extantproject

No, it's running on Slicehost.

Right!

Given that the Internet is about 2 billion people large I'm banking on the idea that we can find a few thousand people that Atombox will be very useful for and that they will pay for it straight-up.

Sounds good to us too! ;)

Think of it as a personal notebook with as many pages as you need, that takes up no physical space, that you can search, and that you can have with you everywhere. You need it so that you can keep things you need to remember outside of your head so that you can use your brain to think rather than remember a million little tidbits of information.

... that we would pay for ourselves.

You're right, and so we're going to change "GTD" to "Getting Things Done" as well as make it a link. Thanks!

That makes a lot of sense. We are focusing on the GTD crowd and you're right that we need to differentiate with respect to other GTD apps because anyone that does GTD will have some sort of system already.

Thanks, that's very helpful!

I like that idea. Thanks!

We are * really * liking the idea of the Dropbox referral model. Definitely.

"it costs more per month configuring Emacs and org-mode across disparate machines"

This was one of my core frustrations when I started searching for a list system. I wanted all of my "augmented memory" in one place so that I didn't have to deal with multiple copies of the same thing and having to keep it all in sync. I also wanted to be able to access everything from any box.

Thanks for your comment!

Oh: and I hear 'ya about org-mode + redmine syncing. ;)

Thanks for submitting that.

Oh. Maybe we don't? I thought both "GTD" and "Getting Things Done" are trademarks...

An atom is < 256 characters of text.

Doing GTD helps, since that's primarily what Atombox is designed for, but I think having a "augmented memory" service helps any information/knowledge worker.

--

edited to clarify: an "atom" is our lingo, not something in the "Getting Things Done" book.

I do GTD because keeping the things I have to do external to myself relieves my mind of having to track it all. This extremely enhances my focus and energy. YMMV.

We are focusing on people that do GTD as potential customers because they need an extremely fast (keyboard shortcuts), secure, easy-to-look-at way to track everything they have to do. So it may not solve a problem you have, but it definitely solves a problem I had: all the other list apps are too complicated and slow for my taste -- and there has got to be more people like me.

Thanks for the comment!

Yes, we're going to change "GTD" to "Getting Things Done" based on several mentions of that very confusion. It'll be a link to the book, too.

Things I keep in Atombox: wine and beers I like, places I'd like to go, the size of my dress shirts, restaurants I want to try in cities different than my own, affirmations and reminders (quotes), the continual grocery list, ideas for gifts for other people, replacement part numbers, ...

Thanks!

Oh: and we're definitely interested in creating shared lists, it's just a matter of prioritizing features we want to implement with the limited time we have.

Right: we are not interested in trying to make money using advertising; we intend to make money by charging for a service that we would pay.

The server runs Rails, and the interface is jQuery and custom JavaScript (have a look!).

The connection between your box and the Atombox server is SSL. Hourly backups are made using Tarsnap (http://www.tarsnap.com), which is built and designed by Colin Percival, the FreeBSD security officer. They are encrypted and stored off-site in Amazon Web Services S3.

We attribute the "GTD" and "Getting Things Done" trademark at the bottom of the page:

"'GTD' and 'Getting Things Done' are registered trademarks of the David Allen Corporation."

Yes, we are focusing on fairly technically adept people that do GTD and tend to use web apps already. We think Atombox is useful even if you don't do GTD, but we're focusing on GTD users.

I'm on the http://www.davidco.com forums and we are running a limited AdWords campaign.

We don't track metrics closely yet because we're trying to talk to people directly rather than trying to spark a mass influx.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Yeah, we weren't sure about how many atoms to allow for free, so we just picked 128. I have over 1200 atoms that I've accumulated over the years, and so I thought something like 10% of that would be a good "tipping point", so to speak. It's an experiment.

We're also not married to this approach for making revenue. We'll have to see...

About the CAPTCHA: a point well-taken. We'll change that.

Thanks for taking a look!

Yes, we use it as a to-do list.

To delete an atom: click on the text of the atom to delete and then press E. There's a delete button in the dialog that comes up.

I thoroughly understand scouring the Internet for free stuff before even contemplating paying; I tried on the order of 50 free and paid list apps before deciding to build Atombox. I didn't find one I liked, so I built one that I do -- one that I would pay for.

We are not dead-set on any one way to make revenue. We have some other ideas, but we decided to try the subscription bit.

There are countless free and paid list apps out there already. Many of them overdo it on the features, don't use SSL, don't have keyboard shortcuts, and so on. We've tried to take out everything that isn't absolutely necessary and we will give you one-on-one support.

I don't mind if all the others make money too -- all I need is enough revenue to pay myself and my co-founder salary and pay for the servers.

... and thanks for the comment!

You pay only if you need more than 128 atoms.

In the suburbs you can walk in the street or through people's yards ("gardens") along the edges and no one really minds. Everyone tends drive instead, though, since there aren't any well-connected walkways that lead to any place you'd really like to get to.

It's rare to have connected walkways in the US. They often stop suddenly on their trail off to nowhere, have big gaps between disconnected sections, lead up to bridges that are meant for driving on, etc.