I Want Sandy Back
Posted on 16 January 2009, at 9:53 am, by Dan Cohen
And so it goes.
When the market first crashed and it became even clearer how bad the economic climate had become, in a behind the scenes team email, Judie prophetically remarked that she wondered how long it would be before the shakeout among newish technology offerings began. The answer is… not long at all.
Task management system I Want Sandy recently shut down operations. It was a shame, since the system was remarkably powerful at taking voice notes and converting them to tasks, memos or appointments.
Jott recently announced an end to all free services on February 2. Their low-cost ($3.95/month) plan will still be offered, but none of their free services will be available two weeks from now. The reason? The company needs to move toward profitability as quickly as possible if it is to survive.
And now this: Google has just announced they are ending development of Google Notebook. It will still be available for the time being but, obviously, it is not best not to rely on it. That’s a shame since I just started using it with the superb iPhone app gNotes.
When a big-wig like Google starts tightening the belt who knows who’s next?
A couple of lessons can immediately be learned here…
First- NEVER rely entirely on a web-based service for storing your material or getting work done.
Second- ALWAYS keep a backup of you data. Services can be replaced. The data that goes with them when they die can’t.
Third, medical advances may have slowed or ended Darwin’s survival of the fittest in humans, but it is alive and well in the world of tech.
No related posts.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:14 am
Computing in the Cloud… not good. Especially when you store data there. not good…
January 16th, 2009 at 10:40 am
We have been in the web app space since 2000 with our Ownersite product (Judie did a great review of it last year), having adopted a subscription-based revenue model in 2003. Has this potentially kept our subscriber count lower, perhaps, but it has ensured a source of revenue. We launched our follow-on product, Home Ownersite, last year.
It is so incredibly cheap and easy to build a web application these days thanks to open source, the cloud, outsourced labor and AdSense, but what so many of the (now and future folded) Web 2.0 companies fail to see is that even with the greatest product out there, if you want to sustain and grow a company, you need a revenue model.
The same sentiment that existed in 1996 still exists today among users, that all useful web-based applications must be free. Buyer (so to speak) with this attitude need to be aware that if it is free, it may not last forever. Someone has to pay the bills and downturns in the advertising industry lead to a lot of dead companies.
Am I the only one that senses Bubble 2.0?
January 16th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Chris, I have to disagree. It isn’t “cloud good” or “cloud bad”but rather “back up is a must”.
Like anything else there are limitations to the technology and services. In this case, one limitation translates to- backing up isn’t optional.
January 16th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Oh, and one other thought on using ANY web-based service, ask them what THEIR backup strategy is before entrusting any of your data to them. If they are unwilling or unable to answer that question, move on to another service.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:38 am
For gNotes and Google Notebook, google notebook service including the web interface will be at least kept running for current users.