Today is the unveiling day of a new web application I’ve been working on the past few months. I am pleased to announce: Status. I worked on it with my friend Richard of Shiftedfrequency.
What is Status?
Status is a communication tool that is all about private groups. You can either start a group, or get invited to an already existing group. Within your groups, there is but one single function, and that is to “Check in”. When you check in, you are letting the others in your group know what you are doing and where you are.
The idea is that everyone in the group can, at a glance, get up to date with what everyone else is up to! And without the worry that you are broadcasting private information out for the whole world to see.
It is very easy to check in. If you are at a computer often, there is of course the web interface. If you are a Mac user, there is a Dashboard Widget you can use to update your status. If you are on the go, you can send in status updates right from your cell phone via a text message.
Why is this useful?
The idea for this site came from the company that Richard works for. Richard lives and works in Baton Rouge, but the main office for his company is in Dallas. Some of the employees also work from Houston and a few cities in Florida. Not only is this confusing already, but much of the job involves being “on site” at different client locations. So where is anybody at any given time? Who knows! To find out, you’d have to take a stroll around the office, pop in on people and ask around. “Hey! Who knows where Diane is?!”
Clearly, a waste of time and energy. They needed a simple solution for all these employees to stay on the same page with each other. This is what Status is built to solve. Now that all these employees are checking into Status, everybody can see at a glance what each other is up to and where they are.
As useful as Status can be for keeping track of your group, it can be just as useful for keeping track of yourself! All your updates are saved to your account, so if you need to take a glance back at your week to see what you were doing (say, to bill some time), all that information is there for you.
Is it free?
Yep, there is a free plan for groups up to 5 members. If you need this for a business or any larger group, we have plans to accommodate any group size starting at just $10/month.
Screencast: Introduction to Status
Wanna take a peak inside Status and learn a bit more on how it works? Watch the screencast demo below! (The quality should be good enough to go full-screen)
Wanna be in the CSS-Tricks group?
Should be a cool way for us all to keep in touch! The best way to handle this I think is for you to just use my Contact Form and just shoot me a note (make sure you get your email in there correctly) and I can add you to the group. See ya’ll there!
So is this just like twitter, but with private groups? kinda like direct messaging but to a group of people instead of to just one person?
cool thing, i hope you are not having bandwidth problems like twitter ;-)
one question: how are you implementing the sms text message interface? Is that a special media temple function or is it an external provider?
looks nice..
I agree with Rick Nunn. I’ts twitter-like groups.
Anywyay, I think is a nice idea.
Uhm, once u go click through the site, there is NO WAY to navigate back to the homepage, and UI really really needs a be looked at.
Congrats on the release, Chris! Launch Day: Always a nervous but exciting feeling.
http://statushq.com/terms.php
the link in the intro links to .html which does not exist.
Yep, it’s a bit like your own private Twitter.
@V1: The homepage itself has very little of value to someone who already has an account which is kind of the theory behind the home links always going to /statuses instead of the root. I understand how that is kinda weird though, we’ll look into a better way to get back to that homepage. Fixed that terms link too, thanks.
Great job Chris & Richard..
I have a question about the SMS feature… how did u do it?
Wish you all the best..
This is a great idea. My wife and I started using Twitter to send quick notes to each other during the day as she’s in school and I’m at work. That way we knew when we couldn’t call or when we were available for whatever reason. Then, however, other friends started to follow us and, eventually it became the case that we didn’t want to share our location and activities with all of those people. The idea of a private group allowing us to resume that sort of communication might be useful to us.
Michael, Abdullah-
We’re using Textmarks for the SMS feature: http://textmarks.com
This is wonderful. Great Job!
i like this very much its a very simple service and seems very useful
i was wondering how you did the SMS, it seems more and more web 2.0 applications are using SMS and i really want to know how they do it
could u please explain the process of creating a website that can send and interpret text messages?
Backpack already does this.
http://backpackit.com/
Backpack only got pay-to-use models (excluding the 30 day free trial). I can see Status as a “serious” Twitter, where you’d use it for work/school work and projects instead of just gabbling away. Nicely done and congratulations!
jordan
i wana bet for 10 bucks he did the design. it has chris his “style” all over the place.
Mostly design, but you know, me and Richard did this as a team so I also helped with my share of “thinking things through”. For such a simple web application, man, there is a TON of stuff to think about.
thanks, thats very useful for me.
Congratulations on the Status Launch, Chris! :)
Where can I get the dashboard widget you mentioned in the screencast? I’m trying to convince my boss this would be easy for him to use. I can already see him calling me to update his status.
@Catherine When you are logged in, click the “Your Account” link on the upper right. There is a tab for the Widget with the download and your login/key to make it work.
Awesome. That makes too much sense for me to have noticed.
Have you heard of Yammer? I just saw them launch at TechCrunch50.
They’re the same idea, but a much more intuitive interface, as well as a set of huge new features as well.
They’ve got a huge publicity running, how are you going to compete with that?
@Paul I like Yammer, their demo was very cool. We are in a similar market, but we do a few things differently. I’m not worried about it or anything, the interwebs are a big place and there is room for everyone!
thanks for these useful informations :))
Have you heard of Yammer? I just saw them launch at TechCrunch50.
They’re the same idea, but a much more intuitive interface, as well as a set of huge new features as well.