Being beaten to the punch-line blows
Cleaning out my RSS feeds this morning I came across an article reviewing a web application called ShiftSpace. The application allows collaborative annotating and editing of any web page on the internet by using an overlay. So why am I writing about this? Well, Charles and I had been working on an in-house project that did the same exact thing. Every single feature we dreamed up was in there, it’s as if these guys read our notes! (they didn’t)
This isn’t the first time we’ve been working on a project only to find someone else has released an identical application midway through development, but it doesn’t make it any less frustrating. Developing for the web is a two-edge sword; you can develop an application and release it to the masses in a very short time, much faster than it takes to develop a physical product. The downside is, so can someone else.
To their credit, ShiftSpace did a decent job with it, I’m happy to see an idea executed well. They do have room for improvement however… Requiring the user to install Firefox, install an add-on and then install the script just to be able to use the application? Come on guys, bad form.
For us, we have a few other in-house projects that we are working on at the moment, and we have no shortage of new ideas. We even have an in-house project that we have been working on for almost a year now that is nearing completion, and should be released at the end of October. Score.
apparently you destroy me in the ideas department, it took me about 100 hours of brainstorming to come up with my blogs TITLE.. and in reality steph is the one that came up with it.
This sounds a lot like what happened with Mr. Skin on Knocked Up, (if it is a Mr. Skinesque site let me know i’ll beta for you guys ;)
Yes, it’s exactly like what happened with Mr. Skin! Fortunately we don’t have all our eggs in one basket.
Titling blogs is like trying to name your character in an RPG, painful.
@Cale, at least you admit that I was the one who thought of it.
@Justin, And my name in UO was super inventive..
That’s right.
Steph
(and yes I did play UO… but only to tame animals and buy clothes)
But in all actuality, I’m excited to see what you’ve been working on Justin.. You kind of rock at this internet stuff, I must say.
@Steph Hahaha, that’s awesome! I like you so much more now. I used to play about 10 years ago…. man that makes me feel old.
Thanks for the compliment :)
@Steph Was that the game where you had the pink llama?
The developers where I used to work optimized everything on our company sites for Firefox. I hated it! Most average people use IE. I think it’s pretty ridiculous to expect everyone to have Firefox.
@Lisa: Cutting off a group of people due to stubbornness or lack of ingenuity is just wrong. You can get away with it within the confines of a company because you can force usage, but in the real world it’s completely unacceptable.