
MetaLab launches "Flow" Asana competitor - alibosworth
http://www.getflow.com/
======
btucker
Their intro video (<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
As 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
I 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?

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dabeeeenster
So let me get this right, it's basically twice as expensive as the entire
Google Apps suite per seat?

Are they completely mad?

~~~
wmf
Hey, it's twice as pretty as Google Apps.

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nicksergeant
As 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.

~~~
subpixel
I respectfully call this a ridiculous proposition. How is $10/mo expensive for
this, or for anything in life?

It seems to me Flow pricing is learning a valuable lesson from MobileMe: if
it's useful, people will pay.

~~~
revorad
Are you a Flow or MobileMe customer? I'm genuinely curious and want to know
why you'd pay for these.

~~~
subpixel
I'm not a Flow customer, but if it solves a problem for me I may signup (I
gave up on Things, just started using Wunderlist, but delegating/collaborating
are very useful features I've wished for...)

I pay for MobileMe b/c it gives me true over-the-air contact/calendar sync on
my iPhone. If another solution came around, I might consider it, but could it
be free? And if not free, less than $10/mo?

I also pay for Flickr for purely personal use, b/c I want to be able to share
my photos and let my friends/family download full-res files.

~~~
br41n
You can "over-the-air contact/calendar sync on my iPhone" etc. with the FREE
Gmail also. Yes, you can set it to have push & notifications too...

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jarin
Since Flow launched first, isn't Asana a Flow competitor?

~~~
jwwest
Just 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
Has 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
Given the items you mention, LDAP potential and Gantt charts the enterprise
could be a bigger target for Asana than Flow at the moment.

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HaloZero
I guess for personal use it's a bit expensive. Remember The Milk costs $25/a
year vs $100/year for Flow.

~~~
rue
It 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).

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puls
Can you really call it an "Asana competitor"? Last I checked, Asana was still
vaporware.

~~~
iheartmemcache
I 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>

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jashkenas
I'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...

~~~
locusm
Glad 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.

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boor
What framework/language was this coded in? Cappuccino?

~~~
rmoriz
I see traces:

<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
More 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

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pauldisneyiv
Perhaps 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
_Nothing drives a group like a strong competitor._

Funny I came in to say the "team collaboration" space seems terribly crowded.

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mwdev
They are both a MindWallet competitors. They probably don't know it yet
though.

<http://www.mindwallet.com>

Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNpAH7AGhIk>

~~~
willw
Thanks for peddling your unrelated application.

~~~
mwdev
Your 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.

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frsandstone
This looks extremely similar to Things...

~~~
wilzan
It does. It's also way more money. If you don't need the collaborative stuff,
I don't see how it's worth it.

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zackb
The 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
What about Wunderlist?

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faramarz
Very 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
>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.

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olivercameron
Flow 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
Not true Oliver... They've been working on Flow for at least 2 years.

~~~
metalab
Not true. We've been working on it for just over a year.

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some1else
They forgot to use the social collaborative tune!

SocialText (<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKezmcIEhZQ>) and Chatter
(<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsK2nXp-fWs>) both do, lol.

------
antihero
It 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
because supporting additional browsers usually doesn't require an entirely new
code base, compared to mobile platforms.

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sirwitti
looks 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 :)

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stanmancan
Great 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
Meh. They ripped off Things.

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martinshen
Metalab is so sexy. <http://getballpark.com> is their other great app. I'm a
huge fan of their MAC like design.

~~~
flyosity
MAC... 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.

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drivingmenuts
Is it just me or does the site not work in Safari?

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dcdan
I have a similar side project.

How do you guys respond to seeing something similar launched? Assure yourself
that you have better execution?

~~~
rdrimmie
I 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.

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FreshCode
Based on the website landing page and the beautifully produced video, is this
more than a glorified todo list?

~~~
ianhawes
Thats 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.

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minalecs
Scoble also wrote about convofoy yesterday. Seems like another cool project.

~~~
gojomo
FYI for others looking for this project: it's "Convofy".

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joshu
Hey, it's That Guy in the video from all the other iphone apps. Strange?

~~~
splish
In case anyone is interested or doesn't already know it's That Guy here:

<http://adamlisagor.com/>

<http://lonelysandwich.com/>

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martinshen
Anyone know what the group pricing is?

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Hominem
Seems complicated

