
Trello hits 12M users, launches Power-Ups platform - potshot
http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/19/trello-hits-12m-users-launches-power-ups-platform-with-partners-giphy-join-me-surveymonkey-and-zendesk/
======
rogerbinns
My biggest beef with Trello is lack of multiple account support. For example
if you use it in your home life (as their blog greatly encourages), and also
want it for work (as their business model greatly encourages) then you'll want
distinct accounts. Without distinct accounts, you get a mixing of the data,
permissions, where it is accessed from, notifications, email sent by them,
makes board admin harder etc.

While you can try some hacky alternatives in a browser, they are a pain,
confusing and a poor workaround. On mobile you are completely screwed, unless
you want to log out and log back in each time you want to switch accounts.
(You do have a long cryptic passphrase which makes this even worse?)

Google has shown for years how to get multiple accounts right. Why does no one
seem to learn? (Yes, Dropbox I am looking at you too.)

~~~
jacquesm
> Google has shown for years how to get multiple accounts right.

I really hope that was a joke on your part. If there is one thing that was
irritating it was how google would mix up and connect various accounts at
random for no particular reason.

~~~
rogerbinns
My wording was poor, and Google certainly don't get them perfect. It does
fundamentally work though - you can connect multiple users in web and mobile
apps and switch between them as you see fit. Sometimes it does select the
wrong account for whatever you were trying do (calendar used to do this a
lot), but you can usually just switch to the correct account.

My main frustration is services that don't even get close to Google's
implementation and user experience for multiple accounts, despite it serving
as an example for many years. Like Trello, most seem to not even bother, while
others like Dropbox seemed to do the worst combination of things possible.

~~~
lobster_johnson
I would argue that Google's account system is extremely poor.

What it considers your primary account is apparently the first one you add, so
if the order is wrong, you have to sign out of all of them and start over [1].

But it's not exactly like that. Recently someone added me to a new Google Apps
for Work (or whatever it's called this month) account, and now this new
account is, mysteriously, the default account, even though I've had a
different one for ages.

If you open Google Calendar, it will embed the account number in the URL
([https://calendar.google.com/calendar/b/3/render](https://calendar.google.com/calendar/b/3/render),
for example), but this number obviously isn't static. If you have multiple
devices and sign in elsewhere, the number might be wrong.

You also get this number as "?authuser=3" in every Google Hangout URL. But
that number is yours — when people share a link like this, the recipient
typically ends up opening GH for the wrong account. Google Hangouts is
notoriously finicky about accounts, and the loading screen will often hang if
you happen to be using the wrong one for a particular hangout ID. Sometimes GH
shows the (tiny, dark gray) account switching link, sometimes not. (Hangouts
is generally a disaster when it comes to actually starting one.)

[1] [http://osxdaily.com/2014/08/13/set-default-google-account-
mu...](http://osxdaily.com/2014/08/13/set-default-google-account-multiple-
gmail-accounts/)

~~~
thebournepopret
I have many frustrations with Google's multiple accounts. I use multiple
personal accounts, a personal Google Apps, a business Google Apps, and a self-
hosted (university) Google Apps.

I've found the best solution is to create bookmarks for GMail and Calendar
with the URL like you mentioned, except you can use your email address in
place of the number (that is, in stead of/b/3/ you can do /b/user@gmail.com/).

Not perfect, but I hope this helps!

------
mhp
Awesome that this hit front page. Thanks!

But I think the more interesting link for the HN crowd is this one:

How to build a Trello powerup: [https://developers.trello.com/power-
ups/samples](https://developers.trello.com/power-ups/samples)

Sample github repo: [https://github.com/trello/power-up-
template](https://github.com/trello/power-up-template)

~~~
sideproject
what about trello tech stack? that's quite interesting for HNers too!

[http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-trello-tech-
stack/](http://blog.fogcreek.com/the-trello-tech-stack/)

but that post is about 3 years old, so I wonder how they changed over the
years....

~~~
sergiotapia
We also have some additional info and insight on Trello's tech stack:
[http://stackshare.io/trello/trello](http://stackshare.io/trello/trello)

~~~
thedufer
Where does that data come from? It's significantly out of date. I guess
because the tech stack blog post is so old?

~~~
jay_kyburz
Can you tell us if the core components are the same. Node, Redis, Mongo?

I've been looking at Node, Redis, PostgreSQL for my next project.

~~~
thedufer
Node, Redis, Mongo are all still in use (although Redis pub/sub no longer is).
There are a lot more components, though, and some of the front-end libraries
listed are no longer true.

------
gglitch
Trello: if you'd let me buy you once, install you locally, and save my data
locally and in an open format, like Day One, I'd be a lifer. Fantastic program
otherwise, though I remain an Org man.

~~~
phillc73
I had a similar concern with Trello. There are a few decent open source self-
hosted alternatives. In the end I settled on Kanboard. It has a lot more
features than Trello and a decent (although recently launched) plugin
ecosystem.

[http://kanboard.net](http://kanboard.net)

------
smt88
I'm genuinely surprised at how tiny Trello is. I guess if enough of your users
are paying and your overhead is low, it really doesn't matter.

~~~
timrpeterson
How many employees?

~~~
smt88
LinkedIn says 54. That's 222k _registered_ users per employee. If they have
10% active users (which I think is generous), then they're looking at 22.2k
users per employee.

Basecamp currently has 50 employees on LinkedIn. I'd be interested if anyone
has stats for how many users they have.

------
markbao
Business Class-only is a bit frustrating (if it needs to be paid, can it be on
Trello Gold too?), but this is really exciting. Would love to see if people
start to develop tools for productivity (like Pomodoro and that sort of thing)
with it.

~~~
Angostura
Yup, lots of cross Gold users on the blog.

------
zamland
I think Trello is going to win the task management wars. It's better designed
for mobile (card interfaces), simple to start with additional functionality
bundled in, its interface is general purpose rather than specific to
developers, and it's building a robust platform. I think this company has
executed it very well. Bravo.

~~~
threatofrain
One thing that surprises me is that Trello's cards don't behave like cards,
whether on iOS or Android. They simply look like cards. You don't swipe them
to do anything. You don't multi-select the cards.

They're just card-looking buttons that open up a modal dialogue, and they've
been this way since the beginning. I find it rather slow or bulky compared to
Google's concept of cards.

~~~
zamland
yes fair point. agreed.

------
dabernathy89
I've always wanted to like Trello, but i'm never sure quite how or what to use
it for. It doesn't work well for me for project management, since you can't
create tasks with due dates or assignees. I'm not sure how folks get around
that.

edit: I was thinking of checklists, not cards.

~~~
hk__2
> since you can't create tasks with due dates or assignees.

You can do both.

~~~
dabernathy89
Is that new? Unless something's changed recently, the only way I knew of to do
this is a hacky workaround:

[http://help.trello.com/article/942-assigning-people-and-
due-...](http://help.trello.com/article/942-assigning-people-and-due-dates-to-
specific-checklist-items)

~~~
lucasmullens
That link is referring to checklists. You've been able to assign people and
due dates to cards for a long time.

~~~
dabernathy89
Sorry, this was about a year ago when I was researching different options for
project management, and I forgot that it was the checklist feature that I was
thinking of.

------
lmcnish14
Why do power-ups inconsistently change the markdown for Github links?

When you don't have power-ups enabled, it will shorten all Github links and
add a nicer format to certain types but when you do have the power-ups, it no
longer shortens Github links at all but adds the octocat to the beginning.

While having power-ups can be nice, the added inconsistency is a bit off-
putting. It would be great to shorten and format all of the links in the same
fashion across all boards regardless of whether or not you have power-ups
enabled on that particular board.

------
benchmark6
12M 'registered' users...

~~~
flardinois
I asked them about that ([http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/trello-launches-
developer-p...](http://techcrunch.com/2016/01/19/trello-launches-developer-
platform/)). Those are total signups, not active users. They are not
disclosing monthly actives.

~~~
mhp
It's not really a secret:
[https://www.quantcast.com/trello.com](https://www.quantcast.com/trello.com)

~~~
smt88
Yes it is. Some users will only ever use the mobile app. I don't know anyone
on my teams except myself who log in on the web.

~~~
mhp
Quantcast has our mobile data too.

------
philfrasty
Would be nice to have the Power-Ups working in the mobile apps...still waiting
for the calendar-view to be available on iOS.

------
edgyswingset
I love the idea, but is the ability to display gifs _really_ all that
important in the context of what they intend this to be used for?

------
leuma
What is nice about the Trello is that, they have never for once confined
themselves to developer community. From the beginning Trello was given as tool
to organize yourself, and it still appeals to my wife as it does appeal to me.

The new Power-Ups platform would definitely add more dimensions to trello.

------
im1983
lol on the graph. of course it will go up over time.... I'm sure their DAU
graph is looking much "better".

------
yazriel
Trello???

It is so under powered. They been at it for years and still no decent SEARCH,
no proper sub-tasks or dependencies, etc.

To me, it feels like there is no real active development on this.

~~~
mkuhn
Maybe not having all these features is part of the concept?

~~~
x1024
Maybe, but at least the lack of "search" is critical.

