Innovation in Software

I’m changing what appears over at the main website over the course of this week. I’ve been playing with some ideas, and right now I’m focusing on the structure rather than the aesthetic. The most common feedback I’ve had over recent weeks and months is that it’s not entirely clear what Vagueware does, how it does it, or for whom. That is a pretty major failure in marketing communication.

So, ignoring the specifics of the aesthetics, here is a glimpse of the structure of the new page. It will hopefully look more polished than this, but you can see where it’s going in terms of message. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Click for full-size image

Depending on where you want to start counting, the new Vagueware.com has been in the works for somewhere between 3 weeks and 3.5 years.

The issues around the delays are numerous, and mostly come down to “too many ideas, all at once, not enough time”. I’ve really simplified the specification for the first build, and as it will allow for ideas to be posted around existing products will then use the site itself to get ideas for where to take it next. User-generated specification is where this is at.

Some people still don’t quite ‘get it’, probably because ‘it’ has changed so many times. Here’s the core functionality:

• You can sign up for an account, for free
• You can write up an idea for a piece of software that doesn’t exist
• You can write up an idea for an improvement to an existing piece of software
• Users can vote and comment on them, digg-style
• People interested in making an idea happen can start working out how to make that happen

There will be other stuff in time – particularly around collaboration – but the initial build is going to be very basic and just have the core pieces in place.

It’s looking really nice right now, and I’m hopeful people will at least not be intimidated by it at first – it’s super simple to use.

Launch date? I could launch it right now without forums or properly managing ideas all connected to a single piece of ‘existing software’, but as I think they’re going to make or break it I want to hold off. I also need to decide if I really want comments on there, or just trackbacks. I’m hoping mid-week, but I’m closer now than I have been ever before (even with the Wiki I had up a few months back)