We’ve been testing Scouta the last few weeks with a few close Scouta friends and family. It’s an interesting time for a bunch of web app. entrepreneurs, because you have to be very open to criticism. Fortunately we’ve been immersed in the openness of the Internet long enough, that we almost thrive on the discussions that are taking place. I’m even trying to figure out a way to get some more discussions occurring, between testers, like a forum or wiki.

Anyway, we’ve taken a few definite steps toward opening Scouta up, so the next month is going to be very interesting behind the scenes.

If you’re interested in helping us out we’ll be adding people from our beta list shortly. You can sign up at Scouta.

We’re big believers in keeping things simple. Since the outset Graeme and I have continually revisited what we’re attempting, and pealing back layers to make sure we’re keeping things simple.

So when we embarked on creating the user interface for Scouta, we both made sure that our aim was to enable anyone to use it. Granted, that’s a very difficult task, and there are no promises that we’ve come close, but we’ll continue to improve it.

What has amazed me over the last couple of weeks while testing the UI with close friends and family, is just how short the average person’s attention span is with online content. Of all people, I should know this, I often make reference to the fact that I am hyperdistractable. However, when people use Scouta they miss things on-screen. Their eyeballs literally only have to move millimeters, if that, and there is that little snippet of information they were after. Now I’m not blaming anyone for that, because I’m one of the worst offenders, I guess I’ve never scrutinized it like I am now.

Humans are definitely complex.

I sat down with my wife last night. I wanted to see how she handled the Scouta “alpha.”

We think that usability is one of the major keys to web services (another important factor is usefulness), and so we want to try and ensure that the service is very straightforward, and as self explanatory as possible. In some respects that’s easy–like ensuring that we have descriptions that help the member–but in others it’s a lot more complex. Making things work seamlessly is an art, one that Apple handles well, and Microsoft doesn’t.

So I learnt some painful, but very useful lessons, last night. We’re going to spend a few days tweaking usability, and then go in for another round of testing.

As of tonight UK time we’ve moved the Web2Thing blog (and posts) over to its new home at blog.scouta.com. And for those with an eye to the main action, you’ll figure we’ve picked a name for our web 2 thing, and you’d be right. But I won’t dwell on that here just now.

For now, welcome to the new blog. There are redirects in all the places that matter, so you can sit back, relax and enjoy the new show as we keep up the frantic pace backstage getting this new venture singing in tune.

Oh, btw, there’s nothing on scouta.com that you can see just yet. Soon, real soon, ok?

Things are really hotting up in Web2Thing land.

We’ve secured a small round of financing. Enough to speed up development, and really put us in a position to launch something in a few months. The exercise in getting the money, setting up a business, doing due-diligence in a few areas, have all been very interesting and exciting.

Saying that, it’s not half as exciting as getting some early designs of logos and interfaces from the company we’ve enlisted to ramp up development.

We managed to find Digital Ventures, a local design and development house, when hunting for a Python guru. To be honest they probably found us, but regardless we’ve been pretty damn happy with the outcome so far.

They’ve been coding away on some of the features we believe are core to our service, and also working on the branding. So to be fair, they’ve done a heap of work already, it’s just the initial user interface (work in progress) and logo (also a work in progress) they’ve sent through are the first real visual representations of our vision. So for a quasi-marketing guy like myself, it’s a fun time.

Check out their Enjo TV commercial.

Over the last few weeks we’ve been speaking with a local development house about assisting in adding a few key features to our service. There seems to be plenty of synergy between our companies, and lucky for us they have a python developer. As Graeme mentioned a couple of months back, that’s his code of choice for the system. We’re in the final stages of ironing out a contract, and then we’ll be full steam ahead.

Last night I was invited to an internal presentation by their python expert. We’ve all chosen to use TurboGears as the framework, and it was a meeting to outline the advantages of using the environment. It was great to get a feel for what we’ll be using over the next few weeks, and it also gave me a chance to meet a bunch of their other team members. An hour really well spent.

Today I’ve also had a look for a few TurboGears screencasts that provide a visual demo of how quickly a simple web based application can be built, like this one, showing the creation of a simple iTunes look-a-like.

Thanks guys for the presentation (and the beer), and I’m looking forward to seeing what we build!

In the last post I mentioned our meeting with a development company. We met, chatted for about three hours, and was promised a draft scope document sent to our sticky little Gmail accounts within two weeks.

Three weeks passed and still no document. So I began formulating a different plan. Initially we intended to create a feature rich environment for launch, but a second option was always available. Something akin to a 37 Signals approach: keep it simple and launch early. At least that’s what we’ve taken away from their school of thought.

We’re now in discussions with a different development company, and are in the throws of raising a small amount of funding. This will allow us to launch late in the year with the core features. As we add members we’ll extend the feature set based on feedback.

Lesson learned: always have a “plan b” running in parallel.

Today Gra and I are meeting with a development firm. We’re going to spend a few hours hashing out Web2Thing’s architecture so they can provide a scope document, and pricing. It’s going to be a fascinating exercise, because it’ll be the first time that we’ve described the service in great detail outside of our own cone of silence. Not only that, but within a week or so I’ll hopefully have something in written form that really explains in great detail what Web2Thing does now, and in the near future.

The real aim of course is to get some pricing so we can accelerate development. Gra has done an awesome job on the service so far–to a state where he and I can use it–but our plan is to launch with a great UI and several extra features. To do that, we need to bring in a few extra people.