Jottit – What a Simple UI Looks Like

September 15, 2007 · 15 comments

Jottit is a basic web application developed by Aaron Swartz that lets you create your own web page. Yup, that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing revolutionary about Jottit but I love the user experience. The homepage is nothing but a textbox where you enter in some text or html to create your own page. It’s only after you’re on the page that you are asked to provide a password if you’d like to claim the page, as well as other settings such as changing the design and creating a custom URL.

Jottit

Jottit

Some of the design aspects look 37signals-esque, but I’m a fan of unobtrusive and painless interfaces. I’m not sure if the actual utility of Jottit will come in handy for me as I generally keep a small notepad on my desk for note/idea-tracking. Can you find any use for Jottit in your daily life?

PaulStamatiou.com runs on the Thesis Theme for WordPress

How smart is your Theme?  How good is your support? Check out ThesisTheme for WordPress.

Thesis is the search engine optimized WordPress theme of choice for serious online publishers. If you’re a blogger who doesn’t understand a lot of PHP, Thesis will give a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via Thesis hooks.

With so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site. The theme is robust and flexible enough not only to accommodate a site like PaulStamatiou.com, but also to enable the site to run far more efficiently than it ever has before.

SEO Copywriting Made Simple
I used the Scribe WordPress plugin and service to optimize this blog post for SEO.

{ 1 trackback }

Jottit - Too Simple, Incomplete Or At The Sweetspot? | iface thoughts
September 17, 2007 at 7:58 am

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

1 J.R. September 16, 2007 at 2:24 am

Yes. The user interface is simple. But what’s the point? What value does this add for me? I see no use for this. Perhaps I’m just missing it entirely…

Reply

2 Don Wilson September 16, 2007 at 3:05 am

Cool, but I need to be able to tie pages together to an account. How about I spend 15 minutes and develop the exact same site, but with the functionality that I want.

Reply

3 Travis Vocino September 16, 2007 at 3:24 am

Looks like a Ruby on Rails wiki app — except using the term “site.”

Although it’s not unlike the functionality of Linga, the Rails app my team built for Rails Rumble:

http://linga.vote.railsrumble.com

Reply

4 Dimitry September 16, 2007 at 5:16 am

I cannot find how it can replace TextEdit (other than being accessible online) and I also hate how it looks like 37S… Hate lack of innovation, especially in design.

Dat is all
Dimitry

Reply

5 Richard Crowley September 16, 2007 at 11:40 am

I’m a huge 37Signals fan myself. However, I think this is too simple. I used to use Backpack for coordinating group projects, but without any structure, this might just end up causing more trouble. It does look nice, though.

Reply

6 Blake Brannon September 16, 2007 at 11:56 am

I don’t see the value either. Maybe if I didn’t already have my own site where I could create pages? It is a very quick way to get some information on the web for others to view, but I don’t think I will be using it.

Reply

7 Travis September 16, 2007 at 1:20 pm

Actually, this is rather cool. I created a site: http://travis.jottit.com. The only thing is that others can easily edit and even delete the site. There’s no security. Interesting idea, though.

Reply

8 Paul Stamatiou September 16, 2007 at 3:07 pm

@Travis – you can claim it by putting in a password at the top right.

Reply

9 Travis September 16, 2007 at 3:13 pm

Yes. I noticed that immediately after I posted my comment. I guess I should examine things a little more thoroughly before I open my big mouth, eh?

I think that this site has some great potential to become the next big thing to hit the Internet. Now even a monkey can start their own site! And since most of us are monkeys, it’s a good thing.

Reply

10 Travis Vocino September 16, 2007 at 7:47 pm

After thinking more about this, I’ve decided this is Pastie with a “You are making a web page” header and with no code highlighting.

Reply

11 Kevin Peterson September 17, 2007 at 10:21 pm

Might make a nice online ‘notepad’ for me (Yes, I’m predominately a Windows user). Make a quick note on a client site and access it later.

Reply

12 ken September 18, 2007 at 9:42 am

I ran across this app tonight, and think I have a good use for it!
It is a simple way to dialogue with a group of people without all the hype…AND Personally I LIKE HYPE!

I really like all that is coming about with the emergence of the web 2.0, but in the midst of all the clutter this might be an easy option for group discussions….one that is a little less daunting for people that are overloaded from from working online all day!
Ken
Wollongong, Australia

http://sothatwecanrunwithit.jottit.com/

Reply

13 Mark Crane September 30, 2007 at 5:47 pm

They laughed and laughed, then Yahoo bought it and Aaron used his money to track down and punish everyone who mocked him in this thread.

Reply

14 Don October 12, 2007 at 10:51 pm

I agree the concept of “less is more” proves true in many instances. Jottit is a novel idea. Please consider the published URL (make it easier to remember though most users would simply copy/paste).

Reply

Leave a Comment

You can use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Previous post:

Next post: