Social Media Evangelists = out of work journalists.So ‘content’ is just expensive copy?
No. Content describes all the elements that make a website worth looking at. It’s design that doesn’t make your eyes bleed, copy that gives direction and usability that’s, well, useable. Content is a word that describes all these elements working together to form a cohesive message. We’ve just started using it more openly because we think you’re ready for it, dear.
It’s a business. But we haven’t started it yet. Well, maybe it’s an idea, but we have people to implement it. Well, the people aren’t on board yet, -we need to offer them a lucrative salary. And we need an office, and about 6 months of operating expense to get going. And we might not be “profitable” for a while…
WTF ever happened to Ramen Noodles, and working till 3am? Where’s the passion? Where’s the drive?
Nobody needs an office these days. Nobody needs “operating expenses.”
You know what software to develop a million dollar company costs today? Zero dollars. Or if you want to splurge you can spend, maybe, $1000 on software that can do amazingly incredible things. Hard work + cheap tools will beat lazy + great tools every single day.
You need an Aeron, and a conference room? You need a company car, and a secretary? F. U.
We started out with a 3 year old laptop, and financed Macs. Apartment coffee tables, and care packages of beef stew from our parents. Our girlfriends scrubbed the floor of our first filthy office on their cute hands and knees. Our “conference table” was an old restaurant booth we found at salvage. We worked late, and worked hard.
We’re not rich now. Far from it. We’re still scrapping, and working our butts off. But we’re living on our own 2 legs, and working for nobody but ourselves. Even the people who were not here at the beginning know that we survive on nobody’s benevolence or wits but our own. It is the only, only way that makes any sense to us to live.
So go. Go suck off the corporate teet if you will. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and not ever have to care about anything in your life, – because caring about postponed success is a hard and sucky endeavor. But we little “startups” who are self funded go to bed at night late, exhausted, modestly employed, and happy as hell.
I was reading about a 45 year old who is gonna try for the 2012 Olympics Swim Team, when I read this bit:
“What do race-car drivers do when they want to go faster?” Cooley asks. “They don’t spend more hours driving around the track. They increase the biomechanics of the car.”
And I immediately thought about our apps. It might have been a long shot association, but it was worth thinking through…
If you want to improve your app, you don’t spend hours and hours using the app, hoping to just get better at navigating it. You look at the fundamental backend things you can do that will make your app more useful and efficient. Check its rate; can you up the speed of your app? Check its heartbeat: can you improve the way it makes API calls? Check its stomach; can you add storage somewhere? Check its digestion; how can you improve the export?
Boosting the biomechanics of a car will make it go faster. Boosting the internal forces of your app will get you the same results…
“When working with designers the content is often one of the last things the designer receives while building the site. Unfortunately, this is can cripple the designer’s ability to create a site that achieves the goals set. Design is supposed to compliment the content, not the other way around.” – Tyme White, CrazyEgg.com
Getting started the right way when you’re planning a website is crucial. Nobody likes to be behind before the starting gun even goes off. So why would you push pixels before you know what those pixels are gonna reinforce? Plus, getting your content laid out first is a great way to spend less time revising in the end. Who doesn’t want to be more efficient?
Read the whole article on why content should come first here.
“Apple is like a mutant virus, escaping from the traditional structure of the PC industry, but the industry will still eventually build up immunity, thus further blocking this trend, and we believe the size of the non-Apple camp will exceed Apple’s, because this is how the industry normally evolves.”
- Acer founder and retired chairman Stan Shih
If you’re basing all your business plans on how things “normally evolve” you’re about to become extinct.
This has nothing to do with app development, – but I’m so excited about this show, I have to post the preview.
