Tag Archive for 'Useability'

Carsonified:- Matt Week - Day three and where we’re at

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/7/2
in General
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I’m a bit skeptical about this, but anyways I think the results will be interesting… ;-)
_ Carsonified » Blog Archive » Matt Week - Day three and where we’re at

Day three is upon us. We have had a few challenges along the way but all of the team are making progress.

There is a bit of an air of pandemonium, but all the team are weighing in with a tremendous effort. We are getting an enormously valuable insight into what web development companies have to go through day in day out.

From an email:

As you may already know the Carsonified team have set ourselves a challenge this week - to build a web app in four days (32 hours) and we’re launching tomorrow at 5:30pm GMT.

The app is called Matt and it helps people post to multiple Twitter accounts (Multiple Account Twitter Tweeting). We know the idea for the app isn’t going to rock the world, but we’re going to share everything we’re learning in the process - so hopefully that’ll be valuable for other people.

What do you think?

Intruders.tv interview on Kindo (about scale/product/marketing/revenue)

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/6/30
in Uncategorized
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Was at Open Coffee last week (looking for developers), and did this interview with Vincent and Eugene from Intruders.tv on Kindo. Talked about how we’ve tackled some of the usual web app issues like scaling our userbase, internationalisation, product dev, marketing tricks, revenue generation….
_ Intruders.tv interview on Kindo.com

Kindo.com is a “new take on the traditional family tree”. In this interview, we sit down with Gareth Knight to talk about Kindo and their user acquisition strategy. Gareth shares with us his experience of attracting users to the site and the effectiveness of strategies such as blogging, Google AdWords and PR.

If you’re building a webapp, could be useful ;-)

Kindo in the guardian.co.uk

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/6/23
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Brief summary of what Kindo is about in the Guardian:
_ Elevator Pitch: Kindo makes a play for the family network niche | PDA: The Digital Content Blog | guardian.co.uk
;-)

Test your Web design in different browsers with Browsershots

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/6/4
in Uncategorized
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Pretty cool utility ;-)
_ Test your Web design in different browsers - Browsershots

Browsershots makes screenshots of your Web design in different browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rocholl. When you submit your Web address, it will be added to the job queue. A number of distributed computers will open your Web site in their browser. Then they will make screenshots and upload them to the central server here.

Hat tip to Steve, who finally has a blog, dammit!

Welcome to the Kindo Family, Denmark!

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/5/20
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Kindo is now in 15 languages… ;-)
_ Gratis stamtræ på Kindo – Welcome to the Family, Denmark!

Kindo just launched in Danish! Our last name research pages for Denmark have been live for quite some time now, and finally we have launched Kindo in Danish! It should soon be available via http://kindo.dk as well.

Danish home pageThe new language was made possible by Aske and Brian who have translated the whole website voluntarily. Thanks a lot for your help guys! Especially Aske has worked incredibly hard on this; and amazingly fast as well.

The new Danish version takes our language toll to 15! The Kindo family is spreading the globe ;-)

Being emotionally tied to your app makes for a good days work!

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/4/3
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Today’s been one of those days where I’ve focussed on one thing only, for the whole day, so that we could release a major new feature in 14 languages. So that literally means just doing one thing. OK, so I deleted some emails, and answered one or two, but by and large apart from lunch, it’s been nose to the grindstone to get this done. Same for the rest of the team.

And you know what, it’s been one of the more satisfying days in a long while I think for two reasons:
1) we tried something new and got everyone involved in some way
2) we decided this morning we were gonna do it, and we’ve all stuck together today to do it - and I don’t think we would have done if we weren’t all tied to Kindo the way we are.

It really is a baby for us all. Bottom line - Being emotionally tied to your app makes for a good days work! In the days when doing client work was bread and butter, it was a hard ask to get this involved, ‘cos it was always something transitory - this is a totally different feeling.

So we’re done now, and it’s a satisfying feeling - I’m off for a curry with my brother!! ;-)

PS. stay tuned for the update!

SxSW Day 4 - Final day thoughts and wrap up

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/31
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So it’s a few weeks after SxSW now and I’ve been meaning to write this post for ages but haven’t had the time or energy to do so for a while now… so here it is ;-)

The last day for me was primarily about catching up with work, then preparing for the core conversation I did at 5pm, but inbetween that I did manage to take in “Considerations for Scalable Web Ventures” which for me was probably one of the most interesting and relevant panels of the conference.

I found the panel knowledgeable and happy to give away hard earned secrets and useful wisdom, which was cool. My humble recommendation is that if you have the opportunity to go see any of them speak, then do - you’ll walk away richer for it ;-)

I’ve promised that I’m going to send the content of the core conversation I did to the people that attended, so in the spirit of sharing I’m gonna upload it here as soon as it’s in a form that I’m happy with. More on that soon though.

As for the conference itself, I’m super happy I went. This time around the jet lag hasn’t been as bad, and having had the experience of the last time (cabs, locations, where to go, food to eat, when to sleep when to work when to panel) I enjoyed this time around more. I think that because it’s a huge melting pot of really cool people in the industry, where everyone’s interested in learning from each other, discussing stuff in the halls, and socialising (where all the cool conversations happen of course). London’s probably not the best place for a web startup for a number of reasons, so it’s a real inspirational change to be in the same place as loads of other people that are all in one way or another in a similiar situation to yourself… so it was good. Another humble recommendation - if you get the opportunity to go in the future, go! ;-)

Kindo releases photo’s today

Published
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Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/12
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I’m sitting in the airport at Chicago and am just about to get on a plane back to London. Feeling more tired and whacked out than in a long time; probably the last SxSw…

Anyways, if you’re reading this and you like Kindo, give it a another look today - we’ve just added photo’s.

So, give it a whirl y’all and lemme know if you have any feedback - always appreciated!! ;-)

More soon.

Thoughts on third day of SxSW - 10th March 2008

Published
by
Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/11
in Productivity
. 1 Comment

Spent a lot of today working, so not as much detail as yesterday ;-)

Scaling boot camp was pretty interesting and some new ideas coming out of that. Key take homes were:

  • understand what has to happen in order to go into “scaling mode” - what are the red flags?
  • don’t scale until you have to
  • know what your key pain points are
  • languages don’t scale, infrastructure/architecture does
  • bring business into the discussion so they understand the implications of having to scale

Managing creative environments by some of the guys at Adaptive Path was a nice breath of fresh air.
Finding parallels with what we’re doing at Kindo was challenging, but I think I’ve got a few ideas that make sense.
Key take homes were around:

  • giving everyone on your team a sense of ownership through empowering them
  • getting everyone in your team to take on all your functions so they are empathetic to what others do on a daily basis
  • keeping things fresh through rotation
  • staying out of long drawn out debates - it’s either yes, or no; and if there’s indecision, then discussion can take place

This panel was kinda fortuitous and relevant for me, ‘cos some of the stuff I was dealing with today brought some of the above points home quite clearly. Am reflecting on this, but fairly sure I could have done things differently… ;-(

Surviving Startup Mistakes from Mike and Saul of FreshBooks was super super engaging. It’s always nice to meet people who are willing to talk you through their mistakes so you’re able to learn from them, and to meet people that are dealing with the same or similar issues that you are…
Key take homes for me were around work/life balance, and persistence.
Sounds like they’ve got a great product, so suggest taking a look - wish them well and hope they grow into a SAS powerhouse ;-) Am also hoping to do a panel with Mike next year - lets see how my panel tomorrow goes first…

Finally, good luck to Peter Nixey, who is going to be launching ClickPass tomorrow - really hope he gets some good momentum going ;-)

Thoughts on second day of SxSW - 9th March 2008

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/11
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A/B Testing was pretty interesting but kinda strightforward theoretically. Interesting to see how Yahoo!, eBay and LinkedIn approach testing in different ways, and some ideas around testing ideas for user interaction and design vs results. Sometimes you get results you didn’t expect, design or plan for.

Red Dragon - Internet in China:

  • Chinese market is super large - 200m online & 600m mobile, but market stats are unreliable in general.
  • Problems with the market - mobile is bigger, largely internet cafe based, government controlled.
  • Quasi e-commerce - credit cards not common yet - impediment to online advertising.
  • User generated content is pretty low.
  • Hire people who understand culture and creative language.
  • Stock options not common - people understand cash.

Zuckerberg keynote with Sarah Lacy:
Interesting to say the least, not sure I believe everything that was said about valuations and finances. I’m not going to add to the (pretty justified IMO) noise, but I did feel uncomfortable several times… Can only imagine how Mark felt… ;-( Zuckerberg comes accross as a geek / dork, but a likeable one at that ;-)
Facebook kool aid is:

  • making communication more efficient (repeated over and over and over and over and over)
  • creating platforms for efficient comunication
  • have reached 500 employee mark
  • running at just about breakeven

20 Ways to woo users:
Great talk by Kathy Sierra, found her engaging and thoroughly stimulating. Got to chat to her in the hallway this afternoon, and was totally disarmed - think she could disarm a SWAT team ;-)
Most important take home for me was around:

  • making users feel like they’re super heroes
  • using real life physics to create a sense of wonder
  • giving your users joy

It sounds blatantly obvious, but the examples used and way it was presented makes it accessible. My notepad was flowing with ideas for Kindo after that…

Africa 2.0: Affecting change using technology, with Kofi, Uduok, Nii, and Erik.
An earlier blog post asking whether there were any Africans at SxSW was pleasantly answered when I read the schedule in more detail (the mini schedule said “affecting change” which didn’t hit my radar. Was super happy to finally meet Erik in person, who I’ve been chatting to for a while now over email. I think that his blog post does more justice than I could, however my take homes were around:

  • there are Africans who are motivated to do something in Africa, off the back of their education and experience in Western countries
  • the mobile market is bigger and has lower barrier to entry (but we already knew that - re-affirmation)
  • opportunities seem to be around connecting communities and interest groups, either to mobilise them, or provide tools to enrich their lives
  • it seems that there is the political and financial will to do things in Africa, but what’s lacking is on the ground implementable, executable ideas and people to do so…

More on that soon ‘tho.

As usual, the after panel discussions were the most interesting (as Erik mentions), and I found the dinner table discussions with the guys and girls from Vidoop and Nike really interesting. Spent the evening going from bar and event to bar and event, finally settled on Club Deville which was pretty good.
Have to say that the highlight of the evening was catching up again with Dustin Diaz and meeting his girl Erin ;-) Looking forward to the IHOP again!!! ;-)

Thoughts on first day of SxSW - 8th March 2008

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/9
in Uncategorized
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Sunset on the way to Austin from ChicagoSo I’m at SxSW again, and really loving the vibe. Missed it last year due to a little project called Kindo, but made a point of coming this year.

I’m not really sure what it is about “South By” that makes it so cool, apart from bringing together the best people in the industry, so at the moment I’m going with the idea that it’s where you get to meet and spend time with so many people that think the same way you do. Along the way you get to soak up stuff from people who have been successful, and listen to people who have already solved problems that you need to… On reflection whilst writng this I think the key for me is that I get to step outside of the daily grind and get some fresh prespective, with people who are doing the same thing. More on that soon. Also noticed there are more girls this year… ;-)

So, without further ado, some highlights of the day: Panel schedule

Ajax and Flash mistakes was pretty interesting. Some new idea for Kindo there, and some affirmations of stuff that I have been feeling negative about for a while. Also some affirmations of stuff we’ve done well too. Checkout slideshare.net

Startup Management was pretty interesting. Many new ideas for our team and really cool to see that people everywhere face the same issues… Checkout Dogster.

Opening remarks was perhaps most memorable for me in that it kinda made me realise how big the US is… And how different the UK, Europe in general and South Africa are from it. Jenkins and Johnson were amazing to listen to, and I can only hope that some of their thinking becomes more mainstream in the years to come. Apart from that, they’ve inspired me to make Kindo more than what it is now, and to embrace the course we’ve set for ourselves.
Recommend listening / watching if you can.

10 things we’ve learned at 37 Signals was a good kick in the nuts. I’ve always enjoyed listening to Jason. He seems to be able to distill stuff into nuggets that are easy to take away and do something about. I find myself getting caught up in the detail too much (which I’m working on) so it’s a good example to follow. Take homes were around focussing on good copy, making small decisions more often and disruptions being the enemy of productivity.

Social marketing strategies looked interesting but aimed too corporate for what we’re doing now, and so I elected to write this, catch up on some emails and think about stuff I want to implement in Kindo.

I’ll be putting photo’s on Flickr when I have more bandwidth… ;-)

Any Africans at SxSW?

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Gareth Knight
on 2008/3/8
in Uncategorized
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I’m at SxSW in Austin, Texas and am wondering whether there are any other Africans here?
Ping me if you are, would love to hook up for a beverage or two ;-)

Brace yourself Sheila, Kindo is on TechCrunch

Published
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Gareth Knight
on 2008/2/7
in Uncategorized
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This morning we all got into the office and started the day as usual. Get in around 9, get the day started with review of actions (sharpen the saw) and meetings that need to happen, then the daily SCRUM (yesterday, today), then get to it… We knew there was an important press release going out today, but we didn’t know what was going to happen or how it would be reacted to.

Then in the space of a few minutes we’re on the front page of TechCrunch UK, US and France.

We’ve followed a deliberate and intentional strategy (which is obvious by us having 14 languages) of going local fast, which is also reflected in the many blog posts from Kindo friends around the world, so I guess I’m trying to say that whilst we’re not officially an English site (English is not the language with the most users for us), it sure feels good to get that kind of brute force exposure to tech people all over the world. You just have to look at the number of RSS readers that TechCrunch US has (659K), then add UK and FR, to wonder whether our servers will melt today… ;-)

On another note, Nils has written a really good post (IMHO) about where we are now, which I’m not going to try and re-produce in tone, but I will say that I’m going to do my best to make sure that when we’re a teenager we’re going to rock ;-)

Anyways, more soon - some factoids for you that might be relevant:

  • Built with Segaull php framework, flash, jQuery and MySQL
  • Been live for 15 weeks
  • Languages include Arabic, Chinese (simplified and traditional) and Russian
  • Users in around 150 countries

;-)

Ever seen Web2.0 in Arabic?

Published
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Gareth Knight
on 2007/12/14
in Uncategorized
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I’m extremely proud to say that due to some hard work from Ali in our office, we’ve released Arabic into Kindo… so now you get web2.0 family tree building and family social networking in Arabic, and 11 other languages…

Pretty neat eh? ;-) Check it out and blow your mind…