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You're correct that it's not really about the writing interface per se. I've been using OhLife for about two weeks now, and the fact that you get this daily ema

You're correct that it's not really about the writing interface per se. I've been using OhLife for about two weeks now, and the fact that you get this daily email prompt to write is the key.

bravura 16y ago
Surely it must be more than that, because you can just as easily add a daily task on Google calendar with an email (and SMS) reminder.
- gwern 16y ago
  Certainly, but I don't see any automatic way way for a Google calendar reminder to automatically include a previous entry. That would need a Labs or something else more advanced.
  - crazydiamond 16y ago
    The rest of these features are just frills, like replying to an email, or getting a previous random entry. A simple shellscript does the main job. In fact, mine actually used to do a "tail" of the existing file before prompting me for a new entry, but i found that a bit annoying.
    - gwern 16y ago
      Are they frills? There is no before-after comparison, of course, but the articles does say: > It sounds far too basic, but the OhLife team says that it works: they report that 50% of users who complete their first entry have continued to add an entry at least once every other day. It probably helps that, despite the spare feature set, the site is very nice to look at. At this point OhLife isn’t doing anything to monetize, but if it can get traction then the team will consider freemium options.
- cmelbye 16y ago
  It is more than that. If you actually read the link for a few seconds, you'll see that one can simply reply to the nightly reminder it sends. Compare that to a Google reminder that would send you a link which you'd click, then log in, then open your Journal document, then scroll down, create a new heading, etc.
- revorad 16y ago
  Yeah, that's exactly what I tried for a while. Daily Google email reminder asking something like "How do you feel today?" or "what did you learn today?" and I'd write a short quick reply to my private posterous. I think OhLife's idea of including an old post is very clever.

You're correct that it's not really about the writing interface per se. I've been using OhLife for about two weeks now, and the fact that you get this daily email prompt to write is the key.

bravura 16y ago

Surely it must be more than that, because you can just as easily add a daily task on Google calendar with an email (and SMS) reminder.

gwern 16y ago
Certainly, but I don't see any automatic way way for a Google calendar reminder to automatically include a previous entry. That would need a Labs or something else more advanced.
- crazydiamond 16y ago
  The rest of these features are just frills, like replying to an email, or getting a previous random entry. A simple shellscript does the main job. In fact, mine actually used to do a "tail" of the existing file before prompting me for a new entry, but i found that a bit annoying.
  - gwern 16y ago
    Are they frills? There is no before-after comparison, of course, but the articles does say: > It sounds far too basic, but the OhLife team says that it works: they report that 50% of users who complete their first entry have continued to add an entry at least once every other day. It probably helps that, despite the spare feature set, the site is very nice to look at. At this point OhLife isn’t doing anything to monetize, but if it can get traction then the team will consider freemium options.
cmelbye 16y ago
It is more than that. If you actually read the link for a few seconds, you'll see that one can simply reply to the nightly reminder it sends. Compare that to a Google reminder that would send you a link which you'd click, then log in, then open your Journal document, then scroll down, create a new heading, etc.
revorad 16y ago
Yeah, that's exactly what I tried for a while. Daily Google email reminder asking something like "How do you feel today?" or "what did you learn today?" and I'd write a short quick reply to my private posterous. I think OhLife's idea of including an old post is very clever.