Emily Chang - eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews »»

eHub Interviews Pageflakes

Thanks to Christoph Janz and Pageflakes for this email interview posted February 6, 2006.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

Pageflakes: Pageflakes is a personalized online desktop that allows users to read news and blogs, check their email, start Web searches and access a variety of services like Del.icio.us or Flickr, all conveniently accessible from any computer and from one page. Basically it’s all your daily information and needs in one place. Hence our slogan: The Web at your fingertips.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

Pageflakes: The most important drivers were the emergence of AJAX and the explosion of syndicated content with RSS and open APIs. Thanks to widespread content syndication you’ll be able to add an incredible variety of content and services to your personal page. And thanks to AJAX, you’ll get a desktop-like user experience.

eHub: How much time do you devote to its growth?  Do you have a day job?

Pageflakes: Pageflakes is my day (and night) job.

eHub: How large is your team and what are your backgrounds?

Pageflakes: The core team consists of five people. Omar AL Zabir, our co-founder, technology, is a Microsoft MVP and started coding with ten years. Since then he worked for a number of large companies in Bangladesh, the US and other countries. Ole Brandenburg, our co-founder marketing & bizdev, co-founded German auction site alando.de in 1999 and sold it to eBay only a few months later. He also worked for eBay Germany, Dooyoo, Bertelsmann and other companies and has lots of experience in consumer marketing. Shahed Khan and Shahedul Huq Khandkar are our developers for the server side and for modules, respectively. Both are truly exceptional guys and have years of experience with Web technologies. I myself am Pageflakes’ co-founder product & marketing. I co-founded DealPilot.com in 1997, one of the early comparison shopping services which has later been acquired by Shopping.com.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

Pageflakes: Keep it simple for the occasional user. Offer advanced users the features they need without succumbing to “featurities”. Make it simple to get started, but offer opportunities to discover more over time.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

Pageflakes: We utilize Atlas’ Web Proxy feature. Besides that, everything else is self-made using Javascript. On the server side, we are using ASP.NET 2.0. As far as 3rd party developers are concerned, we made the framework as flexible as possible so that developers can work with the tools and technologies of their choice. So if you want to develop a module (or “flake”, as we call it), you can use also use PHP, JSP or ASP.NET, and work with an IDE like VisualStudio.NET.

eHub: If your project is live, what are the most requested features from your users/community?

Pageflakes: It’s not really live yet, we only put up a “Developer Release” so far.

eHub: Does your user base reside in a primary geographic location or is it distributed?

Pageflakes: For the start it’s going to be mainly English audience but not necessarily restricted to a certain geographic area.

eHub: Where do you see the project heading in the next 6 months?  The next 2 years?

Pageflakes: Within the next 6 months, we’ll see a tremendous amount of innovation. Expect to see a little improvement or a new flake coming every couple of days. Apart from improving the product, we’ll focus on attracting 3rd party developers and customers. The next 2 years will - hopefully - make Pageflakes one of the leading and most popular personalized startpages. As we all know, 2 years in Internet Business is almost an eternity though.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

Pageflakes: Success will mainly depend on our ability to continue to build an outstanding product, to build relationships with 3rd party developers and partners, and ultimately on our success in attracting a large amount of users. It will also depend on our ability to quickly react to customers’ demands and suggestions. My favorite mantra is “speed kills”, and I’m a little paranoid (in an Andy Grove kind of way) about being faster and better than the competition. Fortunately, the temper of some other team members is a little more relaxed, so we have a good mix.

eHub: What is the one thing you need to get to the next phase of the project?

Pageflakes: Straight forward: Releasing the Public Beta, then VC or angel funding as well as 1-2 more fulltime developers.

eHub: Do you have a business model?  If so, what is it?

Pageflakes: As late-90s as it sounds, but in the near future we really want to focus on building the user base. Later on, the most obvious possibility to generate revenues is advertising. We have some other ideas as well, but it’s not a short-term priority.

eHub: If you’re able to disclose this information, how much traffic or usage do you see on an average day?

Pageflakes: Since we haven’t really launched yet, we don’t have a meaningful amount of traffic yet. At the moment, the site is only used to show developers how they can create flakes for Pageflakes.

eHub: What is the one thing you’re most proud of about the project?

Pageflakes: Speed of execution. And this of course is function of the team and its skills, so I might as well say it’s the team.

eHub: How would you describe the shift that’s occurring with the web right now to future generations?

Pageflakes: Well, predictions are hard, especially about the future. ;-) Honestly, there are so many exciting things going on, it’s really difficult to summarize that in a few sentences. If you’re looking for a common denominator of some of the most important developments, maybe it’s the empowerment of the user. Today, users create their own encyclopaedia which anyone can access for free on the Internet (Wikipedia). And rather than having to rely on a few newspapers, you can choose from hundreds of thousands of blogs. There are many more examples.

If you really mean right now, referring to what’s become known as Web 2.0, I’d say apart from a new level of focus on the customer, we might finally be seeing the beginning of the end of locally-stored information. A user of the future will be able to access all his data, applications and media from any Internet-connected device - preferably through his Pageflakes page. :-)

eHub: What site(s) do you visit everyday other than your own?

Pageflakes: Good question - one of the things that we want to accomplish with Pageflakes is to get the number of sites that one visits daily down. In the past, you had to visit a dozen of different sites each day to get a piece of information from each. In the future, you turn on your computer, start your browser and you have everything that’s relevant for you right in front of you.

Coming back to the question, sites I visit daily include Google for search, Yahoo for finance, Basecamp for project management,CalendarHub.com for my calendar and several others, but the number went down significantly already.

eHub: How many hours of sleep do you get a night?

Pageflakes: Let me answer that question on behalf of Pageflakes. We’re spread across three continents, so Pageflakes never sleeps. It’s great to know that even while I’m sleeping, someone else is currently working on making Pageflakes a success.

Thanks to Christoph Janz and Pageflakes for this email interview posted February 6, 2006.

Visit Pageflakes
Originally added to eHub on Feb 06, 06

» More eHub Interviews

eHub Interviews is a series with the creators of Web 2.0 applications and services by Emily Chang, author of eHub, designer, and co-founder and principal of Ideacodes, a strategic web consultancy in San Francisco that she co-founded with Max Kiesler.

Also see eHub Interviews in Japanese at CNET Japan