If SpeakerRate is the Pointless Product you care about most, you certainly want to keep up on the new SpeakerRate blog. The primary author will be Zach Robbins, our summer intern focusing on product management. We’re working on some exciting ideas, and your input is always welcome!
Breaking news! We have removed the invitation system from Connect-A-Sketch. The application — in all its alpha glory — is now open to the public! Here are three key points to keep in mind:
If you’re new to the application, you might want to read our first post about it. If you’re new to Pointless Corp, here’s a little history. If you want to know who is behind all this genius, the answer rhymes with “dig it.”
Happy sketching!
We love SpeakerRate and believe it has a ton of potential. That’s why we’re inviting an MBA intern to spend the summer working with us as to take SpeakerRate to the next level. We initially called it a “Product Management” role – which it is – but I prefer the “Future Web Entrepreneur” part of the title. As the job description states, the role reflects the life of a web entrepreneur – everything from customer support to community management to product design to developing a revenue strategy. You’ll work with Viget’s world-class UX, design, development, and marketing teams as we expand the success we’ve had with SpeakerRate thus far. You’ll gain experiences typically only available to someone who takes a ton of risk to build a product like this — all wrapped neatly into a 10 week internship.
This is not your typical MBA internship. Know someone who should apply? Please tell them about the opportunity or apply yourself!
It was a dark and stormy night, well after business hours and the pizza was already cold… we were pitching Pointless Corp ideas around the table, writing each of them on the white board without passing judgement as any good brainstormers would. I asked if anyone wanted to help me do something useful and interesting with all of the sketches and wireframes we make when we’re designing a new site.
After a brief discussion, an idea was fully born into our hearts. We’d let users upload their design docs and quickly turn them into clickable prototypes! It would be just like paper prototyping… Without the paper, the scissors, or the glue sticks. Ok, so it wouldn’t be all that much like paper prototyping. We liked the idea anyways. Also, we thought it would be easy.
It wasn’t quite as easy as we thought it would be, turns out we’ve got high standards for this kind of thing. So, our talented team has been putting in extra hours ever since to breathe life into the idea, polish it up, and test it out. We just couldn’t wait any longer to share our baby with the world. Behold: Connect-A-Sketch.
Here at Pointless Corp (which, we remind you, is neither Pointless nor a Corporation), we have a soft spot for fun and games (a round of Tweets of Fury, anyone?), but nothing compares to our love of usefulness. We hope you’ll find the utility of this little gem as endless and satisfying as we do.
Here is the gist:
It could not be more simple, but if you are confused, then you should watch the intro.
Like its namesake, Etch-A-Sketch, we wanted Connect-A-Sketch to be highly satisfying to use. It does a very simple thing, but it does it well and using it to make something come together is pleasurable and — dare we say — fun.
Connect-A-Sketch is brought to you by people who build complex web stuff every day, all day long, and know the value of a simple sketch. We also know that being able to connect that sketch to another one is freaking awesome.
Use it. Love it. Tell us how to make it better.
We’re still working out the kinks, but if you want to give Connect-A-Sketch a spin, you can request an invitation. You can also follow us on Twitter if you want to see what we’re up to.
Lifehacker has their eye on Pointless Corp again, this time Adam Pash providing coverage. This week he wrote about HeyCraig, our super simple tool for getting alerts via email when new items go up on Criagslist. To quote Adam:
“Simple but useful — just how we like ‘em.”
Good thing, since that’s how we like to build them.
Update (7/18/09): The offending image has been removed (along with the ClinicalReader Twitter account … strange.)
We owe a great deal of our early success to FeedStitch’s fantastic visual design. What you see today was no small feat for Owen, our designer, who subsisted on nothing but Tab and Run DMC records while we pelted him in the head with box after box of Adidas. When he finally emerged from the haze, we were treated to this:
While it has been a boost to our collective egos to see the design featured on numerous CSS and design galleries across the web, we were really flattered when we saw this gem:
I’m happy that the folks behind Clinical Reader (clinicalreader.com) thought so highly of our design that they decided to pay tribute to our original (thanks to Chris Martin for the head’s up).
Here at FeedStitch, we care about our customers (and would-be customers). So much, in fact, that we make it our business to appeal to their egos first and their problems second. This exchange sums up how much we care about our users:
Jason Fitzpatrick has a nice little write-up on Lifehacker called FeedStitch Combines Multiple Feeds Into One. Yep, good title — that’s the idea in a nutshell. Judging by the surge in traffic to the site and the increase in FeedStitch references on Twitter, I’d say a lot of people were paying attention. Thanks for the write-up, Jason. Thanks also to everyone who has been sending good feedback and suggestions to feedback@feedstitch.com. Keep them coming.
Here at Pointless Corp. we always aim to please. A lot of people liked HeyCraig, our craigslist search and automatic notification application, but were upset to find out it was limited to cities in the United States.
Well, not anymore!
We’re pleased to announce that people living in the following countries will now be able to enjoy HeyCraig: Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Germany, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Russia, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United States, Venezuela, and Vietnam!
If your country is not listed, and you know you have craiglist cities, send us an email and let us know. Also, feel free to leave any comments and/or suggestions.
Have fun!
OK, not really. But it might ruin a friendship, your reputation on Twitter, or your hopes for a productive day at work.
The latest Pointless Corp project is by far our most destructive and menacing endeavor. Tweets of Fury lets you battle your Twitter nemesis in a Rock-Scissors-Paper duel. You and your opponent will face off in a best-2-out-of-3 match and we predict your hands will be sweating by Round 2. Your initial challenge to your enemy is tweeted publicly. The battle happens privately on the TOF site. And the next thing the twitter-sphere will see is a tweet from the loser … a tweet that was written by the WINNER (cue ominous music). To the world it looks like any other tweet.
Do you use twitter to promote your personal brand? Is it a big part of your professional networking strategy? THEN DON’T PLAY TWEETS OF FURY. We can attest that the thrill of the battle will tempt you. But this application is best suited to daredevil fun-lovers who have little to lose.
We had a great time building TOF, but we did it pretty quickly and so, it’s still a little rough around the edges. We are going go to be cleaning up the design/codes over the next couple of weeks and hopefully adding a couple new features. Meanwhile, we’d love to hear from anyone playing the game about their experience. Send your comments, suggestions, and/or hate mail to support@tweetsoffury.com. We’ll take all ideas under advisement. Then we will CRUSH YOU in a TOF battle. Look out!
