ShortJournal was the first demo presented at the MinneDemo last week and was the least impressive one. The application has the appearance of the old school DOS screen. It allows the user to type in code that he/she brilliantly thought of that very moment in the following format: @ tag your brilliant thought. You can then go back into the application and search for that particular tag. The iPhone app for this application does not work yet according to the developer of the tool. He also briefly showed would – be web interface, not up and running as of yet, that looked a bit like a novice’s attempt to create a document.
Overall, both the tool and the presentation were poor. The application lacks a nice interface (or any interface for that matter) and the search function does not appear to be very intuitive. The software is stored locally, meaning that when your machine crashes, all your brilliant ideas will be gone forever. I failed to understand why I need this application when I have access to notepad and can easily search by using Ctrl+F.
I was curious to find out what my fellow MinneDemo goers thought of the application. The overwhelming answer that I received was that I could not understand how great this tool is without being a developer. However, no one expressed interest in actually paying to use the technology. Now, if you have to be a developer in order to even understand the point of the application, then what purpose does the software serve for the general public?
Comments
To be fair, the presenter did just have his appendix taken out.
Why hello, I'm Zach, the developer of ShortJournal, and I'd just like to clear a couple things up.
1. Unix != DOS. The shell client (what you think looked like DOS) was just one particular *client* for the ShortJournal *service*. Some of us developers who use Unix and shells like BASH still very much enjoy the command line interface (CLI). It isn't for everybody, nor was it intended to be for everybody. I made it for me. You may be more interested in the web interface, speaking of which...
2. I'm glad you noticed that the web interface wasn't finished. First of all, this was MinneDemo I was presenting at, not MinneFinishedProductForSale. Secondly, I *did* have an emergency appendectomy five days before I demoed ShortJournal, so I was a little behind (you insensitive clod). Thirdly, the web interface was just one example of another choice of *clients* for the *service.* I'm sorry that you thought the design looked "novice." Takes one to know one I guess.
3. Thank you for the feedback on me as a presenter. I can accept that you may rate me as "poor." I will work to become a better presenter.
4. "The application lacks a nice interface (or any interface for that matter)" You see there are these things called "APIs" and "services" that make something available for others to use the features of. Nevermind. Sigh.
5. "The software is stored locally, meaning that when your machine crashes, all your brilliant ideas will be gone forever." This of course is 100% false, also known as exactly the opposite of true. The whole entire point of the application is that it stores everything "in your own cloud" instead of somebody else's (e.g. EverNote's) cloud. The information is stored remotely and is accessible from anywhere. That was kind of the whole point. Did you really attend this demo? Cause I'm starting to wonder. Maybe I spilled some beer on you and this is revenge?
6. "I failed to understand why I need this application when I have access to notepad and can easily search by using Ctrl+F." You know what, you go ahead and do just that. Have fun with your notepad and Ctrl+F. Sounds like a *super* idea. I'm not *even* being sarcastic!
7. Nobody said they wanted to pay for it? That's funny since I said I was going to post it as open source.
8. Was MinneDemo supposed to be a general public audience? Cause it sure seemed to me like there were a lot of developers and geeks in the room. You know some of the most successful products only appeal to a specific audience, not to everybody.
I highly appreciate your review and the free press and attention!
Sincerely,
me
I think it's pretty clear that you A) weren't paying attention and B) are not the intended audience for ShortJournal.
The point is that you have your own hosted data stream. This is an API for saving and retrieving data. In all reality, it's more like what Twitter does than anything else. They've created a giant API that any application, be it mobile, desktop, or anything else with an internet connection can get access to, *if you develop an application for it*.
ShortJournal is like what is under Twitter's hood: an pipeline to hook in to and use anywhere. Yes, the demos showed were very low-level and looked dirty to someone who doesn't realize what's actually going on.
I haven't actually seen or used ShortJournal, but I can say that Notepad is the most inefficient way to store notes and ideas. You can go ahead and CTRL+F through your Notepad files, whilst I'll stick to something a bit more ... productive. Your review loses credibility if you don't see this.
As for losing your data if your machine crashes, this is always a risk. However, if you use some other service that risk does not go away. Having the data under your own control gives you the opportunity to make good backups and other preventative methods of data loss. With a third-party service, you have to make due with whatever they decide for backup, which (as we've seen lately with a few now-dead services) may not turn out so great.
Overall, I think that you're being too harsh for a product you really don't understand and for which you're not the target audience.
I would like to start for thanking everyone for their comments especially Zach. Zach, thank you for clarifying the tool for me and the readers. Even though, I have worked in the IT industry for a number of years, I am not a developer. I, like, the general public, failed to understand the purpose of the tool. Also just to clear the air, I did not have the opportunity to meet Zach at the event, and he certainly did not spill anything on me. I was in attendance at the demo and took notes during the presentation. As for the Minnedemo audience, the people in attendance were not only developers, but headhunters with limited IT background (I had the opportunity to meet the guys from Entero), people in support services (DSAs and Service Desk personnel), and friends of people in the industry ranging from artists to accountants.
I really don't think the "Examiner" for this post (Aleksandra Denisova) really has a understanding of the MinneDemo event or the intended audience. Developers looking at cool new ideas/tools in Alfa and Beta stages. If so, she didn't relay that in the post. Actually I don't think she understood the App at all either. "Strike three" Maybe the bashing of ShortJournal is just her way of generating some attention. Too bad really.
BTW - I applaud Zach Johnson for evangelizing the Dev Journal concept. Something most developers should use, but don't.
Travis, just to respond to your post. According to the official MinneDemo site "MinneDemo is the Twin Cities’ premier technology demo and networking event. Come for the demos, stay for the beer and conversation." The event welcomes all audiences. Also, to contradict you on the Beta and Alpha products, a lot of the products such as HardCore Computer (presented last fall) as well as SightWare and SmartWatch were out of beta at the time of presentation. The companies had already established a customer base and used the event as more of an advertizing opportunity.
This comment is probably more directed at the people running MinneDemo, but I'm actually turned off by the presentations which just seem like marketing. There's plenty of venues for businesses to market their finished products. What there *isn't* a venue for is developers who have new software to demo. That's what I want to see at MinneDemo.
I picked ShortJournal as one of the demos at MinneDemo and I want to explain why.
First of all, I think it is a cool idea. Zach has written a service that you can use like a combination of Delicious, Pastie (a code pasting service) and EverNote, but that you install on your own server. Some people don't care about having their copies of their data ... but ask the users of Ma.gnolia how that worked out when they lost all their bookmarks.
Second, this tool is not for everyone but MinneDemo has a lot of people in the audience who ARE interested in developer tools. Aleksandra is right that MinneDemo appeals to a wide audience but it is focused on developers and designers who want to see the kick-ass software being written in the Twin Cities.
I want MinneDemo to be a coming together place for developers, designers, entrepreneurs and investors. Therefore I try to balance the demos between consumer-ready things, open source software, and just plain neat stuff.
I'm sorry if you didn't like all the demos but I feel that the balance of products we had at this MinneDemo made it one of the best ever.
Is there a demonstration of this application? It sounds like an IDE. Do you have a website or a place I can download a demo?
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