42goals

Find friends, compare your goals!

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:37:00 +0100

Friends search

We have rolled another update allowing you to find your friends on 42goals or make new ones. On the new “Users” page, you can see all the recent users who has opened their profile. If you are logged in, it will also show you people located near you and those with similar information as you. On the same page, you may search people by their name, location, bio, and goals.

On the new “Friends” tab in your profile you will see your friends and friendship requests.

Goals compare

Once you have find and added friends, you can compare your goals with them. For example, you work out with your friends and want to track your progress together, or you argue with your flatmates whose turn it is to do dishes. Here is how you can log your data together.
First, you need to send a request to your friend. Go to “Compare” page and use the form where you specify the goal and select the friends. You may specify instructions on how to measure the data in the “comment” field.

Your friends will receive your request and if they accept it you will get a notification. You friends may choose an existing goal to compare, otherwise a new goal will be created with the same parameters as yours.

Now, you can go to your goals and see each other’s progress.

Whose turn is it to do dishes?

Fixes, tweaks, and more

Long waited support of time-type goals is added to the mobile version. A beta support of tabs is added also for our premium users. Twitter and Facebook users may now also log in the mobile version.
Minor fixes and tweaks were implemented and pushed in the new update. Some other new functions were released too, but will remain hidden for a while. Maybe you will be able to find them ;) (Parlez-vous français?)

We go social!

Fri, 04 Feb 2011 16:01:00 +0100

At last, we have just released a big and an important update. We have implemented a feature that was missing from the beginning but which is essential for goals achievement — social functions. Now, you can get a help from your friends or members of the 42goals community to motivate you. Let’s start digging into the new features!

Public profile

The first feature is a public profile. This is an exhibition page of your achievements. You can put here charts depicting your current progress on the goals you have set. Here is my page:

Reduced amount of caffeine consumption? Lost couple of pounds? Send a link of to your friends and impress them with your progress. Your public page is easily customizable. You can modify your charts and change the parameters you want.

For now, you can set up to 3 charts, but we will change that soon. You will be able to add more charts as well as to change the whole layout.

Let your friends to help you stay motivated

You public page has three tabs. The first one “Profile” is pointing to your charts. In the second one “Goals”, you can share your goals. To make them public click on edit icon

And voilà! Your friends now can see your goals and will help you to stay motivated.

Share your experience

The third tab “Posts” is where you can share your experience with your friends and the community. You made a progress this week? Write a small post, maybe it will be useful for your friends and might also help you to stay focused.

Signing in with Twitter and Facebook

Everyone now has an account at Twitter or/and Facebook (tell me who doesn’t?). But not everyone has an account at 42goals (at least not yet). To make it possible for your friends to cheer you on 42goals, we added sign in support for Twitter and Facebook users. With a single click they will become members of the community without any need to fill registration forms.

Well, actually two clicks:

We promise not to post anything on your wall without your permission, we just need some basic info perform the authorization process.

Updated charts

We have updates the visualization library, so the charts have a cleaner look.

While these were mostly cosmetic changes, we are preparing something cool in a next release (does a word “correlation” tells you anything? *wink*)

Bug fixes and etc.

Fixed sorting goals
Fixed wrong counting of monthly values
Fixed wrong data aggregation when building charts
Performance enhancements

New team member!

Our new team member joined us to help developing 42goals. She definitely keeps us motivated!Meet her here: http://42goals.com/about/

Coming up next

We haven’t pushed all the new features yet. Some of them are still in development, others are waiting until we obtain some critical mass of public profiles. So, you should create one ASAP!As usually, we need your feedback. Tell us what you think about the new features and what would you like to see next?

From our secret devlab

Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:34:00 +0100

So, if you have figured out from the previous post, we are adding some social interaction for 42goals users. First, it comes with creating your own profile page, where you can put cool charts depicting the progress of your achievements.

There will be a tab with goals you want to share (you will choose which goals should be public and which ones should remain private):

We are also changing the chart constructor, trying to make it more pleasant looking and informative at the same time. We have added some new types of charts, like “area”:

While we are still working on new features, we would like to get a feedback from you. What would you like to put in your profile? What tools do you need to share your progress?

Would you guys like to have a profile page like this?

Mon, 10 Jan 2011 14:36:44 +0100

Would you guys like to have a profile page like this?

What are your New Year's resolutions?

Fri, 24 Dec 2010 02:17:00 +0100

Ho ho ho! The New Year is coming! 42goals team wishes you all the best in these winter holidays and we are working hard to help you in achieving your goals.

Have you prepared your list of the resolutions for the next year? We did some study about New Year’s resolutions and goals achievement and here what we have discovered. Did you know that more than half of people are confident in realizing their resolutions, but only ~12% actually achieve what they have planned? You can find a research about this and some useful tips on achieving the New Year’s resolutions. Another research by Gail Matthews, Ph.D. (Dominican University) reveals positive effects of written goals and accountability (e.g. making weekly progress reports) on one’s accomplishments.

To sum up: if you want to accomplish your New Year’s resolutions list, the research studies advise you to write down your goals and track your progress. That is what 42goals suits for exactly: it helps you to set your goals for the upcoming year and track your achievements.

Don’t miss our special New Year’s promotion! You can buy 1 year premium subscription for only $20. You can save up to $40!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Get a free premium account at 42goals!

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:22:10 +0100

Hi there!

You haven’t heard from us for a while. We have decided to give away some premium accounts and as true geeks we had to build our own system to organize this. Now as we have finished, you have a chance to get for free one of the following:

2 subscriptions for 1 year
10 subscriptions for 6 months
30 subscriptions for 1 month

(which is a total of 42 free account)

Here is how it is going to work:

Visit a page specially created for this giveaway: http://eventribute.com/tw/42goals/3/
Before November 14 retweet our announce which is shown there
On November 15, winners will be selected among all the retweets by a random pick
If you are selected you will get further instructions on how to get your prize

Cheers!

We have rolled out the new design!

Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:12:00 +0200

Hello there! Our team is proud to announce the new design of 42goals. The most changes were made on our web-site, while the main interface (where you guys track your goals) almost remained the same. Here is a screenshot of the new home page:

The main interface got a cleaner look:

Our new logo:

New goal templates are now divided into categories: work and study, home, workout, habits, health, internet and games, finance.

We hope you will like our new design and will be happy to receive your comments!

PS: Don’t forget to vote for us to get to the finals of Start In Paris.

Our team at work

Sun, 03 Oct 2010 23:31:00 +0200

No words, just pics.

A big update is coming soon.

42goals at TWiST Paris

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 18:07:00 +0200

This Week in Startups (TWiST) is an online TV show organized by Jason Calacanis where an entrepreneur has 1 minute to pitch his startup and receive a valuable feedback. Moreover if the pitch was good and the idea is great, one may get some quite useful contacts.

TWiST Paris is a local version of the event organized by Kirsten Winkler to bring together French startups. The idea is simple: French entrepreneurs gather to meet each other, give a 3-minute pitch and the winner gets a chance for a skype-call to Jason to pitch in his show online. The event was kindly hosted by Lingueo, a social network for learning foreign languages.

Kirsten Winkler

I was there to pitch 42goals and I should say it was really fun to meet other teams and see what they have achieved. Here is my pitch:

Alex Pak, 42goals

And here is our winner pitching:

Olivier, from Super Marmite

So, if you are in Paris or nearby, I would advice you to apply for the next issue of TWiST Paris. Follow their Twitter for the updates!

The first prototype of 42goals

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 13:45:18 +0200

The first prototype of 42goals

42goals is a demi-finalist of Start in Paris. Help us to get to the finals!

Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:35:04 +0200

We are proud to announce that 42goals has been selected to a shortlist of 15 startups of “Start in Paris” event. Start in Paris is a meeting for entrepreneurs to present their startups and receive a feedback from people in the relevant domain. To know more about the event you may check the blog: http://www.startinparis.com or twitter: http://twitter.com/StartInParis

Don’t forget to vote for 42goals so we will be able to make it to the finals! The vote is open here, just click on the check-box next to 42goals and press “vote”.

New goal types, tabs, archive and premium accounts!

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 15:06:39 +0200

Today’s update of 42goals has brought you a lot of new features that we are happy to write about. First of all, as it was requested many times, we have added a comment indicator that appears in the right upper corner of a cell if it has a comment. So from now on, you will able to see easily which day is commented.

We have added a new time type that you can for example use to record the time that you wake up every day (or go to bed):

Premium features

Along with the the bug fixes and new functions, you will also find some premium features at 42goals. The most important is probably tabs. If you have many goals that you keep track of, now you can group them in tabs. For example, you may group goals for your work and goals for home.

If you still have many goals and some of them you do not use anymore, you may archive them. Such goals will be moved to the archive page.

Another premium feature is new stopwatch type. It can be used, for example, by freelance developers that can track the time they have spent working on a particular project.

The stopwatch type is like time type, however it can be started and paused just as a stopwatch. When starting working on a project one may launch the stopwatch and then pause it after the work is done. There is no need to keep the 42goals page open to run the stopwatch. You can launch it, close the page and the next time you log in again the stopwatch will be still running.
A subscription to our premium account costs only $5 a month, which is less than a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of beer in a bar, so subscribe now! You can also try all the features in our demo page.

Prototyping of some new features

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 12:25:51 +0200

Prototyping of some new features

Build a 42goals app!

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:22:53 +0200

After beta-testing, we are ready to launch 42goals API in mass! The documentation is available on the API site: http://api.42goals.com. We tried to design it simple to use and secure at the same time. Thus, we use REST architecture and OAuth protocol.

You can start building your app already now. Log in 42goals and go to the application submission page. We would like to thank all the beta-testers for helping us!

Nice to meet you

Thu, 05 Aug 2010 17:41:00 +0200

We have redesigned “About us” page, so you would be able to see who is behind the scenes.

That’s us guys! We are trying to make your life more productive and help you to achieve your goals. And we would like to meet you too. Send us your testimonials with your photo or a link to your Facebook/Twitter profile and we will put them on 42goals web-site in the coming soon “Testimonials” page.

42goals at Mini Seedcamp

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:13:00 +0200

So, it happened that 42goals was selected as a finalist at Mini Seedcamp in Berlin. No need to say how happy and excited I was when I received the notification email.

Well done! You are one of the 20 Mini Seedcamp Berlin Finalists.

For those who doesn’t know: Mini Seedcamp is a full day event organized by Seedcamp team as an opportunity for entrepreneurs from Europe (and beyond) to connect with advisors, present their projects and get some media attention. Also it was an opportunity to earn a ticket to a bigger event — Seedcamp Week where one may get a chance to receive investments up to €50K.

Hastily I prepared the presentation, the pitch, and business cards:

The event took place in the nice campus of Berlin Technical University:

The event was divided into 3 parts: startup presentations, a very nice talk on Hacking Venture Capital by Fred Destin, and mentor sessions. As for me, the last part was the coolest one: I got a chance to ask questions regarding 42goals to the real experts, people who launch web startups or help in their development. The cool thing about the picture below is that it’s not a stock photo but a real event.

The competition was tough, all 20 teams had really nice ideas as well as the implementation. Many of them had already a running business. Although I didn’t win, I got a really useful experience and spent a very nice time.

One of the most important advice I’ve got during the mentor sessions is I should listen to you guys, to get to know what you want from 42goals and how it should grow. So it’s up to you whether 42goals will become a social portal or a powerful tool for tracking anything. I’d like to hear more from you. You may give your feedback via twitter, Facebook page or our Getsatisfaction community.

Be mobile!

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:00:00 +0200

What is your typical usage of 42goals? You track jogging distance or beers you’ve drunk with your friends? In any case, I’m sure most of the time it’s outside of your office where you have an access to your favorite mac or PC. That’s why we are releasing the mobile version of 42goals so you can track your goals anywhere and anytime as long as you have your smartphone. And it looks like this:

You can access http://42goals.com with your mobile phone and it will automatically redirect you to the mobile version. We tried to keep the interface as simple as possible, so it would take you just a few seconds to load it and mark a goal. More features such as managing goals and statistics are planned, along with the native apps for iPhone and Android.

I’d like to thank all the beta-testers for your feedback and ideas.

We care about your privacy

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 15:27:00 +0200

Most of us care about our own privacy. 42goals deals with personal information that you may want to share only with the people you trust or keep it private only for yourselves. We at 42goals respect it and do everything possible that your private information remains private.

I have uploaded our privacy policy which is available here: http://42goals.com/privacy/ More or less this document is similar to many those you can find on most of web-services. It just states about the information that is collected by 42goals when you register and how we use it, written in legal language.

Frankly speaking, I am a web developer, not a legal writer. I am good at writing programming code, not legal documents. So, please, tell me if you find any errors or week points in the privacy policy.

I can summarize the privacy policy of 42goals in ‘human language’ more shortly as follows:

42goals collects the information you input when registering (the only personal info we ask, it is your name and email). However you may use the web-site without registration (we have a wonderful demo). We DO NOT sell, trade, or share this information with anyone else. Even 42goals staff (which currently consists only of me) doesn’t use it unless you ask the support (which is also me) to help you with registration/authorization/etc. problems.
We provide you a service for tracking goals. So, naturally, you will input information about your goals. We DO NOT sell, trade, or share this information with any third-party. 42goals staff does not access it even if you ask for any support. We may only ask this information from you.
You may delete your account from your settings page. When doing this, you erase all the information you have inputed (your registration info and goals info) FOREVER from our database.
We have backup utilities to insure safety of your data. The backup makes a dump of the whole database (not selectively) and stores it in a safe place. When you delete your account, your information will be in the backup for 30 days. However we do not use it intentionally to access your data. The backup will be used ONLY in the case of a crash of the whole database. Well, I hope I never have to use it.
Cookies. I don’t know why every privacy policy contains a paragraph about cookie, but yes, we use cookies to maintain your authorization. In fact, everybody does (with a rare exception).

If you do not agree with the privacy policy, if you have found any errors or if you think what I have written above does not match the policy, please contact me.

When will it be possible for me to use this site as mobile version?

Sun, 06 Jun 2010 21:53:23 +0200

Just 1 more week, I’ll release it soon.

42goals charts for share

Mon, 31 May 2010 00:10:00 +0200

Hi, all! We have updated goals charts. Now, charts are located in the same tab with goal info and planning. Below the graph, we have added a table with actual values. So, it should look somehow like this:

We also have added a new feature that enables sharing your charts. When clicking on “obtain the code” link, you get an URL of the public page with your chart. You can now post your chart to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Buzz.

You can also insert it to your blog and it will look like this:

Hope you like the new changes, tell us what you think about it!