To get things rolling, the obvoius work product would be more screencasts. I’d have a ready market for screencasts about Google Spreadsheets or other software that we are using at Think New Orleans. Becky is writing about “Google Spreadsheets”:http://beckyhoutman.com/2006/08/28/google-spreadsheets/. We have enough knowledge to start production.

So, my initial thoughts tend towards the immediate thing you have going in NOLA. How many people that are blogging or using the wiki need resources to keep themselves going? Could you use something like Windows Live Writer for helping them publish? Is there a way to expand the use of Google Spreadsheets or Writely? A group calendar on Google? How does Hiveminder fit into that?

The audience is basically the same for all those questions when you remove the investor angle; for bloggers, no matter where, if you can simplify or lower the barrier to interacting, the more likely to interact.

From a blogging standpoint, Wordpress is pretty damn solid as far user experience. Mass moderation of comments, a slick posting interface that doesn’t require you know HTML, Textile, or wiki markup. I think what we’re targetting are those power users, people who use the blog or wiki as the ultimate desination for a lot of collaborative work.

First, off, I need some way to track these conversations, I’m not noticing when you post. I’m going to have to install the Subscribe 2 Comments plugin. Done.

Now, problem in search of a solution? Fair enough. I like the idea of advice on web applications from two or more people who live in the fly-over states. You and I both are practitioners. Our writing is greared, not toward investors, but to users. It ought to attract lifehackers and maybe real deal users.

We’re beginning to use Google Spreadsheets very seriously at Think New Orleans. It seems like there is a lot to teach people about the social aspect of the software. The sharing.

Click and Clack for Web 2.0 is a nice high concept. A friendly attitude, but one that serves the car owners, not the car industry. It’s the difference between Click and Clack and Motor Trend.

I like the recipe idea, although my initial Issue Detector wonders if we’d wind up with a solution in search of a problem. But, the idea of providing an open documentation resource is very interesting, not just for NOLA. Something like Writely (as much as it pains me to say) actually does give the old desktop model a run for its money. I don’t think Web 2.0 (*shiver*) is there yet, but it’s looking for that breakout technology. AJAX gets us very close, but you just can’t replicate the full desktop experience. Yet.

I always think of something like Click and Clack.. a little attitude with the advice.

Recipies for use of the the software. Mix and match. Maybe I like to use Writely, but I also want to have Tada lists. How do you use those two together? Etc.

How to incorporate your software into open source software, like WordPress or Mediawiki? (Aside, Is service provided Web 2.0 giving host it yourself open source a run for it’s money?)

Honest evaluations. If we don’t like it, we say so. It’s like Consumer Reports instead of Motor Trend. We don’t care about early access, so we don’t pander.

Then there are many, many screencasts, that act has how tos, and that can be an open documentation project, that would be of great help to Think New Orleans.

Ryan?