Todoist deserves awesome props on two counts having to do with its very Taoist inspired design. Is there a design? In a very minimalist, get-out-of-your-way sense there certainly is. And this is a good thing; software design should know its place. Todo lists are (let’s be honest) a dime a dozen. Todoist seems to implicitly acknowledge this by not adding a lot of graphics and fuss. It is, after all, a list.

But do not be fooled by its simple aesthetic! The site makes massive use of AJAX that really dazzles once you get the hang of it. And it integrates with LOTS of other applications. Todoist would seem to have the ultimate API, integrating with every application I could possibly think of. Gmail integration, widgets, iGoogle and on and on. The premium account is $3 a month! That’s the right price for these kinds of web services. The only thing left for me to do now is build WordPress integration plugin. I love it that much!

Possibly one of the most brilliant features (and there are a lot to choose from) is the semantics of the date entry. You don’t say that a todo has a deadline on 3-28-09. You just type “tomorrow” or “Sunday” or “Monday” Brilliant!

I’ve used them all, folks: tadalist, rememberthemilk, and backpack, and todoist just rules them all. They have a nice catchphrase on their site:

>Warning: High usage of Todoist may result in an organized life

You better believe it!

Now that I’ve evangelized this gorgeous piece of software; here’s my one wish: some way to track my todos once they’re done. There is a history and an archive feature and you can see every todo you’ve finished; but given that there is a feature that lets you repeat todos every day or two days or every week, it would be really nice to see a chart of my accomplishments. Hey, Amir, I program–want help!? Did I already say that I love todoist that much?

But anybody can dream up features. Sign up for this service because it will deliver on its tagline: you will become more organized. And for someone like me—in which case that’s a struggle—oh, todoist makes it so easy.

“It’s interesting to note that several of these expectations stem from searches being based on loaded results from another server and the necessity of typing in a full query before seeing any results. “Live” searches such as the one in Apple spotlight and some being implemented via AJAX on the web change this. Here’s one example. On my blog, I’ve made the argument several times that search engines should also be capable of chatbot behavior. It should engage this behavior when an intelligible phrase would allow it to walk users through to more accurate information. Google’s “Did you mean?” functionality is a good start but lots more could be done with it. Combine that functionality with live search and I think the result would be very powerful.

Powerful is maybe even an understatement. A well-thought out chat/search bot with live results and recommendation capabilities could be insanely great. I’ve learned enough about web services that it may be time I start thinking about building this concept in Flash.

All you have to do is look at Microsoft’s track record. Netscape introduces javascript. People start using it. Microsoft “sort of” implements it and introduces ActiveX. The same thing happened with the DOM and CSS originally. Microsoft implemented it differently than other browsers and brought most DHTML developement to a stop. To me, the only clear-cut difference between DHTML and AJAX is the XML element, allowing pages to be updated dynamically without a refresh. Are we all so sure that Microsoft won’t try to break this?

Most developers will answer that, “If they do that, there will be an uproar among developers.” Yeah, so? That’s exactly what developers originally did in regard to web standards. It didn’t (IMHO) change a thing really. Developers have to recognize that Microsoft’s IE is the undisputed browser king. No ajax application seems to be changing that fact and increasing some other browser’s market share. And if someone like Google becomes enough of a threat (perhaps by introducing a Google-flavored version of Firefox) it is not beyond Microsoft to change some aspect of the DOM (embrace and extend anyone?) that allows their Ajax apps to work fine but breaks everyone else’s.

I think Microsoft would have to do something far more drastic to break Flash. And as many people have begun to recognize, Flash is really just a different implementation of the same principles that Ajax is trying to establish. No, it’s not open source, but Macromedia has done nothing to create any paranoia about that. (Of course, Adobe is another story.)

Furthermore, as Alexander Kirk points out on his blog, all of this talk about development within the browser ignores what can be done out of the browser. Consider iTunes or Apple’s Widgets. Sure we can build applications within the browser but we can also development applications that are just as readily plugged into the web and provide more robust, faster interfaces. You COULD do the iTunes music store as an AJAX application, but given how it’s built-in to the jukebox portion of iTunes, why would you?

All in all I wish Ajax the best. I will certainly endeavor to use the simpler aspects of it to create more responsive forms and the like, but for the heavy lifting I’ll stick with Flash. I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here, I just feel that history has taught that a healthy dose of skepticism towards Microsoft’s actions in the community has never hurt.

Update [8:45pm Eastern]: William Blaze has an even lower opinion of the Web 2.0/Ajax crowd than I do.

Technorati Tags: ajax, usability, dhtml, microsoft, web 2.0

This sort of thing is in alignment with the tracking of memes as well. Create a meme, set it up on a few blogs and sites that point to each other and get it out through email or friendster and see if you can grow it. I even use technorati’s ability to turn searches into RSS feeds to follow some of the memes that I think are important to this site. You can think of it as meme tracking or dynamic research.