Yes, but what does it do in general and why would I want it? 2004

I grow increasingly frustrated by having people recommend software from companies who can't seem to clearly articulate what the software or service is for and why I should download it or how I can participate. Technorati, for example, I kinda get, but only kinda and only because I already figured out trackbacks. How the hell I make easy use of it as a blog creator remains unclear as of my last visit to their site. And bear in mind that I've been doing this web content creation thing for six years and have beta tested about half the major weblogging tools. I think I'm halfway there with it, but I haven't been able to spend more than an hour trying to understand their site and get configured to participate. If I'd spent that hour and found out I understood it and knew my next steps, I wouldn't be so frustrated. As it is, I know I got started with their process for Authors but something is clearly still wrong because they think I haven't updated for 12 days. I thought they were supposed to crawl my site in addition to my being able (somehow) to ping them when I update. I'm not dumb, but I am busy enough to just say "Screw it. If the tool even survives, they'll have to learn to explain themselves better and I'll try again then."

Today's offender is Ecto. Jonas lists it among his Indispensible Mac OS X Products and describes it thusly:

how else would I be blogging this? Chris is working on Userspace again, so we might see two great XML-RPC tools out there, soon.

Did you see something go by overhead? But it's not Jonas' job to explain it to me, it's theirs, so I go to their site. And how do they answer the question "What is ecto?"

ecto is a feature-rich desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows, supporting a wide range of weblog systems, such as TypePad, MovableType, WordPress, Drupal, Nucleus, Blogger, and more. ecto is the successor of the wildly popular Kung-Log, which has been in use by thousands of Mac users and which earned a 4.5 mice in the MacWorld July 2003 issue. ecto earned high ratings at VersionTracker.com, and at MacUpdate.com. The Windows version is a recent product and is being developed by Alex Hung.

But those are already feature-rich blogging clients, so what does ecto do? Is it just an alternate interface? Or is "desktop" the key word? I use my desktop computer to manage my weblog in those tools without ecto. Is it that ecto doesn't require a connection to the internet for me to work on my site? Do they somehow let me work offline and then upload my changes later? If so, that'd be great - it's exactly what I need for my commute - but their description of the software doesn't make it clear, their FAQ answers questions like "I get the error message 'Encountered string encoding error' or 'failed with code '-65794' and message '\Uxxxx\Uxxxx (line x, pos x, status 3)'' when retrieving entries", and the documentation link is dead.

I suddenly feel my job as a product manager is more important than ever.

Comments

Yes, but what does it do in general and why would I want it?

I grow increasingly frustrated by having people recommend software from companies who can't seem to clearly articulate what the software or service is for and why I should download it or how I can participate. Technorati, for example, I kinda get, but only kinda and only because I already figured out trackbacks. How the hell I make easy use of it as a blog creator remains unclear as of my last visit to their site. And bear in mind that I've been doing this web content creation thing for six years and have beta tested about half the major weblogging tools. I think I'm halfway there with it, but I haven't been able to spend more than an hour trying to understand their site and get configured to participate. If I'd spent that hour and found out I understood it and knew my next steps, I wouldn't be so frustrated. As it is, I know I got started with their process for Authors but something is clearly still wrong because they think I haven't updated for 12 days. I thought they were supposed to crawl my site in addition to my being able (somehow) to ping them when I update. I'm not dumb, but I am busy enough to just say "Screw it. If the tool even survives, they'll have to learn to explain themselves better and I'll try again then."

Today's offender is Ecto. Jonas lists it among his Indispensible Mac OS X Products and describes it thusly:

how else would I be blogging this? Chris is working on Userspace again, so we might see two great XML-RPC tools out there, soon.

Did you see something go by overhead? But it's not Jonas' job to explain it to me, it's theirs, so I go to their site. And how do they answer the question "What is ecto?"

ecto is a feature-rich desktop blogging client for MacOSX and Windows, supporting a wide range of weblog systems, such as TypePad, MovableType, WordPress, Drupal, Nucleus, Blogger, and more. ecto is the successor of the wildly popular Kung-Log, which has been in use by thousands of Mac users and which earned a 4.5 mice in the MacWorld July 2003 issue. ecto earned high ratings at VersionTracker.com, and at MacUpdate.com. The Windows version is a recent product and is being developed by Alex Hung.

But those are already feature-rich blogging clients, so what does ecto do? Is it just an alternate interface? Or is "desktop" the key word? I use my desktop computer to manage my weblog in those tools without ecto. Is it that ecto doesn't require a connection to the internet for me to work on my site? Do they somehow let me work offline and then upload my changes later? If so, that'd be great - it's exactly what I need for my commute - but their description of the software doesn't make it clear, their FAQ answers questions like "I get the error message 'Encountered string encoding error' or 'failed with code '-65794' and message '\Uxxxx\Uxxxx (line x, pos x, status 3)'' when retrieving entries", and the documentation link is dead.

I suddenly feel my job as a product manager is more important than ever.

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