We're very excited to announce a brand new Woobius feature: Correspondence.

People in the construction industry use Woobius to keep their projects organised. Until now, though, Woobius focused on the file sharing aspect of project management. When we ran a Woobius user survey a few months back, we found that you, our users, wanted a way to track emails within Woobius projects. This is it.

Introductory Video

Have a look at the following video, featuring our very own Bob Leung and his excellent sketches, for a quick overview of how Correspondence works.

Why use correspondence?

• Keep track of project communications in a central location
• Increase transparency: be able to review correspondence you weren't cc'ed in
• Easier sharing of large files: of course, Correspondence builds on Woobius' industry-grade, secure file sending infrastructure, so you can send emails with attachments without clogging up everyone's mailboxes

Key features

• Reply-by-email: other people you're working with can reply by email, so you can track their communications even if they never log in to Woobius
• Private correspondence: can be used to keep certain discussions private, but tracked
• Tagging: you can organise your correspondence with tags, to keep track of active discussions

And more...

From this point on, all Drop Box and Vault emails will automatically be recorded in the Woobius Correspondence tab, so you can track replies there.

We also have another little surprise coming next week. See if you can spot it at the beginning of the video!

Let us know what you think in the comments below, or by email at support@woobius.com.

As many of you know, last year we scooped up the third prize at the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition, for our Woobius Eye tool which a number of you are using already! (if you're not, check it out at http://www.woobiuseye.com)

This year, Vodafone is at it again. They're running another round of Vodafone Mobile Clicks, and registrations are still open. Vodafone got in touch and asked us to write a blog post answering a few questions, and to put together a video to help this year's participants out, so of course we happily obliged!

Why did Woobius apply to Vodafone Mobile Clicks?

We were really busy at the time (as are all startups, I suppose), but we thought it was important to apply. Our initial thoughts were that we wanted to raise the funds to develop one of our product ideas into a real product. Woobius Eye, at the time, was just an idea, but we knew it had potential and we wanted to give it the attention it needed. We also applied for the publicity. Vodafone is a very respectable, international brand to be associated with. Finally, we applied because we wanted to win a prestigious award!

How was your experience of the competition and what did you really like?

We had a very unique experience, because unlike others, we didn't have a product to begin with, just an idea. What this translated to in practice is that at each stage of the competition, we had to evolve the idea, push it forwards, develop it further - which is probably what made Vodafone interested in us, because they saw not just an idea, but also the progress of that idea.

We were constantly surprised by how useful the competition process was to pull the product into existence. Each step forced us to think more about how to give life to the product. Each interview, and its set of valuable feedback from the judges panel, forced us to think about all aspects of the idea and make it more and more robust.

The demand for materials like blog posts and video clips forced us to think about reaching the market for the product earlier than we would have otherwise. Creating these public bits of information, and convincing people to vote for us, meant we needed to think in terms of what people actually wanted out of this tool, and it allowed us to feel out, quite early on, just what the market wanted. It also generated a lot of interest and feedback early on, which is always invaluable in any startup.

What were the results for Woobius, after competing in the competition?

We used the money to develop the product and bring it to a point where several impressive customers are using it on a daily basis. It's become an essential tool for collaboration in the construction industry. Without VMC, this would have remained an idea. We haven't quite got it to the finished product stage yet - it's still in testing - but we wouldn't have got this far without the funding.

The general brand awareness was great too. There is no doubt that when you mention Vodafone, people pay a bit more attention to you.

Why is it interesting for startups to join this year's competition?

Vodafone Mobile Clicks is not an easy win - there's a lot of tough competition - but then again, nothing valuable is. Even to be shortlisted is a great honour. People should enter for the prize money and the publicity, but our advice is: if you enter, make sure you use the competition properly to develop the product. 

As we mention in the video, it's easy to fall prey to seeing the process as a series of hurdles that you need to jump over. That's missing a trick, though, because those aren't hurdles, they're more like springboards. Each presentation with the dragon-like judges gives you the opportunity to get invaluable feedback, both in the form of questions and as direct advice. Each blog post about the product gives you further feedback from your potential users. Each video forces you to articulate the key points of your product even more clearly. Take advantage of this, and you can get a lot out of the competition, even if you don't win.

As a past winner of prize money in the competition, what tips can you give new participants?

The most important piece of advice, in our opinion, is to treat the competition seriously. Take on this challenge with the philosophy "if we're going to do this, we should do it properly."

When asked to submit blog posts, submit the best blog posts you can. When video clips are suggested, make the best video clips you can. When you have to give a presentation, prepare a great presentation and Wow the audience.

It's a waste of time to enter this half-heartedly. If you're going to do this, you have to do your best.

To celebrate the returning sunshine, I thought I'd share a screenshot of the latest feature we're working on. Enjoy! Coming soon to a project near you!

Congratulations to the Woobius team for coming out on top in the ‘professional’ category at last week’s 2010 MEX Awards. It’s a great achievement for the team.

The official line from the judges is they chose Woobius ‘because it represents a great multi-platform customer experience and focuses on the needs of a group of users who can really benefit from new ways of combining visual and audible communication.’ It’s a satisfying thought that our message is getting through and the Eye is being recognised as a potential game changer in the world of visual communication.

The ceremony marks the start of the 7^th International MEX user Experience Conference – a two day strategy forum exploiting techniques and strategies for creating great mobile user experience in a multi platform digital environment. Marek Pawlowski, the founder of MEX, has developed the conference with an intriguing manifesto at heart:

"Unencumbered by wires, information is flowing into every corner of our world at an ever increasing rate and through an ever increasing range of digital platforms. The single greatest challenge facing digital industries is understanding how this explosion of data will be woven into the fabric of consumers' lives."

It’s coming up for a year now since we entered the Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition in Amsterdam with such a thought in our minds. The Eye was in its infancy at that point, more of an idea with huge potential than a working tool. Today, with the beta testing in full swing, and a number of significant architectural practices involved in its development, the Eye is coming of age. This award is a stepping stone towards our goals and as Su Butcher writes in her blog proves we have embraced the future of wireless connectivity and made it into a real opportunity for our users. What’s more, I believe that keeping rigorously to our mantra of ‘simply simple’ we have found the best way to weave visual collaboration into the fabric of consumers’ lives.

This award comes at a significant time for Woobius. Just this week three new team members have joined us at our newly decorated offices in Battersea. I’ll introduce both them and the new office in the next blog but in the mean time if anyone wants to read more about the MEX awards please do so here.

     

We're emailing in live from the event and very proud to announce that Woobius Eye won the 2010 MEX award for our category!

Thanks everyone for your support and your votes!

We'll blog more about this later, but here are some photos for now:

   

Word reaches me that Bob Leung has been nominated as the next ‘be2camp star'. Congratulations!

 Alex Albion (the previous holder) praises Bob for his work on Woobius, and sees great things in store for Woobius Eye. I think this is a suitable moment for the Masked Architect  to join in the congratulations and thank Bob for his vision, enthusiam, commitment, and dogged hard work that has brought us this far.

 The award of ‘be2camp star’ is a new feature for be2camp that seeks to reward members who are active in promoting the core elements of the be2camp purpose, namely exploring web applications and social media within the built environment.

Each week a new star will rise, nominated by the previous winner. The idea is to promote not just active members, but also those who may not be active within be2camp circles and happenings who nonetheless are pushing the use of web2/social media within their companies or areas of influence.   

 As to next week’s nomination Bob is keeping his cards close to his chest. In the meantime I hope he enjoys his well deserved moment of recognition.

It's been a while coming but finally I'm proud to present the promised Generative Components tutorial from our resident GC pro James Roberts. I'm afraid my understanding of the tutorial declines rapidly after the first paragraph but I will gladly pass on any questions you may have to James. Good luck and enjoy!

T'was the week before Christmas in 2008, and we had just updated the email template to the blue-themed template that you've come to know (and hopefully love). 

It feels like only yesterday I was frantically iterating through that template with Bob until we were satisfied with it... And yet, in internet-time, a year and a half is like a whole geological era, and then some.

The blue template served us well. It was cohesive and recognisable, and though we did tweak it many times over the last 18 months, it largely worked as it was. One of the realities of internet startups, though, is that every single day you learn more about your customers and what they want. After 18 months of listening to you, we decided that it was time to make more than a tweak.

Last week, we released a new email template. It's clean, simple, and focused. One of the key philosophies we adopted with the new template is that rather than offer up all the information that could possibly be of interest (as was the case in some of the earlier emails, with long FAQs and lists of data), every email we send you should be clear, quick to read, and make it absolutely obvious what (if anything) you're expected to do. From now on, if you see a link in our templates, you probably want to click on it.

Here's an example of what you might receive if you were sent files in a project being run by the fictitious firm "Woobius Architects":

Apart from the simplicity, one more thing you might notice is a shift in emphasis on the matter of branding. From now on, project emails will be branded with the name of the company running the project, rather than with "woobius" (the "powered by woobius" branding will take a much smaller, less prominent position at the bottom of the email). In addition, project emails sent via Woobius now have subjects that start with the name of the project (in [square brackets]), rather than with the less useful "Woobius:".

The reason for this is simple: Woobius, though built, maintained and extended by us, is, within the context of a project that you create on it, your product, that you offer to your clients. Most of the time, the people you invite to your projects on Woobius don't know what Woobius is - nor should they need to know. They're being invited to your project hub, which happens to be hosted on Woobius. The email templates should reflect that, and now they do.

Do let us know what you think about this, by emailing us, commenting here, or even using the feedback tab in the application!

So Woobius Eye has been nominated for a MEX User Experience Award in the 'Professional' category. Our entry is 1 of 3 on the short-list! The winner will be announced at the MEX Awards in London on 19th May. One of the perks of a nominee is being invited to attend the award ceremony to enjoy a BBQ and possibly some champagne!

We've been asked to produce a short-clip to be played at the awards. Here's a sneak preview of it:

It's a cut down version of the full version - it's worth seeing the original if you haven't already - check out the baby at the end ;-)

Just one more thing - you can help us by voting for our entry.

But discovers every cloud has a silver lining.