
Salesforce debuts Do.com, a smart social productivity app for small teams - raghus
http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/08/salesforce-com-debuts-do-com-its-take-on-the-social-productivity-app/
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jashkenas
Fantastic. From poking around in the console a bit, it looks like Do.com is a
Backbone.js app, and is using Handlebars.js for templating.

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nixme
Yep. CoffeeScript too :)

What you see is just the beginning. If anyone's interested, we're hiring
developers and designers: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3060989>. We
run as an independent business unit within Salesforce, similar to Heroku, and
have our own office in downtown SF. Great perks from a large company but all
the benefits of shipping as a small team.

~~~
Lewisham
Any chance of pinging out an invite code for HN users?

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nixme
For sure. <https://do.com/users/sign_up?invite_code=PROTROSTYBY>

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scottbruin
Thanks for the invite as well.

Been using Asana about a week now so here's some comparisons:

* I like that less is happening on hove compared to Asana—I find the over-reliance on hovers and background changes (cf. new Twitter) very distracting

* the notes idea is cool

* You have the same issue Asana has with "groups"—can't drag a group together

* I prefer Asana's ability to rely on the keyboard heavily

* You should add drag/drop for file uploads, at least using the right pane as the target. I work on a 10yo application so I know why we don't have it but with apps like this it's a no-brainer. It would also improve the upload flow which I dislike, though Google Docs integration is great.

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dreeves
Quoting Paul Graham [<http://messymatters.com/pgnames.html>]:

"Nothing could be less cool, at this point, than calling a startup 'cool.com.'
A company with a name like that could not have arisen organically. 'Cool.com'
smells of a media conglomerate trying to create a web spinoff."

He has a point, yet getting the do.com domain proves they're taking this quite
seriously. I guess the two signals cancel and I'm left neutral about the name.
:)

Where that really matters, of course, is for startups like stripe.com and
simple.com (formerly banksimple). They have justifiably huge value for their
expensive domain names: being taken seriously is life-or-death for them.

Although I dislike all these expensive names -- especially "do" -- on other
grounds: <http://messymatters.com/nominology>

Btw, I'm curious how do.com compares to trello.com...

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maaku
"do.com" and "cool.com" are not comparable.

1) "do" is a verb 2) "do" describes exactly the value proposition 3) "do"
describes the product, not your relationship to it

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dreeves
Good point, "do" is certainly more evocative a name than "cool" would be
(unless the latter were in the refrigeration space).

I think it's a lousy name otherwise though. It's, ironically, not even really
verbable. Technically it is a verb but not one that you can use to invoke
do.com. Imagine swapping 'trello' for 'do' in this sentence:

"Our task list is getting out of hand -- we should trello this."

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Uhhrrr
What does this do that is "smart"? The article only mentions one concrete
thing that this program does, which is figure out your e-mail address when you
send it an e-mail:

 _For example, send a short e-mail to task@do.com and it will automatically
detect your address and add an entry._

I do not think this counts as smart.

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saturdaysaint
Looks remarkably like asana.com, flow.com, orchestra.com... Seriously, how did
this happen? The UI, emphasis and core functionality of all these are so
similar (even for a narrow category) that this cannot be a coincidence.

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arbales
I can't speak to how those companies have built their products, but I can say
that the inspiration for our product was Manymoon, and a three-pane view was
always in the cards. It's a fairly straightforward UI paradigm used across
many apps. I'm a huge fan of apps like Reeder and Sparrow, and they take this
UI approach as well. As for the focus of the app, stay tuned :)

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davcro
Happy to see that Salesforce is releasing its own apps on Heroku. It shows
they are serious about using the platform as it is, instead of turning it into
something enterprisey.

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annon
"Do.com has been in private beta testing thus far, but now the team wants to
open its beta to more participants. It has extended an invitation for the
first 200 VentureBeat readers that sign up using a select link to give it a
spin. Go to the link <https://www.do.com/users/sign_up> and enter the code
“DONKISCHESPOZ” to take part. Those who get in will also get 5 invites of
their own so they can bring other people into the app."

~~~
Nemisis7654

        "Invite code is not valid"
    

All the invites have already been given away.

~~~
irunbackwards
Anyone who got in want to share one of their five invites?

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dantiberian
I'd like one too. My Twitter username is @danielwithmusic.

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jgnatch
I'd like one too... Please :) ?? My twitter username is @jgnatch

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fieldforceapp
I think these guys ripped us off, and all they did was go after the low-
handing fruit: tasks only. We pushed to add geo-tagging, voice, business card
scanning, and some a peer-to-peer CRM system.

Plus, we have a cooler name: <http://fieldforceapp.com>

I guess we shouldn't expect Salesforce to cannibalize themselves with a mobile
CRM solution, but still they could have tried a little harder!

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colinplamondon
I doubt you got ripped off, given that most people have never heard of you.

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fieldforceapp
I don't know, ask Gopal. But it will be interesting to see if SFDC does
anything truly disruptive in this space. Hard to see how shareholders are
getting much value from a task manager behind an expensive two-letter domain
name!

Sure Marc's got deep pockets, but is there any organic growth here?

