.: the bojicas

This is my first attempt to create a screencast, related to my w2task.com project. Comments are welcome.

For a higher resolution version, please check W2task screencast on screencast.com.

Update. I have posted a flash version, too. Enjoy.

[EN] Banks, peanuts and donuts – are not always a good match in my opinion. In Sharjah, I’ve recently seen such an ad for a well known bank.

If in English, selling peanuts has a meaning of selling worthless things, in Romanian, selling donuts means selling overpriced things or worse – selling lies – oops.

Knowing this, let’s see the ad, in pictures …

Other banks offering you this?

Other banks offering you this?

The sweetest thing. No problem, we’re offering … donuts (ooopss) … 

The sweetest thing

Nice, isn’t it? We are leaving into a cosmopolitan country and we need to take care of the way others are seeing us. One size doesn’t fit all. Be aware marketers!

[RO] Bănci, alune și gogoși – în opinia mea nu fac întotdeauna echipă bună. în Sharjah, Emiratele Arabe Unite, am văzut de curând un astfel de panou publicitar stradal al unei cunoscute bănci locale.

Dacă în engleză, expresia a vinde alune e folosită cu înțelesul de a vinde mărunțișuri, în română, a vinde gogoși echivalează cu a vinde … hai să fim direcți – a vinde minciuni - ups.

Având în minte acestea, să vedem reclama, în imagini…

Alte bănci vă oferă asta? (alune – a se citi mărunțișuri)

Other banks offering you this?

Nici o problemă, noi vă vindem … gogoși (ups) … 

The sweetest thing

Frumos, nu-i așa? Locuiesc într-o țară cosmopolită și tocmai din acest motiv trebuie să avem grijă la aparențe. O mărime nu se potrivește tuturor. Celor din lumea marketing-ului, aveți grijă!

The user starts with the sign up screen. Pretty easy and straight forward:

But, after filling in all required info, the new user is thrown up into a screen like this:

I know, it is not friendly at all, that’s why I am waiting for some suggestions. Basically I am thinking to replace this screen with a message to explain that the user should create a business or to collect its id number and give it to a business administrator to be added to an existing business?

What to you think?

Original topic started on support section of w2task.com - http://is.gd/irUs

A new week is starting in force. But before that, let’s go quickly through the week just passed. Yes, you’re right, I’ll focus on next paragraphs on the Wednesday’s event DemoCamp Dubai 4th edition, the first demo camp on which I have been not part of public, but of the presenters.

The event itself had part of great media coverage, and here I’ll have to mention Shuttlegazine, The National, Startup Arabia, Tech-wd.com.

Demos, as usual there were four:

1. restate.ae – an iPhone application used to complement and give mobile access to a well known real estate portal which covers Dubai properties. It has been created by the guys behind SpinBits.
2. StartUpArabia Database – a moderated wiki like database dedicated to Arab technology startups, entrepreneurs and financial organizations that anyone can edit and enrich. Most of all, Moh’d Marwan Meddah put his soul in creating StartUpArabia.com, proving that in a selfish world, it is not necessary to be selfish yourself to win.
3. eMapia – eBay and Google Maps combined, a niche web application providing a way to getting in direct contact the buyer and the seller.
4. w2task – a web based task and time management system. This has been presented by myself – a truly amazing experience. Not everything worked according to the plan. It took me a while to synchronize the pitch of my voice with the levels of the sound system, often sounding either too loud or too low. This, of course, had a domino effect in my presentation spirit, making me quite tensed.

However, although I am taking note of the above imperfections, I would mark the above event as an achievement, especially because of the great feedback which demonstrated that such type of applications can have a great future. As I’ve seen in the National due to recession, when big companies are cutting down on budgets and on projects, it can be a lifetime opportunity for startups to play from the same level with the well established companies.

In development terms, that means I would stabilize the base code of w2task, improve the workflow and make it more appealing for the first time user, when no data is present.

Let me conclude with the greeting posted on Twitter:

Good morning! It is time to start in force a great new week!