A fork in the road
Today marks a fork in the road for this particular startup. Values of n, the company behind Stikkit and I Want Sandy, will be closing its doors. Both services will going offline at close of business (5pm PST) on Monday December 8th, 2008. Until then, they'll be up and running as usual to allow our users time to make the transition, find alternative services, and download any data they wish to take with them.
While the company and services will be shutting down, Stikkit and Sandy's DNA will live on; the intellectual property behind both has been acquired by Twitter, Inc. While Twitter has no immediate plans to incorporate Sandy or Stikkit's feature sets into its core product, those who know our apps well may notice familiar-feeling bits and bobs appearing in your Twitter experience.
The third tine of this fork is me: I have taken an engineering position in the User Experience group at Twitter. I started consulting there a few months ago, and fell in love with the team, their way of thinking about things, and of course the product (my Twitter user id is in the low 100s). It turns out we worked incredibly well together, the feeling was mutual, and they pulled me in as a permanent member of the team.
I'm excited to continue building simple, engrossing products -- my favorite thing to do -- and to imbue my work with all I've learned over the last three years.
We are so proud of the technology we've created behind the scenes, the experience we've provided our users, and the sense of playfulness and suspension of disbelief we've managed to inject into personal productivity. When I look back at our statement of intent, I realize just how true we've been to what we set out to do and how we set out to do it:
We're honored that our work was recognized by the award-givers (SWSX award for Best Technical Achievement 2007 and Webware 100 award for Productivity), but we've been even more excited about the conversations we've had with our users, both directly and through our applications. So much energy and goodwill has come out of that exchange -- I will personally take that with me as one of the high points as CEO.
None of this would have been possible without an incredible cast of characters. Our investors made it all possible in the first place. Our board provided guidance, asked or answered difficult questions, and kicked our collective asses on just the right occasions. Our team of employees, consultants, and ad hoc barn-raisers infused all we did with a goodly mix of solid engineering, creativity, and fun. Our advisors shared their combined years of wisdom and experience. Our users have been a wellspring of positive energy and support -- even (and especially) when they ran into bugs; in particular, our "deputies," the volunteer user community leaders, took up the slack and provided a helping hand to their peers. And our families and friends -- the unsung heroes of the startup life -- gave us the better part of three years to sink into our work and cheered us along every day.
Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n, Stikkit, and Sandy possible. It has been an honor to work with you and I look forward to continuing the conversation. You can find me at http://raelity.org (blog to be rebooted shortly) and http://twitter.com/rael.
Rael
Rael Dornfest
CEO, Values of n, Inc.
We will be shutting off our servers at close of business (5pm PST) on Monday December 8th, 2008.
Where should I go for further information and help?
I want Sandy: The best place to turn to for help with I want Sandy is our Get Satisfaction user-to-user forum at http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy.
Stikkit: Visit the Stikkit discussion forums at http://community.valuesofn.com/stikkit.
If you can't seem to find what you're after on either of these two forums, please send email to help@valuesofn.com.
How do I cancel my account?
If you'd like to explicitly cancel your account:
I want Sandy: Point your browser at http://iwantsandy.com/cancel.
Stikkit: Send email to help at valuesofn dot com with the subject "Stikkit Cancellation" in the subject line and we'll cancel your account for you.
Can I take my data with me?
But of course! Both Stikkit and I want Sandy provide RSS/Atom and iCalendar feeds of your data that can be downloaded to your computer (and then uploaded to/imported into any other desktop application or online service that supports these same standards.
I want Sandy: Visit http://iwantsandy.com/help/feeds for information on I want Sandy's data feeds.
Stikkit also has a programmatic interface -- the Stikkit API -- that provides more comprehensive access to your data, both directly and through one of the many third-party tools and applications built against it. Visit http://stikkit.com/api#feeds for details.
We will be providing some additional export functionality in the days to come should our users require anything beyond what is provided in these feeds.
What services should we look at to take the place of Stikkit and/or Sandy?
We have been continuously impressed by the following calendar, to-do list, and notebook'ing services:What will Sandy do now?
Sandy has not filled us in on her plans as yet, but we rather suspect she'll be taking a day or three off for some much deserved offline rest and relaxation -- and she won't be reachable by email ;-).
While the company and services will be shutting down, Stikkit and Sandy's DNA will live on; the intellectual property behind both has been acquired by Twitter, Inc. While Twitter has no immediate plans to incorporate Sandy or Stikkit's feature sets into its core product, those who know our apps well may notice familiar-feeling bits and bobs appearing in your Twitter experience.
The third tine of this fork is me: I have taken an engineering position in the User Experience group at Twitter. I started consulting there a few months ago, and fell in love with the team, their way of thinking about things, and of course the product (my Twitter user id is in the low 100s). It turns out we worked incredibly well together, the feeling was mutual, and they pulled me in as a permanent member of the team.
I'm excited to continue building simple, engrossing products -- my favorite thing to do -- and to imbue my work with all I've learned over the last three years.
We are so proud of the technology we've created behind the scenes, the experience we've provided our users, and the sense of playfulness and suspension of disbelief we've managed to inject into personal productivity. When I look back at our statement of intent, I realize just how true we've been to what we set out to do and how we set out to do it:
Values of n brings an iconoclastic approach to social software design. We're throwing out the well-worn assumptions about how applications are supposed to work, and are instead paying attention to the clever ways in which people have adapted software to fit their needs. These workarounds usually contain the seeds of a better solution.As I blogged mid-last year, "We programmers and engineers aren't so lucky as to find free-standing virtual marble blocks ready for the sculpting. We must first build up the marble block itself until it shows sufficient promise and only then start chipping away to reveal our product's true form." We built up that marble block in Stikkit and subsequently revealed what we believed to be our product's true form in Sandy.
We always strive to move beyond software that's "cool" or feature-full to software that's transparent and feature-useful: software so elegantly implemented it becomes an extension of the person using it.
We're honored that our work was recognized by the award-givers (SWSX award for Best Technical Achievement 2007 and Webware 100 award for Productivity), but we've been even more excited about the conversations we've had with our users, both directly and through our applications. So much energy and goodwill has come out of that exchange -- I will personally take that with me as one of the high points as CEO.
None of this would have been possible without an incredible cast of characters. Our investors made it all possible in the first place. Our board provided guidance, asked or answered difficult questions, and kicked our collective asses on just the right occasions. Our team of employees, consultants, and ad hoc barn-raisers infused all we did with a goodly mix of solid engineering, creativity, and fun. Our advisors shared their combined years of wisdom and experience. Our users have been a wellspring of positive energy and support -- even (and especially) when they ran into bugs; in particular, our "deputies," the volunteer user community leaders, took up the slack and provided a helping hand to their peers. And our families and friends -- the unsung heroes of the startup life -- gave us the better part of three years to sink into our work and cheered us along every day.
Thank you to everyone who has made Values of n, Stikkit, and Sandy possible. It has been an honor to work with you and I look forward to continuing the conversation. You can find me at http://raelity.org (blog to be rebooted shortly) and http://twitter.com/rael.
Rael
Rael Dornfest
CEO, Values of n, Inc.
Questions and answers
When will Stikkit and I want Sandy go offline?We will be shutting off our servers at close of business (5pm PST) on Monday December 8th, 2008.
Where should I go for further information and help?
I want Sandy: The best place to turn to for help with I want Sandy is our Get Satisfaction user-to-user forum at http://getsatisfaction.com/iwantsandy.
Stikkit: Visit the Stikkit discussion forums at http://community.valuesofn.com/stikkit.
If you can't seem to find what you're after on either of these two forums, please send email to help@valuesofn.com.
How do I cancel my account?
If you'd like to explicitly cancel your account:
I want Sandy: Point your browser at http://iwantsandy.com/cancel.
Stikkit: Send email to help at valuesofn dot com with the subject "Stikkit Cancellation" in the subject line and we'll cancel your account for you.
Can I take my data with me?
But of course! Both Stikkit and I want Sandy provide RSS/Atom and iCalendar feeds of your data that can be downloaded to your computer (and then uploaded to/imported into any other desktop application or online service that supports these same standards.
I want Sandy: Visit http://iwantsandy.com/help/feeds for information on I want Sandy's data feeds.
Stikkit also has a programmatic interface -- the Stikkit API -- that provides more comprehensive access to your data, both directly and through one of the many third-party tools and applications built against it. Visit http://stikkit.com/api#feeds for details.
We will be providing some additional export functionality in the days to come should our users require anything beyond what is provided in these feeds.
What services should we look at to take the place of Stikkit and/or Sandy?
We have been continuously impressed by the following calendar, to-do list, and notebook'ing services:What will Sandy do now?
Sandy has not filled us in on her plans as yet, but we rather suspect she'll be taking a day or three off for some much deserved offline rest and relaxation -- and she won't be reachable by email ;-).
Labels: announcement, company, iwantsandy, stikkit, valuesofn
posted by Rael #
40 Comments:
Wow, CONGRATS!! This is one of the most exciting acquisitions I've seen in quite a while! I really do hope that we could see some of Sandy and Stikkit in Twitter sometime soon -- I'm a huge fan of both of the products.
Now, I'm off to send Sandy a goodbye (or get well?) card.
Thanks for the kind words, Chris. Sandy's so looking forward to the break ;-).
Sad to see Sandy go but quite happy that yet again a Silicon Valley company looks to Portland for talent. Congrats to you and while I'm sorry to see Values of N close I'm quite happy to see you get rewarded for it.
Congrats Rael! You and twitter seem to be a great fit. Do great things!
Rael,
Sandy is a wonderful program. I use it all the time. I'm sorry to see it go offline. I will be eagerly awaiting news from Twitter about if/how "I Want Sandy" will find its way into Twitter.
I never used Twitter before but I've signed up for it so I can learn about the future of I Want Sandy--or at least its core functionality--in a Twitter environment.
Thanks for the excellent work. I know how hard the ups and downs of a start-up can be. I wish you good luck.
PS: I sent in a support request to Twitter requesting that they incorporate I Want Sandy in some form.
I'm furious and aghast that you/Twitter will be shutting down Stikkit and I Want Sandy so quickly. I've only just gotten to fully rely and trust and use these applications as an integral part of my productivity and now you're yanking the rug out from under me. That kind of abrupt betrayal of trust is not what I had expected from these two companies.
I know they're free sites and as such have no true obligation to me, but I'd willingly pay to use them were the option available.
What's the harm in at least leaving the services online (and just ceasing to add improvements)? None of those other sites you suggest are nearly as good as yours.
Congratulations, but I have to admit I'm very sad to see you (and Sandy) go.
I have found Sandy to be absolutely invaluable, and I'd be most willing to pay for the service if you were able to continue it.
I'm with Kate and Tarale. Please don't shut the servers down! What would it cost? How much do we have to pay to keep using it?
Seriously, name a price. You have no idea how much I've come to rely on Sandy.
Congratulations on the new position. Just, please, don't do this. Not like this.
"Hey, thanks for being loyal users of I Want Sandy. By using our service you increased the value until we got bought out. Your reward is that we are leaving you high and dry and shutting off the servers on Dec 8."
Your response is cute and all, but when you build a service that you want people to integrate into their lives to solve problems, don't you have responsibility to keep doing it once you have become essential? Bait and switch is not cool, particularly when the switch is to nothingness. Seriously, how hard would it be to leave the services running?
Kate, Dave, Isaac: show the slightest bit of appreciation. It's a free service provided by an incredibly committed team (I say this as an outsider).
You got what you paid for, plus a whole bunch more. These guys aren't minting money, they're living and breathing the product.
Enjoy it for what it is, what it was, and the innovative path it tested. Don't motivate others to avoid trying new things because they fear supporting it for a lifetime.
Rael and gang, have fun and always be creating.
I don't think it's wrong to say "You got me addicted to your service like crack cocaine, and now you're telling me to go to very poor alternatives which are nowhere near as powerful."
I don't like being told "it was free, so deal with it". If Google decided to close Gmail and delete all your mail in 10 days, would you have no right to be mad because it was "free"? Of course you would. It's a very poor excuse.
I don't know why Twitter didn't ask you to keep these services up, as it seems many of their users (over 10,000) utilize the service, and I'm sure several use Twitter mainly for I Want Sandy. I'm annoyed as I was when Summize was purchased, and their intent to search other social networks, as it used to say:
Summize’s mission is to search & discover the topics and attitudes expressed within online conversations.
Our home page currently features realtime conversations on Twitter. Also check out Summize Labs for prototypes that harness conversations within blogs and reviews. Additional sources of online conversations are coming soon!
Now it says nothing about searching other sources of online conversations.
While I like Twitter, I don't like how it is destroying other useful websites via acquisitions.
Not meaning to sound trite, but to an extent, everyone here is right. Something like Sandy creeps into your day-by-day existence, embedding itself there and making life incrementally easier. I myself don't use it for todoing so much - the firm I work for includes such a hideous amount of cruft within each email message that it made it impossible to manage Sandy by mail. But I found other uses. And I'm really, really going to miss them. I understand the howls of anguish: 11 days really isn't that long to break down and rebuild habits.
But then again... rael and the rest at VofN did something wonderful. And they did it for free. In these straitened times, I think we're probably going to have to start putting a value (of N>0, if you'll forgive me) on the things that make our lives work. The highest compliment I can pay to Rael and his colleagues is this: till now, I've never really embraced Twitter (partly, if I can be tongue in cheek, because someone got there first and grabbed the username I have on almost every other service!) except for a bit of RTM and gCal updating. Now I'm going to be paying *much* closer attention.
Make it sing, guys. Can't wait to see what happens.
One final cri de coeur. I'm no programmer - but what are the odds of someone coming up with a way to scrape Sandy data into a nice clean text file before next Friday? That would be wonderful...
Hi Bradley,
You can be sure I intend to nothing but.
Rael
If this sort of thing happens too often, it will kill cloud / web20 / whatever services. This sort of risk is what keeps me from getting into useful software that is out of my control unless I have no choice in the matter. I don't think it will take more than a handful of popular site shutdowns to scare people.
what gopiballava said. I feel like all the input and suggestions made by Sandy users, as well as the day-to-day reliance on it (how else to make it better) is being dropped on the floor. I guess ownership is vague concept in web services. Does the person who owns the rackspace own the service? Or is it the people who actually make renting the rackspace necessary? Or is the programmers who built it, not knowing how it would work in real life?
Yes, the service is free, but no one asked the users who added value by engaging with it to pay for it or otherwise keep it going.
I will be thinking twice about any other services like this: I hadn't really gotten one before this and it seems unlikely I will again.
Ah. Just realised that the rss/ical feeds only apply to appointments etc. So all the stuff I've been keeping as an aide-memoire - online banking IDs, notes to self, lists of books to read etc - won't respond to RSS.
That's the thing I'm really going to miss. Being able to chuck stuff in by email or text message and then search it the same way was a fantastic way to outsource my brain. Any suggestions as to suitable alternatives gratefully accepted.
So... Darn. I'm going to have to go through the whole thing by hand, copying and pasting and then cleaning up.
Unless someone comes up with that text scraper...
Another online service similar to I Want Sandy is the new Deadline. It's free to sign up and you can schedule appointments by emailing it things like "meet Bob tomorrow" or talking to it over IM.
(Disclaimer: Deadline was made by my friend Alex and I've been happily using it for a few weeks now.)
Dude? Why are the front pages of the two doomed sites still all about praising the wonderful features and getting new users to sign up?
Yep, no more trusting web services for me. You're a bad man.
d s r Thank Rael and team for a great service and wish them well today @todo @bittersweet
First off, fantastic work you've done, and congrats on the new endeavor - I'm looking forward to seeing Sandy/Stikkit-type functionality show up in Twitter.
This is the second free "cloud"-based service that I use in as many months to change its policies, as they were, in what could be construed as a bait-and-switch manner, with short notice. Could be a sign of the times, but I feel I have to restate what's been said already regarding hesitancy to use such services in the future.
For instance, I really hope this kind of thing doesn't happen to Evernote.
Congrats, Rael. Sounds like a great opportunity. Looking forward to the twiincarnation of Sandy and/or other magic to come.
Kate said...
That kind of abrupt betrayal of trust is not what I had expected from these two companies.
I'd willingly pay to use them were the option available.
What's the harm in at least leaving the services online (and just ceasing to add improvements)?
Dave said...
"...when you build a service that you want people to integrate into their lives to solve problems, don't you have responsibility to keep doing it once you have become essential? Seriously, how hard would it be to leave the services running?"
Chalk me up, too, as disappointed in this rather callous decision. Not only disappointed in the loss of Stikkit and Sandy, but disappointed that the Twitter folks would bring someone onto the team who is so willing to scuttle a boatful of passengers to leap unencumbered to the next lucrative opportunity.
Yeah yeah, these are free services - but they were made, allegedly, to benefit users. You invited us to make these services part of our day-to-day lives. That was their purpose. Now, having been successful at that, to so easily dispose of their users calls into question your motives.
No more trust from me. No more investment of my time, energy, and evangelism. I'll be canceling my Twitter account. Not going to get burned again.
Rael-thanks for the update and congrats on your melding with Twitter, which does indeed seem like a good home for you and your technology! So does this mean I'll be seeing more of you in the bay area now? ;)
I'll miss Sandy. I wish she would live on.
Brilliant. I remember using Stikkit _way_ back and being eyebrow-raising at it's difference and clarity.
It is simply SO good to read about this movement of IP (intellectual property) to Twitter.
Twitter is glorious also.
This story of IP moving to Twitter is the perfect antidote to the stomach ache I felt upon reading another Twitter>Facebook store recently. Long may the ethos demonstrated in your post, products past and Twitter live in your future incarnation at Twitter.
Cheers, -Alan
The users of Stikkit should check out postica for sticky notes. A great easy to use interface. Check it out - www.posti.ca
I am very disappointed that Sandy will shut down with so little notice. This is an app that I use several times a day. I feel fairly dependent upon it, to the extent that I would have paid for premium service, just like I did with Jott (which I use to interact with Sandy!).
Your services will surely be missed.
Rael, I think you've made a big stuff up. Despite how you frame it, this is a career lowlight for you.
When you read the hundreds of complaints you're going to receive, I do hope it gives you pause for thought. You seem like a lovely guy, but it's obvious you're blinkered to something extremely important. Now's the time to get clued in to what you're missing.
Whether or not people should put their trust in a free, web-based application, the fact is they do and they did in Sandy. What's more, you know they did. You have betrayed that trust.
I already pay for a Remember the Milk subscription and would have gladly done the same for Sandy. Yes, I would have paid for both because Sandy offered something unique.
As an Australian, I've already been shafted by Twitter when the text messaging service was shut down here with little warning so I don't share in the enthusiasm for your move.
Rael, thank you for Sandy. I do wish you every success for the future but on one condition: you learn the few home truths you're currently blind to.
If, however, you remain as blinkered in the future as you are now, then I hope you *don't* make it big again. The people who have contributed to your success don't deserve to be shafted a second time.
Rael, I'm with Douglas on this. I think Twitter is wearing blinders, as was evident by their shutdown of their SMS capabilities here in Australia and other countries that were obviously too small to care about.
I am a regular user of IwantSandy, and have found it to be an integral part of my workflow, as you intended it to be.
I feel somewhat betrayed by this decision to drop everything and shut down the service with so little notice, and I am wondering about Twitter's strategy in regards to buying valuable IP and then killing it off? Doesn't make business sense at all.
Then again, this is from a company that made the 'fail whale' famous.
Good Luck Rael, you and your team did some fantastic work, but the trust is gone...
How's about releasing the code as open source, so users can set up their own Sandy/Stikkit servers and carry on?
Let's face it, that situation couldn't be worse than it is now... ;)
You built a service and asked us to have it matter in our lives. We did that and look where it got us. The lesson here is not to trust you with things that matter to us.
Now you move to Twitter and are again asking us to trust us with part of our daily lives that matter to us, our relationship with our friends. This time, I say no because like others have just said that trust is gone.
Now we wait for Twitter to get Sandy's features, hopefully soon! :)
Dear all, it's true: trust is gone. But not only because of the choice, but because of not sharing it earlier with all the folks who helped Rael improve this software. Sandy is going to disappear with no alternatives.
Rael was hired at twitter, he sold Sandy to them and... it merely looks like he didn't really cared about the people who spent time, energies and, indeed, passion for the growth of Sandy. All the goods things Rael and the users did, seem to disappear like a flash. Life is what we make of it.
Rael,
Been staying offline trying to get something out the door this week, so didn't see this earlier. Very sad that Sandy will be going away, I will miss her cheerful, er, voice. Happy for you, though, and will look forward for the changes to twitter. Until then, I've heard many good things about Remember the Milk ...
This is exactly why I am leary about trusting all these free web services. If you pay for it you at least have a recourse of a refund if they screw you over.
9:04 PM on December 7, 2008 (one day from the shut off point?) and the server has been down for HOURS. How can I get my Stikkits downloaded? No notice, no blog post, no forum status post. I don't get it. PLEASE notify us of something! This is the message I have been staring at:
"Status: 500 Internal Server Error Content-Type: text/html
Erp. The Stikkit server burped.
Please try again in a moment -- the antacids should have taken effect by then.
The Stikkit Team"
Hi Angela.
Sorry about the downtime... our Stikkit servers got themselves in some sort of funky state during an update I was working on. All is back to normal now and you should be able to log in without any trouble.
I was actually pushing out the new full data export functionality and ready to send email to all Stikkit users letting them know about the new December 19th deadline (see the notice at the top of the page; it's been there for a few days).
I'll be pushing the update again in an hour or so and you will be able to export all of your Stikkit content -- and have until December 19th to do so.
Sorry to have given you a scare.
Rael
I liked your comment about how you designed the service, so I blogged about it here: http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/2008/12/throw-our-your-wellworn-assumptions-study-customer-adaptations.html
I'm fascinated to read the comments from users who are disappointed in the cancellation. I often wonder how various free services will survive, and am often concerned about getting too invested in them.
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