April 7, 2008...8:00 am
Shifd
Shifd.com (pronounced Shift) is a very simple, very useful web application that arose out of a 24 hour coding competition and which is going to be very successful.
It’s a web application, it’s a browser toolbar plugin, it’s a mobile application and, via AIR, it’s a desktop app as well. Originally it was hooked up to RFID reader that recognised your mobile and synced your all your devices with your account. But the general release has stripped out that functionality in order to give the application wider appeal.
The desktop AIR app is the part I’ll focus on here, but first an overview of what Shifd actually does.
At it’s heart, Shifd is a hub for snippets of your information. It lets you collect and organise three types of information. Notes, Places and Links. Why? So you can note down and have access to these scribblings wherever you are and via whatever medium is available or most convenient to you at the time.
Who Is Shifd Aimed At?
There’s a great line on their site which sums up exactly what Shiftd is about. “Who is the target audience? Anyone with two or more Web enabled devices.” Shifd is all about synchronisation of your notes and it’s applicable to virtually everyone. Have a computer? Well it’s definitely web enabled. Have a mobile phone? It’s probably web enabled (though you may not use it). Where Shifd comes into its own is when you regularly use one or more different computers.
So how do you get started using Shifd? Easy, step 1 is to sign up online at their website shifd.com
From here you can start adding notes, places and links.
Next, to make life easier and so that you’re notes are always to hand, download and install the desktop version of Shifd make using Adobe Air. Log in using the same account details that you used to create your account at shifd.com and any notes etc that you added online will be synchronised to your computer.
Offline and SMS Updating
Now because this is an Adobe AIR application, you can add notes while you’re offline and next time you log in and have internet access, your notes etc will sync up with your account on the shifd.com hub.
If you are based in the United States you can send notes to Shifd via SMS using a short code. Currently this service is available to Verizon Wireless, AT&T, T-Mobile®, Sprint, Alltel, Cellular One, and Nextel/Boost users. The plan is to also extend this facility to Canada as well.
For those of us living outside North America, we can still access the information in your shifd.com account on our mobile phone as you would any other website. They have versions of their site that are optimised for Blackberry and iPhone and there’s no need to visit a different URL. Device detection is automatic, sending you to the best suited version of the site for your device. So if you want to save a whole load of notes or links to web sites that are available on your phone next time your out off the office, just add them via your computer in the office and when you’re sitting on the train you can read over your notes or use the links to catch up on some reading.
Smart Links
But Shifd isn’t just about storing data. It’s also figures out what kind of data you are adding and supplements it. This is particularly handy for mobile users as it takes your information and adds functionality to it that will be very easy to use from a mobile device such as an iPhone.
As I’ve already mentioned, Shifd stores you information in three different categories; Notes, Links and Places. If you add a place, e.g. Gare Du Midi, Brussels, Shifd not only stores the information but also creates links to the location on Google and Yahoo maps which is a great way of carrying details of your meetings especially if you’re away from home. If you add a link, it turns it into a clickable URL and give you the option to submit it to various social networking sites and social bookmarking sites.
No matter how you are accessing your Shifd information, whether your using the website via a PC or a mobile browser on your phone or if you’re using the AIR application on your desktop, Shifd has the same consistent look and feel. Of course, on the desktop, the Shifd team have been able to provide a few extras including the ability to move notes out of the main application windows so that you can see the full text of longer notes and organise your thoughts more visually. A quick click of a button and the note re-docks itself.
Managing Your To Do Lists
There’s no point in making lists and notes if you never actually clear what’s on the list. To help you stay focussed on your current tasks. You can archive anything you’ve added to Shifd with a single click. Everything that you add is searchable so you can easily retrieve archived notes and places or if you’re sure that you’re done with something, archived items can be deleted for good. Similarly, if you have put something on the backburner you can “un-archive” it bringing it back into your main list that is there whenever you log in.
To help you organise things even further you can tag any note, place or link.
No Flash or Flex
One the AIR side of things, the application is of the HTML/CSS/Javascript variety and it seems to employ jQuery for a lot of the functionality (or at least the web site does). It’s a very nice example of where AIR fits into a web application. Much of the discussion around AIR and RIAs in general is about which RIA platform is best, whether or not to have a traditional web application or an RIA and Shifd illustrates how web applications can exist in a mix of formats with people using the most appropriate format to them.
To see Shifd in action the best thing to do is to sign up for an account. It’s free and there’s no Beta waiting list.
Or, you can see the developers interviewed at www.beet.tv/2008/02/new-york-times.html and talking about the origins of the project at 81nassau.com/blog/?p=25
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