Estonians Get Things Done - Meet Ski Track
To start off with, I think it's fair to say that I'm a huge fan of different todo-applications. I've tried about half a dozen different apps in a serious manner, so it was easy for me to have ago at another one called Ski Track. I don't know what they're mixing into the water in Estonia, but this is now the third GTD-style app coming from there in about a year's time (see TimeGT and Edge). And I mean that in a good way. Ski Track is interesting to say the least. I believe they've managed to get many aspects of the UI right and you feel at ease when you look at it.
The service is now in public beta, but it's still very early on in its development. They have a bunch of interesting features and in my opinion, it's a great start. The whole approach to this seems very Mac-like, the design and how the logic in using the service flows.
Nice little things for traction have been implemented when you sign up to the service for example. Not only do you enter your own account details, but you are able to include other team member e-mails as well. Makes small team sign-ups a lot faster.
Two issues that I have with most GTD apps is to do with the sharing of tasks as well as the possibility to use the applications as desktop applications. Why desktop applications you may ask? They're still faster compared to the web and in many cases you're able to build universal shortcuts to certain functions, such as adding a task. The second issue is to do with the possibility to share your tasks, or in other words delegate it to someone else in your team. Many apps come short in my opinion on these two fronts, which are crucial to proper usability in larger scales.
Ski Track has however some intelligence built into it, that does set them apart from other competitors in the space. They have, for example, programmed the application to better understand and estimate when a certain task will be done based on people's track record and how they work. This is obviously a great add-on if your whole team is using this and you're the team leader.
Nevertheless, Ski Track is playing in a tight space with other bigger more established competition already. This doesn't mean they won't be able to win though. The key to move forward in my opinion is where can you find the beach heads and user groups that you'll be able to win. They might be in a certain industry, but it's definitely worth pursuing. Only then, will they be able to show the advantages of having previously mentioned intelligence built into their service.
The problem I have with GTD is that it's so difficult to get into for the casual person. You really need to get into the mindset of "optimizing your life".
I've been using a GTD app called Epic Win on iPhone which makes it a lot more fun :) http://www.epicwinapp.com
@ramine true, but EpicWin is not a GTD app. It's just a todo app.
I saw the title SkiTrack and was expecting a Ski app or startup focusing on skiing and I saw that they have ski terminology used in their product features and pricing. Without following through too much on the details of the product or technology which could be super I am wondering if they might have confused their target consumer. Are you over selling the concept based on technology alone? Or is there a marketing method that will pull in the customers?