Adding and removing small features like a maniac

Ok, now a few knows about our service. And now we have some feedback. And the feedback makes us work hard.

This is really strange: When we opened the service, at that exact moment, I was available to see it from a new user's perspective. Before I was blinded to small or even bigger problems. Now I am able to be more critical and, well, realistic about the UI we have created. A lot of fixes done and a lot to do. Today we actually took the design we had already back in January, changing small details we have learned along the way.

There's a load of features on the TODO-list, but all in time. Which brings me to the motivation of this post. I want to share a small home-made video we created, visioning the illtags mobile service:

We're open, but don't tell anyone!

The service is open, feel free to test and explore it. We have a bit of server trouble, which is the reason you should not tell anyone about our service, yet :)

Now we're trying to test and learn what is the server capacity need for a certain amount of users.

Launching pre-alpha, waiting for revision 7000

Subversion revision is at 6852. Pre-alpha is ready, but so is H1N1, according to local newspapers.

I think the launch will in few days, maybe even tomorrow, but I'm not sure about our servers. We'll have to launch it very very silently, just for the important feedback and try to get a solid server base ASAP.

We would probably make it invite-only, but we're not really Gmail or Spotify. Besides, it's too much of a hazzle with the invitation e-mails.

Demo ready!

Buy me or Markus a beer and we'll show what we have managed to create :)

Or wait a few weeks and the service will be open for everyone. There's still a lot to do, but we try have the service up and running even as an early alpha before everyone has H1N1. Hopefully the Madonna concert next thursday is not the turning point in Finland. If I had paid 100 euros for the ticket, a small or a bit higher fever woudn't be enough to skip the concert...

No time to blog, a good sign?

No, we're not on holiday. Quite the opposite in fact. The project is going forward, sometimes backward, a bit to the side and sometimes leaping through different dimensions. It's difficult to blog any details in the middle of the turbulence, and there really is no time.

This week I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. The concept drawings are now alive, the architecture under the hood is solid and scalable. The gears are running just as we visioned, which feels amazing. It was magical to log in the service for the first time (for a moment, before the first fatal bug).

I think we're on schedule, launching something already this fall.

The flu

Maybe you have read the latest influenza news. And maybe you have noticed that internet has reacted to it in various creative ways. Our radar has picked up news visualization, Google flu trends in Mexico and few attempts to profit from the influenza. And then there's always art.

I wonder about what if our service was already ready and in wide use, how it would have affected this... It's clear that when a scary influenza starts spreading, it is completely different thing than common cold, because the officials start to take action. What internet and social media can do though, is provide data about the few last days, maybe help officials to focus the resources? I try not to think about the big brother, even though quarantining people by what they say in the internet is a heavy thing!

We'll come back with illtags.com later. We have made a few important steps with both concept and business development. We also had our first advisory board meeting, accidentally in a Mexican themed restaurant (= meant to be!). The project is gaining speed, still a long way to go though.

Planning ahead

We have spent the last weeks having some interesting negotiations with potential collaborators in Finland and around the world. We cannot tell all the details yet, but will tell you more when we get some final contracts done. We also got some additional workforce now, so our product development is proceeding at a comfortable pace now. 

So no more juicy details at this point, but we will keep you posted when we get a bit further.