Ontiveros @ Textdriven

History: I started out using Google calendar to keep the wife aware of my travel schedule. Since my profession keeps me traveling, I needed a way to share my work schedule without giving her access to my company’s corporate calendar of course. As time went on, I imported different public calendars: US Holidays, Class Schedules, etc. This is all fairly standard as I was merely blocking out the time.

I’ve used Backpack, Basecamp, and several other “online systems” to manage my classwork in the past. My typical workflow was to maintain a list or page for each class while breaking down each week into individual to do items: Read Chapter 2, Write Case 1, etc. Read the rest of this entry »

37signals most prominent write up to date probably has to be as inclusion in the Business Week cover story entitled “Speed Demons”. I’ll attempt to elaborate on a few points made in the write up. All of their product offerings utilize open source software, including Ruby, as a platform so it is a given that 37signals doesn’t have the “not created here” syndrome. The framework, which was developed in house by Hansson, in order to cut down on repetitive code would become known as “Rails”.

My interpretation of the framework was that it was created as a process improvement method during the developing of their first web application entitled “Basecamp”. The framework was itself released as Open Source software by Hansson and 37signals for the world to use and improve. By doing so, Ruby on Rails itself became a product. The feedback from Basecamp is from consumers, while the feedback for Rails is from other developers.

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I love the concept behind online storage. As noted in the “Online Storage Gang” blog entry by Michael Armstrong at Techcrunch, this is an idea who’s time has come.

Please keep in mind that I’m attempting to make a point, and not criticize. Web 2.0 companies do need to launch if they are going to compete with the majors (Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.) What’s the point of being small and nimble, if you can’t get out in front? 37signals have some ideas about how to stay nimble and are having tremendous success.
What Nik’s writeup entitled the “Economics of online storage” fails to capture is the opportunity cost of not being first or early to market in terms of cash flow and market share. Without doing comprehensive research, this is a very difficult figure to hammer down.

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