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eHub Interviews SuprGlu

Thanks to Danny Wen, co-founder of SuprGlu for this email interview posted December 5, 2005.

eHub: What is your web application/service about?

SuprGlu: SuprGlu is about allowing people to pick up the bits and pieces of themselves scattered around the web and being able to put it all together in the form of a digital scrapbook. We want people to have an easy way to share things about themselves beyond the specific online communities they participate in.

eHub: Why did you start this project?

SuprGlu: It started off in the form of a prototype simply for me to gather my own scattered content. I liked the concept of publishing online, but I didn’t really care to sit down and blog everyday. I did use various web applications that reflected my thinking and personality in a way that’s informal and less conscious than writing a blog entry, and I wanted those little snippets to be part of my publishing stream. The prototype worked well, and we saw there was value in having a simple URL to your mind stream that you can easily share with friends. So from there, we started developing a version for anyone who might find such an aggregation helpful.

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

SuprGlu: Our company, Iridesco, Inc., is a graphic and interactive design studio based in New York City. We’re a services company, but recently we have been dividing our time between client work and our own projects.

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

SuprGlu: The team for SuprGlu consists of Zsombor Dee in Romania, and Shawn and myself here in New York. Zsombor leads our Ruby on Rails development, Shawn focuses on the design, and I focus on product development, responding to feedback, and occasionally coding. We all have computer science backgrounds, and we all take part in defining what we’re building.

eHub: What is your design philosophy?

SuprGlu: Design should be functional and simple. And we also try to be original and hopefully make people smile...the Sagmeister way.

eHub: What technologies are you currently using?

SuprGlu: It’s all open-source with the much of it revolving around Ruby on Rails.

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

SuprGlu: One of the most requested feature from day one was making RSS feeds available for the SuprGlu pages. This feature has been part of the plan all along, and it was just recently released. For those who know how to take advantage of an RSS feed in a newsreader, this facilitates a fun and easy way to keep up with friends’ activities and interests around the web.

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

SuprGlu: Since launching, about 50% of our traffic comes from within the United States. The other 50% is distributed throughout the world, but is led by countries like the UK, China, and Spain.

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

SuprGlu: I will only speak to the short-term, and that is for SuprGlu to provide more ways for people to be more insightful about themselves and others through their use of the service.  The next couple of features will directly address these goals.

eHub: What is the greatest challenge to your success?

SuprGlu: User adoption.

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

SuprGlu: More time to focus on our development efforts.

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

SuprGlu: We have a few ideas in mind, but for now, we are just focusing on making the service fun and useful.

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

SuprGlu: We are consistently seeing thousands of visitors a day, and our user base is steadily growing as more coverage of SuprGlu appears around the web.

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

SuprGlu: We’re really happy that so many people, particularly around the “blogosphere,” have responded positively to what we’re doing and have helped spread the word.

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

SuprGlu: AJAX used to be an all-purpose cleaner.

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

SuprGlu: To name just a few, The NY Times, The Morning News, Gothamist. Then there are the apps, like Bloglines and Basecamp.

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

SuprGlu: 7-8 hours. Late nights lead to late mornings!

Thanks to Danny Wen, co-founder of SuprGlu for this email interview posted December 5, 2005.

Visit SuprGlu
Originally added to eHub on Nov 05, 05

» 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.

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