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MetaLab launches "Flow" Asana competitor
- FreshCode 16y agoBased on the website landing page and the beautifully produced video, is this more than a glorified todo list?
- ianhawes 16y agoThats what I thought at first, but to be honest it's pretty powerful. When you combine this with a small to medium company, I think its a strong solution.
- jarin 16y agoSince Flow launched first, isn't Asana a Flow competitor?
- jwwest 16y agoJust what I was thinking. I'm interested in hearing how long Flow was in development versus Asana (2+ years?). Considering Asana hasn't launched diddly, I'd say flow is the incumbent.
- jarin 16y agoHas Asana really been in development for 2 years? Maybe someone should send them a copy of Dreaming in Code. Edit: Wow, I just looked at their "feature list" again. Do you REALLY need LDAP integration? Does it really need to be written in an in-house language? Why does a todo list that's supposed to work just as well for a single user need Gantt charts and a wall on each todo item? If anyone's ever used Quickbase, that's what the feature set makes it sound like.
- splish 16y agoGiven the items you mention, LDAP potential and Gantt charts the enterprise could be a bigger target for Asana than Flow at the moment.
- puls 16y agoCan you really call it an "Asana competitor"? Last I checked, Asana was still vaporware.
- iheartmemcache 16y agoI think you're mistaking a "closed, really private beta" with Duke Nukem Forever vaporware. There are hundreds of people using Asana with great success according to the videocast on their site. Organizations ranging from software companies, recruiting firms to biotech institutions. <shameless solicitation >Speaking of which if anyone from Asana wants to give an invite to a 5 man Django shop, we'd love to test it out for you guys. My contact information is in my profile :)</ss>
- nicksergeant 16y agoAs a user of Flow for the past few weeks, I've been blown away by its UI and usefulness. Unfortunately, the pricing seems a bit steep for personal use. I'd also like to see some clarity on how pricing works with groups of people.
- revorad 16y agoSo how much would you pay for personal use? It seems almost impossible to sell any web app for personal use.
- lovskogen 16y agoHow is that impossible?
- revorad 16y agoHow many examples of web apps can you give me, which are being sold directly to consumers for personal use? By personal use, I mean not for use at or for work. I can barely think of a handful and even those are quite often paid for by the buyer's employer as a perk or productivity investment.
- gojomo 16y agoWhat's the reasoning behind 'almost impossible'? A price point of $40/2-to-4-users, or even $40/year, is much more thinkable for individuals/families than $120/year/person. From the screenshots, it seems like it should be possible to have a cheaper capped-to-a-small-set-of-collaborators version that a family of 3-6 could use, but still charge business prices for more/arbitrary collaborators and other features. (I have a friend who's been looking for a good app to coordinate family tasks with his wife; iPhone apps and simplicity/speed/reliability of interface are of paramount importance... but integration with web/email/desktop, following-features, and threads are all of negligible importance. Flow looks nice but overkill in features and price for this need.)
- stanmancan 16y agoGreat interface, which isn't a surprise from MetaLab. It's great to see such top notch work coming from Canadian companies, especially out of my home town (Victoria BC).
- foobarbazetc 16y agoMeh. They ripped off Things.
- minalecs 16y agoScoble also wrote about convofoy yesterday. Seems like another cool project.
- gojomo 16y agoFYI for others looking for this project: it's "Convofy".
- frsandstone 16y agoThis looks extremely similar to Things...
- wilzan 16y agoIt does. It's also way more money. If you don't need the collaborative stuff, I don't see how it's worth it.
- pauldisneyiv 16y agoPerhaps this is exactly what Asana needs. Nothing drives a group like a strong competitor. An interesting lesson for all entrepreneurs as Asana has had a beta rolling since June of 2010. Plenty of time to get something to market. Something > Nothing. Let's hope both end with great products - I love the concept.
- mikeryan 16y agoNothing drives a group like a strong competitor. Funny I came in to say the "team collaboration" space seems terribly crowded.
- HaloZero 16y agoI guess for personal use it's a bit expensive. Remember The Milk costs $25/a year vs $100/year for Flow.
- AashayDesai 16y agoRTM doesn't offer any of the collaborative features that Flow does, nor do they have a native OS X app. I use RTM, but mostly as a simple TODO-list that is geo-enabled.
- rue 16y agoIt is, when considering the value proposition over e.g. RTM is the collaboration. $99 isn't terrible but by itself it's really got nothing over the multitude of other GTD options. To use it to collaborate, for just me and the wife, it'd be $198/year, if I understand the pricing correctly. I'd certainly pay the $99 for a family licence which could be, say, 2 install-everywhere keys plus one just for desktop (for the kids).
- dcdan 16y agoI have a similar side project. How do you guys respond to seeing something similar launched? Assure yourself that you have better execution?
- rdrimmie 16y agoI personally would not be able to convince myself that my side project's execution is /better/ than something MetaLab (or any of the many companies I admire) built, but certainly it would be better suited to my personal itches. That is not intended to be a comment on your execution though, I don't know what you've built. What I would try to do is refine the niche that I am satisfying. There are a ton of task management applications out there, which means that there is a large number of ways people like to track and do their tasks, which means that something that solves your particular problems very well is going to satisfy more.
- olivercameron 16y agoFlow is a great product and emphasizes the "ship sooner, rather than later" model. They had a set goal in mind, and with a relatively small team, managed to create a family of amazing apps in a short space of time. Kudos! Asana and any company that has 2-3 year development cycles could learn a lot from MetaLab.
- ilannewyork 16y agoNot true Oliver... They've been working on Flow for at least 2 years.
- metalab 16y agoNot true. We've been working on it for just over a year.
- boor 16y agoWhat framework/language was this coded in? Cappuccino?
- rmoriz 16y agoI see traces: https://app.getflow.com/assets/standard_interface.js https://app.getflow.com/assets/standard_interface.js - backbone.js (~44 controllers extend from FlowViewControllerAbstract) - underscore.js - jQuery - iscroll https://github.com/cubiq/iscroll - socket.io - Modernizr - SWFupload - Showdown.js (Markdown parser) Server (heroku): - Rails - nginx/0.7.67 - varnish
- rmoriz 16y agoMore on the backbone.js part: Models: Flow.Models.BaseModel - Flow.Models.Account - Flow.Models.Activity - Flow.Models.Attachment - Flow.Models.Comment - Flow.Models.Count - Flow.Models.Invitee - Flow.Models.ListItem - Flow.Models.Tag - Flow.Models.Task - Flow.Models.TrackedChange Collections - Flow.Collections.Accounts - Flow.Collections.Activity - Flow.Collections.Attachments - Flow.Collections.Collaborators - Flow.Collections.Comments - Flow.Collections.Folders - Flow.Collections.Invitees - Flow.Collections.List - Flow.Collections.Projects - Flow.Collections.Tags - Flow.Collections.Tasks Controllers: View: - FlowAccountTasksInfobarProjectsListViewController - FlowAccountTasksViewController - FlowActivityPopoutViewController - FlowBillingSettingsAccountsDivisionViewController - FlowBillingSettingsCreditCardDivisionViewController - FlowBillingSettingsDeleteDivisionViewController - FlowBillingSettingsSubscriptionDivisionViewController - FlowBoxDetailViewController - FlowDelegatedTasksInfobarPeopleListViewController - FlowDelegatedTasksViewController - FlowFolderDetailViewController - FlowFolderInfobarPeopleListViewController - FlowPopoutListViewController - FlowProjectDetailViewController - FlowProjectInfobarPeopleListViewController - FlowQuickSearchResultViewController - FlowSearchResultsViewController - FlowSidebarPeoplePaneViewController - FlowSidebarProjectsPaneViewController - FlowSidebarTagsPaneViewController - FlowSWFPhotoUploadViewController - FlowTaskDetailInfobarPeopleListViewController - FlowTaskPopoutFormViewController Event: - FlowAppEventController Front: - FlowFrontController
- 16y ago
- mwdev 16y agoThey are both a MindWallet competitors. They probably don't know it yet though. http://www.mindwallet.com http://www.mindwallet.com Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNpAH7AGhIk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNpAH7AGhIk
- willw 16y agoThanks for peddling your unrelated application.
- mwdev 16y agoYour welcome. In what way do you feel it is unrelated? I'm doing something in the group collaboration space. There were a bunch of other links posted. Some of which I hadn't ever heard of. I though it was a good contribution. Log in. Create an item. Share the item. Let me know if you still think it is completely unrelated. Unrefined. yes. incomplete. yes. Full of bugs. Yes. But it is an mvp and I need all the feedback I can get. Even if it is a little persnickety.
- some1else 16y agoCut the guy some slack. It's not like he's asking $10/month.
- dabeeeenster 16y agoSo let me get this right, it's basically twice as expensive as the entire Google Apps suite per seat? Are they completely mad?
- wmf 16y agoHey, it's twice as pretty as Google Apps.
- btucker 16y agoTheir intro video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxF7F5T-_Z8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxF7F5T-_Z8) is beautifully produced, but man does it make me uninterested in trying out Flow. The video presents a use case (planning a simple party) that already has multiple "free" solutions (SMS, Email, Cellphones...) which seems like a much easier approaches. Do people really want to assign todo items to their friends? I get that Flow is probably capable of much more, but I can't understand why they'd put so much effort into a well produced video that doesn't do anything to sell the product. Or maybe I'm alone in my reaction to it?
- jcfrei 16y agoAs you pointed out, the video was beautifully crafted and the tune used was quite catchy as well. It's called "Up From The South" by The Budos Band, in case anybody was looking for it.
- alabut 16y agoI recognized it instantly and wondered how they were able to use it for a commercial video. I thought the licensing was too expensive to use a major label group?
- statictype 16y agoVideo done by this guy, in case you're interested: http://lonelysandwich.com/ http://lonelysandwich.com/ He's done quite a few iOS/Mac promo videos.
- jey 16y agoTodo lists are a concept most people can already relate to, so there's no need to go to great lengths to explain why the product is useful. Instead they can get away with focusing on a whimsical use-case that's conducive to demos. So it's probably good that they picked a use case everyone can relate to, instead of focusing on a more realistic use case like tracking software bugs that only some people can relate to.
- btucker 16y ago
- joshu 16y agoHey, it's That Guy in the video from all the other iphone apps. Strange?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- martinshen 16y agoMetalab is so sexy. http://getballpark.com http://getballpark.com is their other great app. I'm a huge fan of their MAC like design.
- flyosity 16y agoMAC... the makeup brand? Or the unique identifier for network interfaces? Sorry, the all-caps MAC is a pet peeve of mine. Almost as bad as iTouch.
- zackb 16y agoThe UI is absolutely gorgeous. And I thought the intro video was very well done. I've been looking for an alternative to Things.app for a while. OmniFocus is just too expensive and won't let me collaborate with my family members. I really like that you buy once and run anywhere as opposed to Omni's method of buying an individual app for Mac, iPhone, iPad. $10 a month seems like too much though. I would suggest a cheaper (free?) version for 1-2 users. That being said, I'm still signing up.
- nhangen 16y agoWhat about Wunderlist?
- martinshen 16y agoAnyone know what the group pricing is?
- faramarz 16y agoVery well designed. The quality is so well done in fact, that I'm surprised it's not behind a pay wall. This would be perfect for the iPad. I suppose giving us a 14-day play time should help convert.. but If I were MetaLab, i'd charge from day one. Treat it like an iPhone app. plenty of folks waiting to click Install. Not only that, people tend to make time for the apps they pay vs. free apps. Get them to commit from day one. I think this is critical! Regardless, Congrats! +1 for the Canada :D
- al_james 16y ago>Treat it like an iPhone app. plenty of folks waiting to click Install. In the App Store maybe, but not many people are waiting to pay for web apps.
- sirwitti 16y agolooks very professional to me, but... you have to click on sign up to get any price information. if i´d be a "normal" user i´d perhaps had left the site before even knowing that it´s quite expensive. the video is cool, though the voice sounds bored. maybe a more interesting example and screenshots/videos of the mobile app versions could be included in the video. i woulldn´t sign up without seeing how the mobile versions look. but anyway, quite interesting! (kept me from finishing, ok starting with, my paper :)
- jashkenas 16y agoI'd be very interested in hearing if someone from Flow could talk a bit about their client-side code. It appears to meld Backbone.js with Socket.IO, for live updates to models via remote collaboration...
- jasonwebster 16y agoI'm looking forward to writing a bunch about that. I'll be drafting a series of blog posts over the next little while that will cover our choices, problems, and experience developing the app so far--and, more importantly, going forward.
- locusm 16y agoGlad someone asked that question, was thinking I'd get to the bottom and have nothing but pointless discussion on 10 bucks being worth it or not.
- drivingmenuts 16y agoIs it just me or does the site not work in Safari?
- Hominem 16y agoSeems complicated
- some1else 16y agoThey forgot to use the social collaborative tune! SocialText (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKezmcIEhZQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKezmcIEhZQ) and Chatter (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsK2nXp-fWs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsK2nXp-fWs) both do, lol.
- antihero 16y agoIt says my e-mail is not available, and it doesn't have an Android app. People have chastised web developers for not developing for IE6 and other browsers, so why is there not the same attitude towards people who don't develop for Android? You're cutting over 50% of your market.
- pclark 16y agobecause supporting additional browsers usually doesn't require an entirely new code base, compared to mobile platforms.