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Elevator Up - A Random Update

This Issue

Livvy Zimmerman

Livvy Zimmerman Livvy is freelance graphic designer in the Holland area and founder of Dutch Studio (named after her first dog). Her approach to design is a combination of memorable concepts, fresh images and strong color palettes.

Read more about Livvy

Dec 16 Birthday Crew
December is a month of celebration. Usually because we have Christmas and then New Years quickly following. What you may not know is that there are a lot of people that have their birthday's on Dec 16. Myself, Dean Whittaker and Dan Morrison are a few and we're trying to find out who else.

So if your birthday is on Dec 16, let us know so we can join in celebration which is happening at Fricanos Pizza. We'll buy the pizza, you bring the fun.

Geeks Group (Dec.)

Date: November 16, 2008
Time: 5:30pm - 8:30pm
Location: Fricanos Pizza

To find out more information join our google group - Google Group for Geeks.

A different perspective on Conferences

by: Zach Moazeni

I was lucky enough to attend the latest RubyConf, a conference about the programming language Ruby which we use all the time at Elevator Up. Every time I come home from a good conference, I always feel refreshed. I really think there's something to hanging out with people passionate about their work. It's as if all the creativity flowing around the event re-energizes the mind.

There are a few reasons why I enjoy attending conferences:

  • The star-struck factor
  • The inspiration factor
  • The regret factor
  • The where-to-go-from-here factor

Continue reading "A different perspective on Conferences"

Pownce bought out and shut down

Pownce: WTF are you doing?

A few days ago, Pownce.com announced they were going to discontinue the service and join the SixApart team (a blog company). We began discussing this as a team and how they went about closing their doors and decided to start posting some of our conversation and hopefully you can join it as well.

What is (or was) Pownce.com? Pownce is (err was) a way to keep in touch with and share stuff with your friends. Send people files, links, events, and messages and then have real conversations with the recipients.

Some Internal Chatter

Zach Moazeni: Check out http://www.sixapart.com/pownce/

Aaron Schaap: yea - we saw that the other day and where chatting about it. I think it's pretty stupid that they couldn't roll the product or feature into another product or say something like - "Hey, we're no longer going to do this but you can get a FREE account at VOX or some other place for your commitment to pownce".

Want to read up on it more later.

Janson Hartliep: Yup. This seems like an even crazier decision to close than what Value of n just announced. If only because of the visibility of pownce over iwantsandy or stikkit. I really wonder why the acquiring company doesn't continue to support the services - if even in a hobbled state.

Both such decisions really beg the question of longevity and trust within the web app sphere. At least with desktop apps if the company goes out of business I can continue to *use* the software. Food for thought I suppose.

Aaron Schaap: I think either the founders got sick of doing it and wanted a job with a little less stress and 24hr responsibility and/or SixApart wanted the talent at Pownce and to reduced competition. Wondering if a bad economy mixing w/their projections was a result of any of it as well.

Zach Moazeni: Yeah, I had the same feelings.

First: Giving 15 days to get your ass out of the system you've been using for months seems very shortsighted (They announced it Dec 1st, and it's shutting down on the 15th). I guess it was a Deputy-Dan-Approved (internal joke) strategy.

Even if they don't offer it in a hobbled state, at least allow your users to continue to use it longer than two weeks.

Second: FuzzyBunny (new product idea we have, no that's not the real name or is it???) really came to mind. Both from the company (Pownce) offered for their customers or to the Users themselves if the company didn't offer a solution. It also hit home that this could happen to other hosted blogging solutions like Vox or Typepad.

Janson Hartliep: Totally.

Also while "social" applications may not be quite as critical of a tool, relying on something like iwantsandy as part of your daily workflow would really suck when it shuts down. Value of n suggests other tools such as RTM or google, but iwantsandy fit a niche that was obviously valuable for it's users. Other tools just don't nail it on the head.

I do think Value of n is being a little bit nicer to their customers, with full FAQs on the implications, how to get data out, and where to go from there. But even then, the users who rely on the service are left out in the cold. There's value there just begging to be utilized.

Zach Moazeni: Oh and I remember reading this tweet earlier in the morning. Also made me think of using FuzzyBunny on a non-hosted blogging solution.

What are you thoughts?

What are your thoughts on how Pownce.com is treating their customers? What does this mean for the business use of web applications that you may use on a daily basis. What about tools you use just for fun?

Jump in on the conversation