Say Hello to CorkboardMe

April 8, 2012

Take a look around folks. We’ve significantly changed the way our site looks and feels, and created a better platform to provide you information.

If you’re reading this in a feed reader, look at it in your browser. We’re amazing. And humble. Here’s what’s new.

Contact US

You’ve always been able to contact us by sending questions and comments via a link inside the CorkboardMe app. But that was a little clunky for some users and had a few technical downsides. Now, we’ve partnered with Desk.com and added a form on our site that will directly link you to our support team. Send us comments, questions, bug reports or just say hello. We want to hear from you.

Better Pricing

And clearer too. Go on, take a look.

We’ll be changing our pricing structure soon. We have a lot of new features we’ll be releasing in the next few months, and we’ll be changing our pricing to reflect that. Our goal is to provide each user with the features they need without them having to pay for anything more. We can’t divulge much now but stay tuned for more information.

But wait! Each of our current subscribers will automatically be grandfathered into our best pricing with the largest amount of features once we make the changes. That’s a lot of service at steep discounts. You should take advantage of that. If you haven’t signed up, do it now.

Snazzier blog

Yep, we think it’s pretty great. We got our best designers together to come up with something you’ll love. Have a read.

Social Integration

Did you know we’re on Facebook and Twitter? Friend us, like us and follow us.

More to come

Ever want to easily send your coworkers files without having to rummage through directories? How about send yourself and others reminders? Stay tuned.

As always, send your questions and comments over to our support staff. We’d love to hear from you.

Refer a friend and get a free month!

February 29, 2012

Do you know someone CorkboardMe would be perfect for? We want to you to tell ‘em about it!

If you tell your friends about CorkboardMe and they sign up for one of our subscription plans (PS: we have new plans coming soon, stay tuned!), we want you to know we appreciate it. As a token of our appreciation, we’ll give you a free month of service. Refer a friend and receive a month credit on your CorkboardMe Pro Account. Refer ten friends and receive ten months.

To Receive Your Referral Bonus:

When you tell your friends about CorkboardMe, tell them to add your name and email address in the screen below during their signup process. If you already have an account with CorkboardMe we’ll automatically credit your account with the free month. If you don’t have an account, you can contact support@corkboard.me and we’ll credit you with a new account appropriately. Let your friends know!

New feature: Quick board switching.

Are you a Pro user of CorkboardMe? We’ve made it even easier to switch between the boards you own. After logging in, click the Settings icon in the bottom right to view a list of all your boards. Now you can manage your information as you want it, and get there quickly. Enjoy!

CorkboardMe, meet the iPad.

January 31, 2012

We’ve been working very hard to bring you one of our greatest releases yet: iPad support. And that’s not all. We’ve added a host of other features to make your CorkboardMe experience better.

Now for your iPad.

Everything you’d expect from an iPad app is now on CorkboardMe. To get it, simply go to http://corkboard.me in your mobile browser and away you go.

The highlights:

  • Use one finger to move the board. Anywhere.
  • Pinch with two fingers to zoom out. It’s infinite — the board is your oyster.
  • Tap on the board to create a new note, just like the desktop.
  • Tap a note to select it. This opens the Ribbon (see below).
  • Use one finger to drag any selected note across the board.
  • Use a two finger pinch to resize a selected note.
  • Delete, change color, zoom all through the Ribbon.

The Ribbon

We’ve added a new way to interact with items on your board. We call it the Ribbon.

  • Never accidentally delete a note again.
  • Change a note’s color. Do you use color to signify progress of a task? Now you can.
  • Zoom in and center on the note you’re using with one click.
  • Close the Ribbon (those three lines). Because sometimes you don’t need it.

Zooming. In and out.

We’ve had this feature for awhile but it wasn’t completely visible. Like you can zoom out in Google Maps, you can now zoom your board in and out. On the desktop, use the zoom bar in the top left corner of the board. On your iPad, pinch with two fingers, and you’re golden.

Feedback. We want it.

As always, we’re very interested in your feedback. This is one of our biggest releases and we hope you enjoy it. Send us comments or concerns using the “Need help?” button on your board, or send an email to support@corkboard.me.

CorkboardMe experience contest — get six months free.

Are you an avid user of CorkboardMe? We’re looking to publish great stories about how CorkbaordMe is used across the globe. If you send us photos and prose about how you use CorkboardMe on a daily basis, and we choose yours for publication on our blog and elsewhere, we’ll give you a six month pro account for free. The more creative the better. Send what you have to contest@corkboard.me.

Reach out against SOPA (downtime scheduled)

December 27, 2011

Recently, a bill called the Stop Online Piracy Act — or SOPA for short – has been proposed that will make website providers responsible for users’ content. If passed, sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, even CorkboardMe, in the name of piracy, could be sued for the data their users post. Though we believe the bill to be ineffective if made into law, we also believe it will have drastic effects on the makeup of the internet.

We think SOPA should be stopped. To show our support, we’re moving our domains (corkboard.me, and others) away from the domain registrar GoDaddy, a strong supporter of the Stop Online Piracy Act. We’ll be switching on December 29th, 2011, in honor of Leave GoDaddy Day. During this time you may see some loss in service, but once the domain has been transferred you will still go to http://corkboard.me, like normal, to receive the same great collaborative note-taking app.

If you have a domain with GoDaddy, we encourage you to vote with your feet. If not, we encourage you to call your congressperson and tell them you strongly oppose the Stop Online Piracy Act. Keep the internet free and accessible to everyone.

We thank you for your time and understanding, and wish everyone happy holidays.

The to-do list (and other important updates)

September 27, 2011

Lately we’ve been doing a lot of talking. Talking to our users. Talking to our customers. Talking to our advisers. We’ve also done a lot of listening, and we wanted to fill you in on our latest update to make your life easier.

First and foremost, lists.

That’s right. Our vision is to take the complexity out of managing your life, whether it’s at work, home or play. We know that if life management were the Oscars, the to-do list would get the best supporting role, and now we’ve made it even easier to add them to CorkboardMe.

Just press tab.

Like pressing Ctrl+B to bold and Ctrl+U to underline, you can now simply press the tab key (TAB) to create a list. You can create lists anywhere, even where text already exists, and you can nest them as much as you like. Just do this:

  • TAB to create a list item.
  • TAB to indent an already created list item.
  • Shift+TAB to un-indent a list item, or remove it completely.
  • ENTER to create a new list item with the same indentation.
  • Shift+ENTER to create an empty line between list items.

A new name, a new logo.

We recently asked for people’s opinion about what our new name should be. Though we had a lot of options, we decided to stick with our roots: Drop the dot, focus on “the me” (i.e., you) and run with it. We’re not Corkboard (those are those other guys anyway). We’re not Corkboard DOT Me. We’re CorkboardMe. It’s who we are, and we’ll continue to bring you the same great service as we always have.

Fixes and improvements galore.

Just take a look around: The housekeeping has been enormous!  Better looking interfaces. Nicer images. Better registration. Clearer buttons. Most of the changes can only be seen by our Pro users, but they’re there, and they’re glorious.

Also, this never received much fanfare when it was added, but URLs are (and have been) automatically linked if typed or pasted into a note. For instance, try sticking this great one into a note: http://corkboard.me/simple 

Contact us!

The Jerry Maguire saying isn’t quite “help you help us help you” but that’s exactly what we did: We installed a contact form on top of every board that sends an email directly to us. We want to hear from you, whatever the occasion. You have praise? Great, we’ll take it. Problem? Awesome, how can we help? Suggestion? Lay it on us. We want to continue to improve your experience and any input you have is greatly appreciated.

One last thing…

We wanted to give you a little taste of what we’ll be releasing in the coming months. Keep a lookout for:

  • More signup options and features.
  • A tool to dramatically change the way you pull information from other websites.
  • And iOS support (mobile).

Stay tuned. This should be an exciting year.

How to get 170k users in six months with zero marketing

June 16, 2011

When people say all the best tech companies started out of a garage, they’re probably not kidding. I mean, Microsoft did it. Apple did it. Google did it. Not many say their company started out of a New York City apartment with their prototype app displayed proudly next to a Thanksgiving turkey. But that was us. And it was good turkey.

Corkboard.me is nowhere near the leagues of stardom as our garage greats. But we’re having a wild ride turning our pet project into an app people actually want, and we’ve wanted to share what we’ve learned along the way.

So I’ll start there.

1. Make something people want.

This is almost always easier said than done, but it’s the backbone of what Corkboard.me is and how it came to be. Our founder, Tim Coulter, wanted to scratch an itch and change the way he managed his life. He didn’t build the prototype app for other people — only by luck did we find out it filled the needs of others, and not just for productivity. The key here is size: Become intimate with the needs of a small group of users (in this case, there was only one), then scale up. If you’re always focusing on users’ needs first, this process is just rinse, lather, repeat.

2. Show users why they want it.

The next step is to show your users why they want to use your app. Don’t just tell them. Instead of coming up with a fancy landing page and trying to convince your users to use it (we have something kindof fancy, but it’s hidden away), we launched our visitors straight into the application bypassing all of our fluffy text and happy talking points. Couple that with a simple UI, and you’re golden:

“What I learned today from seeing http://www.corkboard.me: New users experience benefits of the app w/in the first 5 seconds of use. #SaaS #UX” — Justin Hunter, @Hexawise

3. Listen to your users.

There are two parts to this one. First, the listening: Listen to anyone who wants to give you advice. Anyone? Yes. Anyone. Treat them like human beings trying to help you out. Yes, you may have heard what they have to say seven times before from people who’ve had similar ideas (or even the same idea). But don’t get cocky. Hearing something more than once means either, a) it’s an obvious idea, in which case you should take it into consideration; or b) it’s something people really want. Sell to that idea: You’ll be ensuring you’re building the things people want (see point #1).

The second part is providing users a forum to give feedback. Our main way of communicating with customers is Twitter and email. Twitter specifically lets us know what people are saying about us 24 hours a day, directly to us and to other people. If you know the reasons why your service is brought up in conversation, you know why your service is valuable (or not).

4. Get help from your friends.

In an interview with Noah Nelson from Turnstyle News, our founder hit the nail on the head:

“Specifically, Kelly Sutton (@KellySutton) and Allan Grinshtein (@allan) pushed me to release it to the world when I thought it needed work. Allan showed me how I should design it and did much of the design work himself. Kelly told me how to get press. Last but not least, Omachonu Ogali (@oogali) jumped to offer up his servers when mine got wrecked by Hacker News and Life Hacker on the first day. They’re still running on his servers to this day. I couldn’t have started this without them, and my coworkers at [blip.tv] consistently offer up their time to test alpha features before they’re released. Many use Corkboard day to day.” — Tim Coulter

Corkboard.me would be nothing without these three.

It’s important to note here that people only do work for two reasons. Either a) it makes them feel good, or b) it fills their wallet. People from camp (a) don’t generally like to transition to camp (b). If it’s given in kind, pay in kind.

5. Execute well, and make it a priority.

Ya ya, it’s been said plenty of times over by social media tech’xperts, but a good product is less about a good idea and more about good execution. Yes, Corkboard.me has direct competitors. You can find them here, here, and here. Our founder thought Corkboard.me was the first of its kind when he wrote it (which was part of his motivation), but users are switching to Corkboard.me because of its simplicity. Lesson learned: Keep your product easy to use and consciously worry about the product’s quality. If you build it (and build it well), people will come.

6. Get the word out.

Remember that piece about zero marketing? Well, we meant it. The only ounce of marketing we’ve done was one post on Hacker News:

“Corkboard App, all in HTML/CSS/Javascript” – http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1962554

That same day, Life Hacker lifted the story. That’s where our friends came in — our servers were toast:

“Corkboard.me is Is a Simple, Sharable Sticky Notes Webapp” – Adam Dachis, http://lifehacker.com/5704433/corkboardme-is-a-simple-shareable-sticky-notes-webapp

Then came a tumble a month or two later by Topher Chris, which happened strictly through the beauty of social networking. Tip of the hat to Brandon Werner, and Michelle Vargas of Fart with Headphones On who made it happen:

“Put something on my corkboard! (this should go really well)” – http://topherchris.com/post/3363285645/put-something-on-my-corkboard-this-should-go

After Topher came one we really didn’t expect. One day our servers were totally shot, and Google Analytics told us people were visiting either directly or by using Google. We were pulling our hair out: Where was this traffic coming from??? Turns out it was British television:

“Lovin corkboard.me recommended by Gadget Show! Think I am going to flipping love that!!!! :-) ” — Helen Maynard, @LilpeaGB

What’s interesting about this, which I’ll show in graph form below, is that The Gadget Show didn’t bring the biggest peak, but they drastically affected the area under the curve (which means returning visitors). Simple lesson: Television has reach.

After that was another post on Hacker News. We love you guys, but that wasn’t us.

Then came another we didn’t expect, which is big cred in the technology circle. None other than Jason Fried of 37signals:

“http://corkboard.me is nicely done on a variety of levels.”

And just today, the day after we released paid accounts, we were featured on Technorati:

“Corkboard.me Gets Customization, Privacy and Security Updates – http://bit.ly/lwni5a”

Okay, enough gloating. All told, through Twitter and Tumblr and email and random social networking events, we’ve had the potential eyes of hundreds of thousands of users — which brought 171k uniques our way. Check out our unique visitor graph from Google Analytics:

The biggest thing we did was create an app that made a material impact on peoples’ lives. Biggest lesson: If you do that, you’ll have no trouble getting the word out.

Next up: An overview of our user statistics coming next week. Stay tuned.

Go Pro!

Did we mention our new pro accounts for only $4.99 a month? See our previous post for more info. (Yep, this bit counts as marketing.)

Be bold: Rich text is here!

April 28, 2011

You asked for it and we built it. A long awaited feature, you can now bold, italicize and underline text on your cork board. Here’s how, in two easy steps (hint: you already know!):

Step 1: Select your text.

First, select the text you’d like bolded, underlined or italicized. No brainer. You got it.

Step 2: Do your thannng.

It’s super simple. Press the appropriate hotkey for what you’re looking for:

  • Ctrl + B will bold.
  • Ctrl + I will italicize.
  • Ctrl + U will underline.

For our fellow Mac users, substitute the Ctrl key for the Command key. (I know, you’re on top of it already.)

You’re all set. Enjoy!

More sharing options come to Corkboard.me!

March 21, 2011

We listened to our users and added some of the most requested features.

Update: As of August, 2011, embedded boards and view-only links are only available for pro users.

Use Corkboard.me for presentations, demos, online classes and more.

Ever wanted to show someone your cork board but didn’t want them to edit it? Well now you can. Whether you’re giving a presentation, teaching a remote class, showing off your talent or simply sending others your task list, use the view-only URL to ensure your cork stays yours. Find it in the bottom left corner of your board.

Embed your cork on your own website!

Have a website? Add your cork to it! Like your favorite video sharing site, adding your cork board to your own website is as easy as clicking a few buttons and clicking paste. Find the embed tag right next to the view-only URL. Check out the awesome one we made above.

If you have any questions or issues send us an email at support@corkboard.me or find us on Twitter at @corkboardme. And stay tuned. There’s plenty more to come.

Corkboard.me gets Chat, Collaboration and Mini-Map

March 5, 2011

That’s right folks, you can now use Corkboard.me to work together. Whether that’s mocking up a new storyboard, brainstorming a new idea, or trading dinner ideas with your wife or husband — the cork is your oyster, and your friends’ too.

See changes in real time.

This feature got us really excited. If your coworker adds a new note, you see it. If your boss makes an edit, you get it. If your hubby adds a picture, you see that picture too — no need to be in the same room, no need to continuously refresh the page.

Chat with other viewers.

Sometimes there are things that just don’t fit well on a cork board, and when working with others, conversation can be one of those things. That’s why we implemented a chat feature so you can communicate with others contributing to your board.

Find what you’re looking for.

This feature’s actually been there awhile, but we didn’t give it much press. If you’re working with others and have many notes, finding them can be trouble. Not to worry. Now you can use the built-in mini-map to easily find what you’re looking for.

The best way to see these features in action is to use them. We’re confident you won’t be disappointed.

Don’t hesitate to send us an email at support@corkboard.me or catch us on Twitter at @corkboardme.