Web office vendor Dabble DB has jumped on the Facebook bandwagon and launched a “social to-do list” called Dabble Do. You can get it on Facebook here. How is it social, I hear you ask? Basically you can assign items not only to yourself, but to your friends – and be kept up-to-date on their status. It comes with a variety of different actions, as explained by the Dabble DB blog:
“Whenever someone assigns you an item, depending on how you’re feeling, you can respond to it in a number of ways:
* Industrious: complete it by checking it off;
* Contrarian: reject it by sending it back to the assigner; or
* Lazy: “pass the buck” and reassign it someone else
If you have assigned the item to a friend, you can “crack the whip” to remind them of it.”
Unlike the complex enterprise app Dabble DB, Dabble Do is a consumer app that aims for simplicity. Indeed I had trouble describing Dabble DB when it launched a year ago – I ended up calling it “part spreadsheet, part database, part collaboration app”! But with Dabble Do, it’s a simple Facebook plug-in and appears to be aiming for informal use.
Outsourcing Social Network to Facebook
Just as with Firefox yesterday, Dabble Do is essentially outsourcing the social network aspect to Facebook. I realise a lot of people are sick of the attention Facebook is getting, but when sophisticated web companies/orgs like Mozilla and Dabble DB start using Facebook as their social network arm, well that’s a big Web trend in my book.
My Verdict
I’ve installed Dabble Do, but I have to say I doubt I’ll use it much. There are two reasons for that: 1) I already use Basecamp for To Do’s in both my business and personal life, and I’m very happy with that software; 2) Dabble Do doesn’t seem to be an open system, much like Facebook itself. As Boris Mann noted in this discussion thread, “I simply won’t invest time in data that I can’t easily get to / get out.” And I completely agree with him.
What do you think of both this new app, and the general trend of companies outsourcing their social network to Facebook?
