I never thought this day would come, and it still isn't really here yet, but it's a promising start. I stumbled on to it while trying out their new 'beta' timetables (which are horribly broken in Firefox 3), so I assume it will be improved and officially announced soon.

It works a lot better than trying to use their main 'for desktops' website on a phone, even on the iPhone. Rather than giving you the full timetable, it gives you the next 8 or so departures from that stop. That's generally all you want to know when you're out and about (although it means you can't plan ahead, e.g. work out when the last train is until it is too late). You can even choose to get the departure time, or in 'countdown' form, i.e. departing in 5 minutes.

It is basically similar to the SMS services available from Yarra Trams and Connex Melbourne. Those existing services are in fact much more powerful than Metlink mobile. However, there is no such service on any of the bus lines, so it is new for them.

Accessing Metlink timetable information on your mobile

1. Open up your mobile's web browser. Of course, make sure you are connected to the internet blah blah.
2. Navigate to - http://tt.metlinkmelbourne.com.au
3. Here's where it gets tricky. It obviously is a prototype at the moment, so it asks you for the 'Stop ID'. See below for instructions on how to find out the Stop ID of your stop. For now, let's try a bus stop (9663 - Chadstone/Warrigal Rd/Holmesglen TAFE), a tram stop (18194 - Southern Cross/Spencer St), and a train station (19854 - Flinders St Station). Enter one of those Stop IDs into the Stop ID box.
   
   
4. Select whether you want 'Monitor' or 'Countdown'. 'Monitor' means that it returns the time of the next few services departing from that stop. 'Countdown' means it returns the number of minutes until the service departs from that stop. The examples below will explain the difference.
5. Click Submit.

And that's it! There's not much more information available yet (e.g. no platform numbers for trains); although I presume they're working on it. Here are some sample results from the service (the tram example is using the countdown mode; all others are in monitor mode):

Discovering the Stop ID of your stop

Direct method - use this method if you know the name of your stop (generally its location)

1. On your computer, open your browser and navigate to http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/maps_stations_stops/station_stop_information
2. Select which mode of transport you want to get on at that stop. Note - if that stop services more than one mode of transport (e.g. Flinders St Station has both trams and trains), it will have multiple Stop IDs, one for each mode of transport.
3. Using the dropdown boxes in the 'Stop Search' section, find your stop.
4. Now under the new 'Stop Profiles' section, you should see your stop. Click on the link.
   
   
5. Now either,
• look at the URL of the current page - the Stop ID is the number at the end of the URL, e.g.
  
  
• or, look at the new 'Services from this Station' section (this is part of the new Beta timetable project) - the Stop ID is displayed at the top-right of that box, e.g.
  
  

Via the route method - use this method if you don't know the name of your stop, but know the route that services it.

1. Find the timetable page for the route that services the desired stop, e.g. http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/index.php/route/view/956. The beta timetable pages work fine as well.
2. Click on the desired stop to go to the Stop Profile.
3. Follow step 5 in the direct method above.

For the lazy people, here are the Stop IDs for City Loop train stations:

• Southern Cross (Spencer St was a much better name) - 22180
  
• Flagstaff - 19841
  
• Melbourne Central - 19842
  
• Parliament - 19843
  
• Flinders St  - 19854
  

Where to from here?

At least Metlink is finally listening to their frequent customers and fixing their website and mobile access. The Metlink website is great for occasional use, but absolutely sucks for frequent travellers (I think I can subconsciously type in my stops into Journey Planner now that I've done it so many times). So among other things, can we have RSS feeds soon, please? Timetables and service updates are perfect candidates for feeds.Your view engine seems to be based on XML and XSLT anyway, so it won't be that hard to apply an XSLT to produce RSS.

Oh, and the URLs for the new beta timetables are ridiculous. There has to be a better way of doing things. And My Way seems to be dead, not that it was ever very useful anyway. And please fix journey planner too - it sometimes produces incorrect times.

And I hope you intend to have platform numbers, stop information, journey planner and service updates on the mobile as well.

I could go on, but I think that's enough for now

TV just isn't what it used to be. It isn't just an idiot box where we can flick it on, channel surf mindlessly, change the volume, and turn it off when we're done.

It's not just about tuning in to some pre-programmed channel anymore - its about gaming (PS3, 360, Wii), movies (DVDs, divx), videos (YouTube), photos, and plain old TV (FTA, Foxtel). Manufacturers have been working to make these increasingly complex devices easy to use; most significantly is what has been coined the 10-foot interface.

The 10-foot interface refers to the user interface that's built into devices to allow users to access the variety of functions it has without having a button for every one of them on the remote (even though it feels like it does). 10-foot refers to the general distance the user will be from the screen. Most new TVs have menu systems, as do DVD and HD recorders, DVD players, and set top boxes to name a few.

The most complex of all however, are the media center interfaces, e.g. MythTV, Windows Media Center (MCE), Tivo, Netgear's Digital Entertainer HD and Apple TV. These devices have enormous capabilities, able to watch/timeshift/record TV, watch DVDs, surf the net, watch YouTube videos, play music, control lighting, launch nuclear weapons at your neighbour for being too noisy... you name it, it can probably do it. To let you access all these features, these devices present layers upon layers of menus, all with a smattering of big-sized buttons (and more hidden by a keypress), all accessed via a remote from the 90s except with the number of buttons multiplied by a billion. Effectively, they've taken computer user interfaces, blown them up so we can see it from 10-feet away, added a splash of paint, polish and shine, and thought "that'll do".

These devices are supposed to make our lives easier. Try finding a particular song on them and playing it. You'll either spend ages scrolling through your massive list of music, or you'll throw the remote at it in rage trying to key in the song title using the on-screen keyboard. My favourite exercise in frustration is trying to enter your wireless security key into them using a remote .

The humble remote is the weakest link in the whole experience. It started failing when VCRs became programmable, and just went downhill from there. Using it with a 10-foot interface makes me feel like a puppeteer - helpless and frustrated. While manufacturers upgraded almost everything else, the remote has conceptually stayed the same, and given minimal attention. Does anyone still use the number pad on it? Does any one actually remember channel numbers anymore?

There have been third-party attempts to revitalize the remote, like the Logitech Harmony 1000 Universal Remote. But without proper manufacturer support, it's an uphill battle.

However, the remote I believe, also holds the key to resolving the problem of operating these devices.

Instead of jamming the whole user interface on to the screen, it should be separated - the presentation side (i.e. playing videos, music visualizations etc.) should be on the TV, while the operation side should be on the remote.

Let's start with the remote. It should have minimal physical buttons, with the majority of the functions accessible via a touchscreen... with multi-touch, why the hell not . The display should not show the content on TV, but rather the details of it, and the possible operations. It doesn't necessarily have to be in sync with the TV (i.e. linked so it shows the information related to what's on the TV) - what's important is that it controls it.

In the music only world, there's already a few early examples of this:

Logitech Squeezebox Duet

Sonos Music System

So in effect, the user interface, except the content, is moved on to something a lot more usable, practical and accessible.

But that doesn't mean the TV should be devoid of any user interface. The problem with a setup as described above is that there is no longer a social component to consuming content (damn I hate that phrase). I'm not talking social over the net, but rather with the people in the same room. At max you could have about 2 other people squinting at the remote, and that's boring. 

The TV should instead be both a presenter of content, and a secondary screen for the remote. So if I'm scrolling through YouTube videos on the remote, everyone else in the room should be able to see what I'm scrolling through on the TV. No buttons, options or anything superfluous - just the content I'm going through on the remote.

Apple TV + a nicer looking interface + iPod Touch + a few more buttons would be a good start. But of course, Apple TV is only a 'side project'.

It really isn't such a hard concept to bring to fruition, and would make these things a lot easier to use, but there isn't really anything out there like this that I know of (Pocket PC interfaces don't count - they're an ugly hack). Maybe the problem is that designing and manufacturing electronic components is costly compared to software development. Or maybe the skill sets required for it is so different to the skill sets these companies have that significant investment is needed. Or maybe no one else seems to think 10-foot interfaces in their current incarnation are a bad idea.

I wish I had a few million dollars, a team of software engineers, a team of designers, a team of electrical engineers and a manufacturing plant handy sometimes...

For the last year or so, my HTPC has been laying dormant, only occasionally waking up. As cool as it was, it wasn't really practical - the screen was too small watch anything, and I had no room to put a bigger screen in my room. Plus it was just too fiddly and slow to navigate through my content with a remote. So for the last year, it has been working as a ridiculously overpowered alarm clock.

It just became silly, and wasted a large amount of power doing nothing (yeh, I'm being green), so I looked around for something to replace it. Unfortunately, for some silly reason, cool, practical and alarm clocks just don't seem to mix, unless you went for an iPod alarm clock dock (e.g. JBL's OnTime) or a mini stereo system (e.g. Bose Wave II). The nicest one I could find was the Philips AJL308, which was good in concept, but had buggy and very basic software, plus the screen looked washed out and colours were uneven.

Then I remembered the Chumby. It's hard to describe what it is, because it can do a lot of things. Essentially, it's a wifi-enabled alarm clock with a touchscreen. But rather than just syncing the time up with internet clocks, you can setup widgets and it will scroll through the information on your screen, including news, weather, engadget, digg etc. It is available in black, pearl or latte - I got the pearl one.

At the point in time, it is US only so their store won't ship internationally. However you can use the various forwarding services out there to get one. I used PriceUSA who were awesome - great service, prompt delivery, and kept you in the loop through whole way. It ended up costing me around 250 AUD, which is a bit more than the 180 USD retail cost when converted even including shipping, but the options are few unless you know people in the US. None of the functionality is affected by the US limitation, although obviously most of the content available on it is US content.

The out of box experience is great. It comes in a bag, not a box (although it was probably shipped in one for protection):

Plug it in (you'll need to bend the pins or get an adapter to get the US plug working - adapter supports 240V fine though), turn it on, and you'll be prompt with the intro tour:

The characters are funny, and the tour is actually useful. Alright, so the Chumby doesn't have the Apple 'brushed metal' cool factor to it, but has its own cute kind of cool feel to it. And it permeates through the whole device - it is designed to be like a soft beanbag, with soft leather sides and beans inside the bottom. You get a pack of 3 charms to add some bling to your Chumby, plus you have to give your Chumby a name, reinforcing the notion that it is yours.

Next you have to setup network connectivity, otherwise the Chumby will be fairly useless. It supports everything up to WPA-PSK (plus hacks to make it support networks with landing pages). It only has wireless connectivity, so connecting a cable is out of the option (without other devices anyway).

A few more settings have to be done, including timezone, and then its time to activate it with the Chumby Network. Activation isn't compulsory, but without it the Chumby would be fairly useless because all the widgets come from the Chumby Network. Again, its pretty painless, and at times very slick - the Chumby Network knew exactly when I had authenticated my Chumby and proceeded automatically.

Once activated, a default selection of widgets are available on the device, including New York Times, engadget and chumball. You can pick and choose widgets from the Chumby Network website. Chumball is interesting because it is one of the few widgets that make use of the accelerometer built into the Chumby. Yep - it has an accelerometer built in. The Chumby device is full of unused bits, including the microphone on the front, and the battery connector at the bottom.

It is worth noting that given certain conditions, the Chumby Network will inject ads into your widget stream, called a channel. At the moment, if you have less than 6 widgets in a channel, ads are avoided. This injection of ads isn't made very clear on the website which has disappointed some people. The argument is that it pays for the Chumby Network, and the ad model is similar to what you get on TV; after all, the Chumby is kind of like an internet TV. Most of the ads are videos (currently, there are CBS ads running), although the sound is disabled unless you tap the screen. Because it is a US device, the ads are naturally US oriented. I personally don't mind them, but others might and it isn't very clear in their product material.

The Chumby can also be used as a fairly flexible music player. Music can be provided via USB, iPod (except the iPod Touch and iPhone as they lack the 'act as a disk' functionality), SlimServer/SqueezeCenter, or a variety of internet radio streams. The downside is that it can only play OGG and MP3 files/streams. That rules out a lot of internet radio streams out there, particularly the commercial ones, which broadcast using WMA. Reason is that WMA has a licence that is too restrictive. RealPlayer streams are also out, probably for a similar reason. Luckily, the Chumby team are working on a USB radio dongle addon to all you to tune into FM radio - the code is already mostly there, so it should be released soon.

Sound quality is surprisingly good for a device this size. Bass is fairly non-existent, and the sound does get tinny at times, but it doesn't distort, even at high volumes. It is also loud enough to fill a decent sized bedroom - should definitely be loud enough to wake you up if it is sitting on your bedside table.

Speaking of sitting on your bedside table, the device has a night mode as well, which dims the screen ahd only shows the time, so it isn't shining in your face at night and rotating through widgets for no reason.

So back to the main use case - the alarm clock. You can set a particular volume, so it isn't blaring at you in the morning, and isn't so soft you can't hear it. You have the option of setting multiple alarms (not sure of the limit). For each alarm, you can set a particular day, weekdays, weekends, or a certain day of the week. The time can be set to the minute. You can choose what it should play from any music source, and for how long (so it won't keep playing continuously if you're not bed that night). There is a snooze function as well, and you can preset the interval (in 5 minute increments). Finally, you can make it do something when it activates, including turning night mode on/off, or changing to a certain channel.

It is definitely usable as an alarm clock, and even has a switch on the top for you to whack. But there are some deficiencies. Firstly, it has no battery backup feature, so if the power goes out, it won't wake you up (although the battery connector on the bottom is supposed to provide this functionality in the future). Also you cannot choose the snooze interval when the alarm is ringing - it will always snooze to the preset interval. It doesn't have a sleep function (although you can emulate one). And there is no increasing volume feature - the music just starts. Ok, maybe I am nitpicking a bit.

From a typical person's perspective, it is a very usable and viable alternative to your boring alarm clock. As a bonus, it only consumes around 4 watts of power, which is probably on par with most alarm clocks even though it does a lot more.

But that's only half the fun of getting a Chumby. The Chumby is designed to be hackable. It is based on an ARM processor, and runs a stripped-down version of Linux. You can SSH into it by activating the SSH daemon via an easter egg. The Chumby will also execute scripts on startup from an attached USB stick (give it a name of debugchumby and place it in the root folder of the USB stick), and you can override all sorts of things by having certain files on your USB stick. The Chumby wiki is a great source of information.

The most painful thing when hacking the Chumby is probably cross-compilation. Because the Chumby uses an ARM processor, programs compiled for desktops (typically x86 or IA64) won't work on it. You'll have to set up a cross compilation environment on your Linux machine - the toolchain is available here. Even with the toolchain precompiled, it is still painful, as GCC support for ARM is still iffy in parts, plus the ARM processor has no floating point match coprocessor (only a software implementation) so many things (e.g. video and SETI@Home) are out of the question, unless an optimized fixed point version is available.

I tried compiling ffmpeg and mplayer for WMA support (the inbuilt BlueTune player source code doesn't include WMA code, but does support it), but gave up after numerous tries (I'm not the most knowledgeable cross-compilation expert obviously).

If only the Chumby used the new Intel Atom chip instead... then it might get a bit expensive :)

Luckily, the Chumby devs have made various runtimes available on the Chumby, including Python, Ruby and Java. Stick them on your USB stick, and you're off - no more cross-compilation stuff, at the cost of performance, resources, and possibly functionality. I used it to load the python-based lastfmproxy so I can have last.fm playing on my Chumby - see here for details.

Might have been more expensive than a typical alarm clock, but I definitely thought it was worthwhile (appeals to the geek in me, and is practical as well!). The major downside for me is the lack of ability to turn into commercial radio, via the internet or FM, but hopefully that will be remedied in the near future.

One of the big IT buzzwords has been software as a service (SaaS). Combined with cloud computing, it has been positioned as a paradigm shift in the way the world interacts with IT. It has changed much of the business world, and is already making inroads into the consumer world. In fact, many companies out there have staked their existence on it, and are doing ridiculously well, including Salesforce and 37signals, and there are others who aren't, e.g. many of those web 2.0 startups that have since disappeared.

It's appealing to software companies because it gives them a consistent cashflow. In the 'old' model of selling software, software companies had to continually keep releasing new versions with enough enticing features (or fixes) for users to upgrade in order to maintain and increase cashflow. The new SaaS model keeps the money rolling in on a regular basis in the form of client service fees, without the need to continually refresh their product (although those that do generally fare better). They also benefit from better control over their software (as it resides on their servers), so they can patch, update and upgrade as they want, and only support one version - the latest. On top of that, the piracy issue, the one Microsoft spent and still spends millions tackling (what is probably a futile uphill battle), disappears.

Customers win too, because they don't have to worry about any installation, maintenance, or data security steps, plus they often get the added bonus of having their software accessible from any net-connected computer in the world. For once, users can just concentrate on their doing what they got the software for. Lastly, the pricing structure is psychologically better. Let's face it - many of us are short-term thinkers in need of immediate satisfaction. A smaller price upfront with a long commitment is easier to swallow than a larger upfront cost with no strings attached.

But, like most things, every upside that seems to benefit all parties has a downside, which is often not in the customer's favour.

With SaaS, the problem is control. By going with a SaaS solution, users relinquish control over their data and how they use the software to the solution provider. For many SaaS solutions, data ownership is a major question that is often ignored by users, who are still getting to grips with the concept. At worst, the SaaS provider owns your data (probably through some wordy legalese stuck in a Terms and Conditions page only linked to from one page in a hidden link), and at best, you own it. But often, this is left ambiguous or not mentioned at all, and no one really cares either way. Do you really know what your provider can do with your data legally, regardless of whether or not you think you own it? I mean, pretty web 2.0 sites complete with slick effects, glassy graphics and glowing buttons can't be evil, right?

And even if you do apparently have ownership rights, do you really have the time or money to fight for it if they decide otherwise (often against large corporations with their super lawyers)? Let's not forget that many of these SaaS providers operate in different countries, and therefore our data is subjected to different laws, and not protected by ours. Do we really know the implications of sending that email using Gmail?

Ok, let's assume you retain ownership of your data. So what can you do with it? Data ownership is really a small part of data freedom. What kind of access do I have to my data? Who is responsible if my data is lost or corrupted? Email is probably the oldest form of modern SaaS. Anyone ever tried moving all their emails from Yahoo! Mail to say, Thunderbird on your desktop? It is a painful task, and one that can't be completely done (what about my sent emails?) This is actually an issue of both the old and the SaaS models though. Many apps on both sides of the fence offer open APIs and specifications which help alleviate this issue, while the more difficult ones are usually fixed using reverse-engineering and/or web parsing. The Data Portability project is trying to help, but it's a pretty big battle, not helped by so many new things coming out, all with working with different sets of data.

The old model however, has an advantage here - the user's access to their data via the software is not affected by outside factors. As long as the software runs, even if it means running on legacy hardware, the user can still access their data, unlike SaaS solutions, where if the solution is discontinued, or the company folds, then your access to the data will be governed on the access provided by the provider, and the acceptance of their data format by others. It's worth noting here that the openness of the data format really means nothing to your typical non-geeky customer - so what if it is in XML, YAML, or whatever the popular general data representation format is? Some maybe able to plead their case and win over developers to help them out, but most customers won't do that or get that chance. To them, their data is as good as gone.

That raises one of the primary conceptual differences in buying a SaaS subscription, compared to actual software - you do not own a copy of the actual software, or even a licence to it. You want to use that bit of software, you have to keep paying for it (and there is generally no way around, illegal or otherwise). If you can't pay for it, you can't use the software. As simple as that (ok, you may get leniency from the provider for whatever reason, but that's not the point). In effect, you are renting our software, but unlike traditional appliance rentals where you can choose to pay off and own the appliance, there is no such option here. If for whatever reason you are unable to pay the fee, you'll have nothing to show for all the money we have paid in the past, and your data is stuck in limbo. And if you dislike the new version of the software and prefer the older one, chances are, its bad luck, you gotta change.

Do the advantages of SaaS outweigh the disadvantages? I can't help but feel short-changed. There is a certain sense of security and pride from owning something that you don't get from renting something. The fact that we have grown up with the notion of being able to own software (or at least a licence to it) doesn't help either - this is a somewhat subtle, but giant shift in the way we acquire and use software, and the awareness of the new set of issues just doesn't exist for most people. From what I've seen, many SaaS companies seem content with capitalizing on this lack of awareness too.

Purchasing power has also partly shifted from the consumer to the provider; consumer sovereignty has taken a hit. The incentive for continuous innovation and improvement as a result of the consumer's purchasing power has been reduced, in some cases, quite significantly, depending on the service's data portability rules and the availability of competitors. While consumers lose their power, the software companies gains a system which yields consistent cashflow with a weaker link between their product and what the consumer wants.

It also becomes harder for consumers to vote with their money, as the barrier to change grows due to the SaaS's increased control. Assuming we don't want to pay for two similar services at once, a change over to another SaaS service could quite possibly mean the loss of access to the old software, and possibly the data as well - a cost that is too high for most people.

Are we, as consumers, really better off under this model, or is this just a ploy by software companies to shore up their financial position?

UPDATE (1/5/2008): Added a link to the data portability project, and a quick addition to what providers can do with your data.

A while back I was brainstorming ideas for a project to keep me occupied during the break. I'm a big fan of brainstorming and mindmaps, so I opened up MindManager (great program by the way) and started stormin' away. Things were going well, and soon I had a few solid leads that I wanted to follow. Being the indecisive person that I am, I asked a mate for some opinions on the leads I had and to add any thoughts he had.

He didn't have MindManager, and I didn't want to do it via clunky email, so I thought, hey, let's use one of those collaborative web 2.0 mindmapping sites! (It was a real lightbulb moment, I tell ya.) I uploaded the MindManager file on to MindMeister, set collaboration rights, and away we went. Or so we thought - the collaboration feature was still a bit half-baked back then, so it wasn't much better than emailing.

I downloaded the mindmap back into MindManager (so I can use it when I don't have net access), and started planning the lead I had chosen. Now, as good as MindManager is, it really doesn't cut it for me when it comes to project management (unless integrated with Project or Outlook, which I didn't want to do).

Without any other project management tool on my computer (and I didn't want to resort to Excel), I looked online. There were the usual ones, including Basecamp, goplan, huddle etc.

Thinking that this was a real hassle, and a bit of forward thinking told me it was only going to be harder,  I realised I had discovered a real issue when it comes to executing projects. There is no service available out there that provides a complete feedback loop for a project, from the brainstorming and development stages, to the delivery and customer feedback stages, and all the way back to the starting stages for version 2.

The only solutions out there only solve parts of the loop - e.g. MindMeister for brainstorming, Basecamp for project management, kluster for crowdsourcing and feedback, maybe ning for a social network/forums, wordpress for a blog, the list goes on - but none that integrate the entire loop together. But that's the way it should be - integrated. Ideas that were brainstormed and accepted should appear on the project todo list, feedback from a prototype should flow back to the brainstorm and management stages for improvement, and frequent problems reported in forums should be added to the planning stages for resolution in the next version. We shouldn't have to jump through hoops to be organised - it should be done for us. And users should feel like they're part of the process, not a victim of the numerous systems in play to solicit feedback which probably gets lost anyway.

In other words, its crowdsourcing meets project management. And for those who have been reading, yes, I called this project, loopboard.

Features could include:

• Brainstorming
• Mindmapping
• Whiteboards
• Lists

You could make it so you can insert 'dynamic' sections into your mindmap/whiteboard, so say, the top 10 bugs are visible and become part of your planning process automatically. Or maybe a dynamic section with the top 10 news items from your competitors.

• Project management
• Milestones
• Goals
• To-do
• File-sharing

Maybe even integrate with basecamp via their APIs for this. Be able to selectively make things public so not all your plans are revealed if necessary.

• Crowdsourcing
• user profiles
• friends
• roles in projects
• fans of projects
• skills
• personal details
• blog
• discussions - will be tightly task-driven, e.g. anything pertaining to a particular milestone will be associated with that milestone, anything about a particular to-do list item, will be linked with that. Will have discussions page that draws out all the discussions going on, but it will be obvious when viewing a particular thread what that thread is linked to. Will have quick interface to translate a discussion point into an action task.
• project profiles
• description
• team members
• goals
• announcements (facebook wall-like)
• blogs (project plus relevant team member entries aggregated)
• needs (e.g. investment, manpower)
• wiki/knowledge base
• ideas - complete with a voting system

Take a look at kluster - seriously, that's probably the best crowdsourcing platform I've seen by far. I love the cute jargon, the interface, and the investment models and algorithms.

You should be able to choose whether to make your project public, invite-only, or private. Users can have different roles, with different rights. Although to really harness the power of crowdsourcing, the project should by public, and accept input from everyone.

• jobs and services directory - companies can pay to advertise and gain exposure to the projects; members can advertise their skills as well.
• specialised application modules or APIs to allow for that to happen
• software bug tracking systems
• donation tracking systems
• review systems
• voting systems
• specialised feedback systems 

The platform should be as general as possible, so that it can be used for software projects, fundraising projects, or even projects like opening a new restaurant. Although it's probably worth concentrating on particular uses at the beginning.

Yes it is a project with a very wide scope, and is maybe trying to do too many things at once, but from a user perspective, it's a big step up from what we have right now, which are generally disparate systems only connected by us spending time and effort.

Like the idea I posted a few posts back, this one's free to a good home as well - I'd definitely be interested in something like this though.