Like several other bloggers, I got an email from Scrybe co-founder Shehryar Hydri pointing me to his company’s website, where there is a video demo of the Web 2.0 organizing tool, which is in beta. But I decided not to write about it, and I wanted to say why (obviously I know that I’m writing about it anyway, but bear with me).
Like many others, including Alec Saunders and Jason Clarke at Download Squad, I think Scrybe looks great — especially the online/offline synchronization, which could come in very handy. And the option to print things out on easily foldable cards is also kind of cool for a Web app.
At the same time though, I’m leery of giving too much attention to a startup that only has a video clip to go by. Without having laid hands on it myself and played around with it (Shehryar said beta accounts would be coming soon), it sounds a little hype-ish to be saying how great this new tool is. Could it be great? Sure. But I’d rather see it in person before I start salivating.
9 comments for “Scrybe looks pretty good — so far”
Couldn’t agree more. I came at this from a slightly different angle - that a flashy interface isn’t a substitute for process - but I share the sentiment that salivating over the product before it’s even available to try is a bit premature.
[...] Scrybe, maybe not Yesterday marked four weeks in my new job. I spent today getting organised, which was mainly about getting back into the GTD habit. So when I took a break to catch up with my blog reading I was immediately drawn to a post by Robert Scoble directing me towards the latest tool for getting organised: Scrybe. The blogosphere is eagerly anticipating the launch.The registration page describes Scrybe as “a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way. Simple solutions for some age old problems.”I signed up for the beta and watched a video of some impressive ajax trickery. What stood out for me, from watching the video, was the way you can get Hipster PDA style functionality out of the product via the papersync feature. I liked that a lot.However I don’t see this as a product that is in danger of replacing my Outlook / NetCentrics GTD add-in combo anytime soon. The lack of an email client, or integration with an email client, means there is no seamless way of moving projects / tasks / next actions from email to the to-do lists. Email is my primary source of next actions, so seamless integration is critical to my organisational process. To-do lists are integrated with the calendar, so I couldn’t see easily how you’d operate lists for different contexts (@Home @Office etc) within Scrybe.At the end of the day a whizzy interface isn’t a substitute for process. The GTD process has become an integral part of my day to day approach to being organised, although circumstances sometimes force me off the path, temporarily. The achievement of stress free productivity will always remain more important to me than how flashy the toolset is.UPDATE 1: I’ve updated this post to add a link to the YouTube video which is well worth a look, even if it’s for no other reason than to see a really classy example of a pre-launch video covering an overview of the product and some of it’s distinctive features. As Michael Arrington points out this approach helps the company control the message in the phase before the product is launched.UPDATE 2: Mathew Ingram shares the sentiment that salivating over the product before it’s released and we get to try it out for ourselves is a bit premature.UPDATE 3: Although Technorati seems to have indexed my post it seems to have missed indexing my tags. So the third reason for this update is to see if updating my post will get Tecnorati to pick up on what it seems to have missed earlier. If not I might get lucky and the blogosphere’s most responsive CEO, Dave Sifry, might pick this up and help me out (again).Tags: Scrybe, GTD, Getting Things Done, Personal Productivity, Robert Scoble, Dave Sifry, Technorati [...]
I'm a technology writer with The Globe and Mail in Toronto, and this is where I blog about things I come across on the Web. Feel free to leave a comment or use the contact form to send me an email.
Couldn’t agree more. I came at this from a slightly different angle - that a flashy interface isn’t a substitute for process - but I share the sentiment that salivating over the product before it’s even available to try is a bit premature.
I would agree, Steve. The interface definitely looks cool, but there’s a lot more to a successful product than that.
I’m with you on this one too, Mathew. Hence the reason for the headline on my post — “Substance or Hype?”.
And I thought you asked some good questions too, Alec — like will it integrate with email and if so how, will it have an open API, etc.
Some more info here: http://engtech.wordpress.com/2006/10/08/disorganized-scrybe-it-down/#comment-2372
[...] Mathew Ingram function tgb_closewindow () { window.location.href = “http://www.mathewingram.com/work/2006/10/21/scrybe-looks-pretty-good-so-far/”; } [...]
I agree — I can’t believe the hype this got yesterday when all we’re going on is not even a demo, but a video clip!
I say, send out an alpha release like those Paint.NET guys so we can really sink our teeth into it.
[...] Scrybe, maybe not Yesterday marked four weeks in my new job. I spent today getting organised, which was mainly about getting back into the GTD habit. So when I took a break to catch up with my blog reading I was immediately drawn to a post by Robert Scoble directing me towards the latest tool for getting organised: Scrybe. The blogosphere is eagerly anticipating the launch.The registration page describes Scrybe as “a groundbreaking online organizer that caters to today´s lifestyle in a cohesive and intuitive way. Simple solutions for some age old problems.”I signed up for the beta and watched a video of some impressive ajax trickery. What stood out for me, from watching the video, was the way you can get Hipster PDA style functionality out of the product via the papersync feature. I liked that a lot.However I don’t see this as a product that is in danger of replacing my Outlook / NetCentrics GTD add-in combo anytime soon. The lack of an email client, or integration with an email client, means there is no seamless way of moving projects / tasks / next actions from email to the to-do lists. Email is my primary source of next actions, so seamless integration is critical to my organisational process. To-do lists are integrated with the calendar, so I couldn’t see easily how you’d operate lists for different contexts (@Home @Office etc) within Scrybe.At the end of the day a whizzy interface isn’t a substitute for process. The GTD process has become an integral part of my day to day approach to being organised, although circumstances sometimes force me off the path, temporarily. The achievement of stress free productivity will always remain more important to me than how flashy the toolset is.UPDATE 1: I’ve updated this post to add a link to the YouTube video which is well worth a look, even if it’s for no other reason than to see a really classy example of a pre-launch video covering an overview of the product and some of it’s distinctive features. As Michael Arrington points out this approach helps the company control the message in the phase before the product is launched.UPDATE 2: Mathew Ingram shares the sentiment that salivating over the product before it’s released and we get to try it out for ourselves is a bit premature.UPDATE 3: Although Technorati seems to have indexed my post it seems to have missed indexing my tags. So the third reason for this update is to see if updating my post will get Tecnorati to pick up on what it seems to have missed earlier. If not I might get lucky and the blogosphere’s most responsive CEO, Dave Sifry, might pick this up and help me out (again).Tags: Scrybe, GTD, Getting Things Done, Personal Productivity, Robert Scoble, Dave Sifry, Technorati [...]
[...] [...]
Via : del.icio.us/filipealvesferreira Sun, 22 Oct 2006