Colorado based Intense Debate, the sophisticated blog comment system with the silly name, launched its public beta this morning. There are some definite kinks in the service still, but there's also quite a lot to take note of. The service offers a powerful combination of ease of use and feature richness; I'm impressed.Intense Debate lets users set up good profiles that include easy access to their social networking pages around the web, you can friend or follow comments from particular users, there's some basic stats available to both comment leavers and publishers and threaded comments are available. It's got reputation, it's got lots of RSS, it's got quite a few widgets (like "top commenters on this blog") and it integrates with your blog's CSS. It's nice. I'm testing it out over at my personal blog, marshallk.com and there are a list of other blogs using it on the Intense Debate site. One issue I do see is that the commenting platform takes a moment to pull in its host blog's CSS, that's not ideal. I wonder if a copy of my stylesheet could be cached with Intense Debate. Throughout the site it would also be nice if avatars were larger, visual recognition of faces is huge in tools like this.Important DifferentiationThe comment plug-in market is a really crowded one, but there are some things about Intense Debate that warrant an extra close look.OpenID support for leaving comments is fantastic, if a bit clumsy in implementation right now. It's really difficult for individual bloggers to install OpenID support in their own blogs right now. If Intense Debate can do it for us, that's great.Ease of install. One tiny PHP file is all it took me to get Intense Debate running on my Word Press blog. It was remarkably easy.Email notification is a global setting. Every blog should let you get an email if your comment has been replied to. With this plug-in, you can automate that on any Intense Debate using blog you comment on.The single most important thing about Intense Debate is its data export options.If you are using the service in Wordpress or Blogger (more platforms to be supported later) and you decide you want to stop using Intense Debate, you can export your comments for import into your native blogging software's comments database. This is the kind of option that makes all the difference in user adoption - I will let value from my work accumulate in your service if I know I can get it back out again if I so chose. Thank you Intese Debate! I ask every web app I profile about data export and the vast majority just tell me "oh, we're working on that."You may or may not feel inclined to use a service like this, and we'll see how it holds up against spam over time, but at the very least - I think Intense Debate is a classy operation that deserves some attention for its technology implementation in a crowded market space.

  Recently launched Cofundos.org, from the Agile Knowledge Engineering and Semantic Web Research Group at the University of Leipzig in Germany, is a community funding site for open source software. The site allows non-coders to join forces to fund open source programming projects that might otherwise not get made. Software made as a result of these community-funded bounties must be licensed via the Creative Commons CC-BY or an OSI approved license.The site essentially works like microPledge, which we wrote about in August. After someone posts a project idea, the crowd discusses and refines the idea and contributes to a project fund. Programmers then bid on the contract to make the software and the funders vote on who gets the bid. After completion, the project's funders vote one whether the programmer completed the task satisfactorily, and if so, the programmer is paid. Voting is weighted based on how much that person contributed (money) to the project's bounty.There are currently 47 projects listed on Cofundos.org, with the highest commanding a bounty of 1030 Euros. In the first week of operation, the site has attracted 3700 Euros worth of pledges from approximately than 100 bidders, according to the site.Cofundos.org is focused specifically on open source software, but the team behind it has indicated that they plan to adapt the concept to other areas, including beyond software development. microPledge has also indicated the desire to branch out beyond software and use the same scheme to crowdsource the funding of things like events.

  Document sharing site DocStocopened to the public today after months of a high-profile private beta. Similar to the already launched and funded Scribd, DocStoc aims to provide a place for you to post and discover professional documents on a wide variety of topics. Think sample contracts, sample press releases, proposals, etc. If DocStoc can keep itself from being overrun by crap, as has happened to Scribd, that itself would be a major accomplishment. Like Scribd, this L.A. based company has its own roster of high profile investors.These sorts of sites face serious challenges, though. At public launch DocStoc has more than 12,000 documents already uploaded during the private beta. Most of those documents appear relatively well labeled and of high quality. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe this trend will continue. Despite the valiant intentions of the site, there are almost zero comments or ratings on any of the documents. The company says it hopes that the precedent set by high quality docs at launch will facilitate community policing against low quality docs and spam. I question that; it might work, but the effort required to provide feedback on search results and document quality may be too high.The fact that the company is giving away an iPod touch to the people who upload the greatest quantity of documents each week doesn't bode well for the quality of search results on the site. The words "Free iPod!" shouldn't appear on a reputable company's website, in my opinion.I want DocStoc to work, and when looking for sample documents in the future I will give it several tries. Results so far are acceptable. I'm not so sure that I wouldn't be better off paying for a human-selected "best of" list, though.

  According to Lee Lorenzen, of Altura Ventures, and AllFacebook, the "Social Ads" advertising service Facebook is supposedly set to launch next week will take Facebook ads outside the social network.The rumored technology would work like this: Facebook would place a cookie on your computer (the site already requires users to have cookies enabled to log in), every time you visit a third-party site that runs ads utilizing the "Social Ads" product, they would be targeted based on your social networking profile data. So, theoretically, if you've professed your love of Pepsi on your Facebook profile, you might see Pepsi ads while reading the news at MSN.Ad networks like DoubleClick and aQuantive already use cookies to track user behavior, that could theoretically be used to build a profile of which sites you visit. That ability does not necessarily sit well with privacy advocateswho are concerned that these companies have too much information about users. What Facebook is reportedly planning to unveil would go beyond tracking your web browsing behavior and building a profile on what you like based on the sites you visit, however. Instead Facebook would use explicit data about your interests to target ads across the web.Would users be comfortable with the idea of their profile data following them around outside of Facebook in the form of potentially very personally targeted advertising? Though, in reality, it is probably not that different from using your data to deliver ads on Facebook (the data is available to advertisers either way), it may just feelcreepy to users to have the information about their lives that they had thought they were sharing privately with friends being used to target advertising directly to them across the web.If this does fly, it could be a big win for Microsoft, whose $240 million investmentin Facebook is thought by many to be more about acquiring a stronger advertising relationship with the site than acquiring a stake in the company. A combination of Facebook's immense, untapped user data set and Microsoft's ad sales team could mean significantly higher CPMs for sites using Microsoft's ad networks and higher revenue for Facebook and Microsoft.What do you think? Is this a good idea for Facebook or will it just draw the ire of users? Would you continue you use a site that you knew was using your personal information to target ads to you on other web sites? Is Facebook's rumored proposal crossing the line in terms of privacy?

  The Associated Pressis reporting that ICANN may consider shutting down the Whois system, which lets Internet users search for domain name registration information, because of disagreements over how it works. Privacy advocates in favor of shutting down the database feel that individuals should not be forced to give out private information -- which is then potentially available to spammers or scam artists -- in order to register a domain name on the Internet. Those who want to keep the Whois database operational, feel that it is a valuable tool for doing business and making sure you know who you are dealing with.As the AP writes, the Whois database has many uses, "Law-enforcement officials and Internet service providers use it to fight fraud and hacking. Lawyers depend on it to chase trademark and copyright violators. Journalists rely on it to reach Web site owners. And spammers mine it to send junk mailings for Web site hosting and other services." There have also been reports that some registrars use Whois search data to register domains that could be lucrative in the domain aftermarket, a practice the New York Times likens to insider trading.Some proponents of the "sunset" plan that would end the Whois database, don't necessarily want it shut down. Ross Rader, an executive at Tucows who is the chief sponsor of the plan, has indicated that he only wants to force discussion on the issue. "What removing the status quo will do is force all of the actors to come together without the benefit of a status quo to fall back on and say, 'We are now all screwed. What will we do?'" Rader told the AP. "It will lead to better good-faith negotiations."My opinion is that nixing the Whois database would be a mistake. There are certainly better ways to conceal contact information, or to keep spammers from scraping the information, but the database has a lot of practical applications and is very helpful to a large number of honest users. I often use it to track down information on web site owners for stories, or to verify information about a web site I may be considering doing business with, for example. Losing it would negatively impact a substantial number of people. "The sense of shock that would settle around certain people would be rapid and immediate," said Syracuse University professor Milton Mueller. I agree.What do you think? Do the benefits of the Whois database outweigh the potential for abuse? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

  Steve Rubel has written a postbemoaning the lack of innovative Web products these days:"...I miss the days of 2004 when the class that includes Flickr, del.icio.us and others started. They really were about changing the web, not making a quick buck(they did so only because they added value). There are companies still out there like them. Twitter is one I believe takes this approach. Automattic (the company behind Wordpress) appears to be another. Dave Winer also shares this spirt. He creates services like NYTimes River because it's fun and he thinks it will add value to our lives (and he is right).However, most of the rest of today's net startups are only after the almighty dollar and while that's capitalism, it saddens me because it has done little but breed hubris."Emphasis oursIt'd be easy to agree with Steve on this. Indeed in my wrapup of the recent Web 2.0 Summit, I said it was 'steady as she goes' and lacking in innovative startups. Other than the semantic appsthat presented at the Summit, there was little evidence of disruptive technologies. It was still a well-organized and enjoyable conference, but the cutting edge was absent.And from a web product perspective, 2007 hasn't seen a lot of innovative startups in comparison to 2004-06. Twitter, which Steve mentioned, is one - albeit it is still extremely niche and no mainstream people I know use it.But even considering the Web 2.0 Summit and 2007 so far, I'm inclined to disagree with Steve that the Web is being over-run by "the almighty dollar". There is innovation happening - and enjoyment. The Mobile 2.0 Conference I attended recently in San Francisco showed me there's a lot of innovative technologyhappening in the Mobile Web space. The shift to the Webof many big companies is also exciting (as is the experimentation with desktop technologiesby online organizations). Partnerships are happeningbetween web 2.0 startups and big tech companies. Social networks are showing signs of truly opening up(although slowly). Semantic appsare set to go mainstream. Utility computingis coming in a big way. Alternative search enginesare nipping at Google's heels. There are opportunities for entrepreneurs in Attention, Intention and VRM businesses. Use of the Web for environmentaland non-profit purposes is at an all-time high.I could go on and on, but my point is that the Web is still changing - despite the seeming lack of new innovative startups (maybe we as bloggers just aren't uncovering enough of them?) and the 'steady as she goes' Web conferences. So I do push back on Steve's post in that respect. There's a lotof change happening on the Web; actually that is what Read/WriteWeb is all about, documenting and covering that change.But tell us what you think, in the poll below. Are we, collectively as startups, organizations and media, still changing the Web? Also, please use the comments below to list startups or initiatives that you think are changing the Web.Poll Survey- Take Our PollImage: Brouhaha (Jonathan)

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Plentyoffish_1_Man_Company_May_Be_Worth_1Billion';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';We've written beforeabout PlentyOfFish, a leading online dating site that is run by a single person and is raking in money. Markus Frind is the singular force behind PlentyOfFish. At the time of our last review, June 2006, PlentyOfFish was earning $10,000 per day from Google Adsense (around $3.5 M per annum). I caught up with Markus today via email and asked how the business is doing now. He didn't want to get specific about earnings, but he said that POF will earn $10 Million + next year (which puts it at around $30k per day). So just in earnings, POF has grown rapidly over the past year or so. As well as Adsense, income now comes from banner ads and affiliate marketing. A May Wall St Journal articlehas a good general profile of Markus and his company.There is one former fact about PlentyOfFish that has just become a myth - Markus hired his first employee a few weeks ago! This person is doing customer service, a task previously done by Markus and his girlfriend. So technically POF is a two-person company now, but that doesn't make quite as good a headline ;-)In terms of traffic, currently POF gets 1.2 billion page views/month, and 500,000 average uniquelogins per day. The peak season is January, when it will grow 30% according to Markus. I asked what is the total number of users that POF has currently, but Markus replied that total users means nothing in the dating industry. He said that True.com and others claim 20 million users, yet fewer than 100,000 people a day actually login and use those services. According to Hitwise stats, POF is second in the US online dating market and 1st in Canada and UK.Comparison with FacebookWhat really pricked up my ears was when Markus started to talk about click-through rates and how that compared POF with Facebook. As you'll recall, Facebook supposedly has a valuation of $15 Billion currently, thanks to Microsoft's $240 investmentlast week. Many people are skeptical of the Facebook valuation though, because Facebook and social networks are known to be poor at generating money from ads. Markus told me that per page view, Plentyoffish has 5-10 times the click through rate of Facebook. So by his calculations, POF's 1.2 Billion page views per month is the same as 5-10 Billion Facebook page views per month. Facebook "only" generates 40 billion page views a month and yet it has a $15 Billion valuation. But the crux of Markus' argument is that despite having about 33 times the monthly traffic of POF, Facebook's poor click-through ads should bring the valuation models closer. Markus said that "over 40% of Facebook's pageviews are image related, ads in bad positions and users just generally looking to waste time." He said that "there are only a handful of sections on the site [Facebook] that will generate good click thru rates for advertisers." So getting down to nitty gritty metrics, Markus concluded that "Facebook is only able to generate 10 to 15 times as many clicks on ads as my site and it's valued at 15 billion. Needless to say I'm watching ad supported business model valuations very closely." What's more, some of his direct competitors - e.g. Eharmony and match.com - are apparently valued in the billions. While Markus didn't put a figure on what PlentyOfFish is probably worth, it's clear he is thinking in Billions and not Millions. It's very hard to quantify this, but at the very least POF would be worth in the 9 figures due to its annual revenues of $10M. Not bad for a one-man company (plus a new Customer Service Rep!).

  Image credit: NewsweekA Newsweek articlemakes the case for an alternative search engine to usurp Google and become the dominant 3rd generation search engine. Our own Charles Knight, from R/WW Network blog AltSearchEngines, features prominently in the article:"If Google has been able to crush its search competition, it's not because it has perfected the art and science of Web searching. Far from it. Google is what the industry calls a "second-generation" search engine. First-generation engines like AltaVista found Web pages containing words that matched the user's search words. Google's innovation was to further rank a Web page by the other pages that link to it, on the somewhat shaky assumption that if a page is much-linked-to, it must be useful. Charles Knight, an analyst who runs the AltSearchEngines Web site, notes there's a plethora of good ideas for what a third-generation engine might bring to the party, and no shortage of companies trying to prove those ideas. "Each has shown they can do some aspect of a search better than Google can," says Knight."Later in the article, it states that in 2005 and 2006, VC firms pumped $350 million into 79 search-related start-ups. Charles Knight tracks more than 1,000 search contenders, mostly U.S.-based, for AltSearchEngines.Can one of the up-start startups usurp Google in the next generation of search? It'd be a brave person to bet against Google, given its resources and reputation for innovation. But the Newsweek article highlights very well that search isn't 'solved' yet and the switching costs to try another search engine are low. And so in those respects, Google is indeed vulnerable to a greater search technology coming along and wooing millions of users.If you want to cover your bases and see what the Next Big Thing in search may be, I suggest you subscribeto AltSearchEngines! ;-)

  Brijitis an interesting new service that supplies magazine abstracts for those of us too busy to read through every print publication we're subscribed to. If you don't subscribe to print periodicals anymore, you might want to skip this review. I subscribe to quite a few and really like what Brijit aims to do. The service says it "aggregates the world's best long-form content and abstracts it in 100 words or less." The company got a nice long write-up in the Washington Posttoday, but I'm sure potential users would rather read my shorter take on it here.There are about 60 magazines that currently make up the core sources you'll find abstracts for on Brijit. They range from Foreign Policy to 60 Minutes (so beyond just print) to Playboy (insert "I read it for the articles" joke here, if you can figure out how that would work in this case).Abstracts are written by paid freelancers who get $5 per accepted abstract. In other words, prolific readers and writers will write up these review/abstracts for fun and Brijit will pick up the tab at a nice dinner every once in awhile. I think that's a pretty viable value proposition for many chronic magazine readers. Does it scale economically to be paying for the abstracts? This angel funded company is no doubt aiming at high-end advertisers targeting upscale magazine readers, so I think it might work out quite well.The abstracts come with a rating, from zero dots (reading this article is not a priority) to three dots (exceptional, a must-read, not to be missed.) The reviews/abstracts I've seen are helpful and interesting; I now know which articles I'm going to make sure to read in the newest Wired, for example.There's a comments field, ratings, affiliate links to subscribe to the publications and links to read articles online where possible. There are RSS feeds all over the site, which will make the difference between visiting Brijitonce and keeping an eye on the highlights over time. The site has an austere but usable design. I'm really impressed. I've probably said too much though, already, as this has been far more than 100 words. Check it out for yourself and subscribe to some feeds; you'll likely feel better informed after just a handful of months and you could feel more justified in still getting those wonderful, old fashioned print periodicals delivered to your house.

  YourStreetis relaunching this week as a local news aggregator and mapping service. It's simple but really well executed; getting to review nice, smart little apps like this one is a big part of what I like about my job here. The site originally launched this spring as a neighborhood-based social networking site but this news service probably has a lot more potential. The company was founded by an impressive group of executives with backgrounds at CNET, Sony Music Connect and elsewhere. That's going to go a long way in an otherwise crowded local news search market.There's no shortage of local news sites, but the big differentiators here are two: the discovery process and the quality of the site's execution.YourStreet uses a proprietary algorithm to determine the geographic location of news stories, down to the specific venue an event occurred. That's impressive and so far it looks pretty accurate. When I looked the site said it had added 5,683 stories in the last 24 hours and there's an RSS feed available for any location you select.There are a number of ways to interact with the site's search results; you can recommend a particular story, start a conversation about it or flag it as incorrectly located. You can add a story manually and place it on the map or request that your own local blog be added to the index. Account creation and login are as easy as they could be short of OpenID creation.The new YourStreet is a simple web application on its face but it's something I can imagine many people coming back to again and again.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Vint_Cerf_to_Step_Down_from_ICANN';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';Vint Cerf, who led a team in the 1970s that created the TCP/IP protocols and is commonly thought of as one of the founding fathers of the Internet, has been on the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for the past 7 years. Next month, when his term as chairman of ICANN is up, Cerf plans to leave the organization.Since it was founded in 1998 to oversee the distribution of domain names and IP addresses, ICANN has weathered a number of storms, including calls by some world leaders in 2003 to remove the organization's control over how domain names are assigned. In part due to Cerf's leadership, the group remained intact and has even managed to grow its budget. Approximately 100 people now work at ICANN.What does life after ICANN hold for the 64-year-old winner of both the National Medal of Technology and the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Cerf will maintain his role at Google as "chief Internet evangelist," which he has held since 2005. He also has "five books in various stages of completion," according to the AP, though perhaps somewhat surprisingly, only one of those books will be about the Internet. "I hesitate to say the definitive history, but I will try very hard to characterize the first 10 years of it," Cerf said about the subject of his book project.Cerf also plans books of poetry, on relationships, and a biography of his wife."I don't regret at all the time spent, (but) I'm looking forward to having the time back," Cerf told the AP of his days at ICANN, which he estimates took up 25-40% of his time. "If you multiply eight years by a quarter to 40 percent, that's a lot of years."Reuters reportsthat potential successors for Cerf at ICANN include telecommunications expert Roberto Gaetano and lawyer Peter Dengate Thrush -- neither of whom have the celebrity star-power of Cerf. "The bad news is we're not going to find another Vint," said Steve Crocker, a childhood friend of Cerf's and the inventor of the Request for Comments (RFC) series. "It's equally a form of good news. We're now going to go through a period where ordinary mortals are managing things."Even though Cerf will still have an integral role in shaping the future of the Internet via his positions at Google, the IPv6 Forum, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Labratory, he does not plan to stay involved in ICANN. "I absolutely need this time back, and I don't want to hover over the process," he said. "I want them to feel the pressure to organize themselves and not imagine they can turn back and look for guidance from me."Photo credit: jdlasica.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Hulu_Peaks_at_the_Public_with_a_Whimper';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';Hulu, the online video project from Newscorp and NBC/Universal, with participation by Sony, MGM and others, has begun its highly controlled opening to the public this week. The Hollywood-content-only, wildly over funded project is opening up a private beta to a few thousand users it told reporters before a midnight EST embargo this morning. Amazingly, none of those reporters appear to have been included among those few thousands with actual access to the site - all reporting I've seen has been based on a WebEx demo at most. It can be awfully messy to let industry experts actually touch your technology months before it's opened to the general public. When I say general public, I mean in the United States - it appears that people outside the US cannot view the videos. This is the future? If you live in the US you can watch old episodes of TV on the internet? You won't likely be able to interact with the Hulu site for months but much of the content is available on other sites, in their video players, now. An embedded example is available below the fold - US residents only please!This Launch is UnimpressiveLet's be honest: there's nothing courageous or innovative about Hulu - the whole project is quite the opposite in fact. Huge media is exposing its crown jewels to the web because it has to - much as they wish it wasn't, this internet thing is real. The initial offering that Hulu is bringing to market is shamefully uninspiring and woefully inadequate for a new world of media. If you haven't found any other online video that you enjoy and you've been eagerly awaiting the day that the gloss of old-Hollywood's push-media experience would come to the web, then your lucky day will be here in a couple of months.No user generated content (not even best-of), no desktop player or download of material (it's all in a Flash player) and very little viewer interaction is enabled. Viewers are allowed to select which section of the precious Hollywood content they are most in love with, that section or the whole video can then be shared with a friend or embedded on a website. This is just a multi-partner content deal with paltry technology behind it and a whole lot of money for marketing. Nothing innovative to get excited about.Dragging Their FeetContent will be available on Hulu at Hawaii time on the day after they air, at the earliest. As reported by Kara Swisher, who wrote an otherwise good, critical post on Huluwith an inexplicable conclusion that it will shake up the industry - only the 5 most recent episodes of current TV shows and less than a dozen movies will be available on the site.Liz Gannes, who provided the smartest coverageon the sneak-preview I've seen so far, says that the biggest nod to remix culture comes in this move: "Hulu has enlisted film school students to edit together mashups of its content; one featured clip combines various times Homer Simpson has said 'D’oh.'" Gannes also provided a list of programming content in PDF format, complete minus subsequent Sony and MGM content. That's one page in three columns of show names and two pages of participating media brand logos. Thankfully we'll be spared advertising at a frequency made standard on the box - Gannes says Hulu will run ads at about 25% the standard rate of TV. Is that TV with or without Tivo? What It Could Have BeenHere's just a quick sampling of things that Hulu could have done with their piles of money and professionally produced content.A really solid desktop player with DRM free, ad supported content downloads would have been great. These people's stranglehold on our attention is not nearly so safe that they can continue giving us the bare minimum of access.A recommendation engine would make sense if there was any serious catalog of content. Perhaps Hulu is of the belief that we should all adore their every drop of content, though, and thank our lucky stars to be able to embed any of it in full-episode format on our MySpace pages.Hulu could have been a great first opportunity to put Flash Light on the mobile to the serious test. How about some live video streaming? There are some hard technologies being brought to market - why not lead the way on them the way the networks lead the way in bringing TV into our lives so many years ago?There are doubtless hundreds of ways that a social layer could have been implemented, it could have been borrowed from countless models already explored by startups like StumbleUpon, Twitter or Last.fm.Hulu could have done something important. Maybe it still will in the months before it actually goes live to the public. I wouldn't bet on it though; all that money and potential will likely be squandered on brand fear, legal foot dragging and a dangerously inflated sense of self importance by the participating companies.

  Pet adoption matching web site Petfinderwill reportedly be making the move to the small screen. The Animal Planet TV network, which acquired the site last year, has begun work on a television series based around the web site. The site matches families with pets in need of homes from local animal shelters, and the show will presumably do the same.The television series is currently being filmed in the Los Angeles-area and will be hosted by zoologist and minor TV personality Jarod Miller, and by dog trainer to the stars Dina Zaphiris. It is set to debut in Q1 2008 and run for 13 episodes. According to Reuters, each hour-long episode will be centered around figuring out which type of pet works best for families by letting them try out "teacher pets" that have already been adopted in their homes.We've seen Hollywood put a lot of effort into making web movies, putting content online, and sourcing talent from web video, but to our knowledge this is the first example of a web site being made into a television show for offline consumption.

  digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/ActionThis_Launches_Online_Task_Management_Service_Free_Offer_for_R_WW_Re';digg_bgcolor = '#ffffff';digg_skin = 'compact';ActionThis, a Wellington, New Zealand based startup, today launched a "Get Things Done" task management app. It enables people to create and track project management items and tasks, either using a browser interface (free) or within Microsoft Outlook (premium, subscription-based). Note that at the bottom of this post, there is a special offer for R/WW readers - 1,000 free Premium accounts. Seeing as we live in the same city, last week I caught up with ActionThis CEO Ed Robinson and Chief Marketing Officer Tim Howell, to get a demo of the product and see where it's headed. As a side note, it's worth noting that ActionThis isn't the only web-based task management app in town - PlanHQis another Wellington-based startup offering a similar product (I met both startups on the same day). However the two products tackle different niches - I'll explore PlanHQ in an upcoming post.Crowded Market - What's the Differentiator?ActionThis is going after a global market - and it's very crowded. 37Signals for example offers Basecamp, which tracks tasks online too. But everyone has their favorite. In August, Josh Catone wrotethat his favorite is The Online CEO. You can take your pick of online To Do list products - SolutionWatch listed 25 of themlast year. So what differentiates ActionThis? It actually has a very good one - it neatly integrates with Microsoft Outlook, which millions of people already use for task management. What's more, integration with Microsoft Project and Windows Mobile are coming soon. The target market for ActionThis is small and medium sized businesses, as well as departments and teams within enterprise. Ed told me that ActionThis will be especially useful for distributed teams.The Microsoft Office integration is key to ActionThis' potential success. ActionThis is backed by Intergen, a local web development firm that has a close relationship with Microsoft. CEO Ed Robinson comes from Intergen and also worked for 6 years at Microsoft in Redmond, as a program manager. So ActionThis is playing to its strengths and has created an online task management product that can be used in conjunction with Microsoft Outlook, potentially tapping into a huge user base. In the demo I saw, creating a new task within Outlook was as easy as creating an email - and there are tracking features in ActionThis that are missing in Outlook's native task feature. See screenshots below.ActionThis task in OutlookAttaching ActionThis items to an email in OutlookSpecial Offer for R/WW ReadersActionThis is currently being offered as both a free and premium version. The free version is web-only for single users. The premium (subscription) versions of ActionThis start at US$10 per user per month - and basically for that you get the Microsoft integration. There is a 30 day free trial for the premium version. However ActionThis is offering 1,000 R/WW readers a free ActionThis license for 12 months. To take up this offer, click hereand enter the following code: RWW1007. This promotion is only available to first time subscribers to ActionThis and it will end when 1,000 people have signed up using the unique code published here.ConclusionActionThis is essentially two separate products: the web-based version and the one integrated into Outlook. In our meeting Ed Robinson described this as following the "good, better, best" concept, where the Web version is 'good' and the Outlook one 'better' (as it offers more functionality). The 'best' will come when ActionThis adds Microsoft Project integration in the near future (1-2 months time). I also asked how ActionThis in Outlook differed from Outlook's native task management feature. Ed replied that Outlook native tasks are limited to "peer to peer" interactions within groups, whereas ActionThis offers a central overview and additional features.ActionThis is marketing itself as a web-based product, but it's also tapping into Microsoft's marketing of the "software as a service" concept. Microsoft hasn't yet built web-based functionality into Outlook tasks, at least not as well as ActionThis, so this small Wellington startup is banking on Microsoft users all over the world signing up to its 'value add' service. Of course the risk is that Microsoft evetually releases similar functionality itself, but until then it's a potentially lucrative market for ActionThis - provided they can convince users that the added benefits are worth paying for.