One thing I’ve learned in the development of Homecourt is that Web 2.0-style applications are legion. How can we cut through the clutter of all those other new web applications, and really get noticed? As it turns out, you have to chip away at the market a little bit at a time.

In our case, I’m looking to get our name mentioned on as many blogs as possible. I’ve been working to let these folks know that we’re here, and hoping to glean some interest as bloggers recognize that Homecourt is a unique and useful tool for small agencies.

So it’s encouraging when, in fact, some bloggers do recognize that! Just recently Celine Roque published an interview with me, where I had the opportunity to explain Homecourt to her readers. Her introduction was bang-on, putting her finger on Homecourt’s biggest differentiator in the market:

Ever notice how most collaboration programs have limited one-way communication? It’s always service providers or product sellers telling clients what’s going on. Whatever happened to assigning deliverables to your client? After all, you’ll need some materials from them, their approval, as well as any additional information. Assigning deliverables to clients is something that doesn’t seem supported in most web collaboration tools.

That’s where apps like Homecourt come in. I’ve interviewed Homecourt’s principal developer, Aaron Vegh, to learn more about this handy new tool.

I’m quite pleased by the way the interview played out! Thanks to Celine for taking the time to interview me.

After a short hiatus to catch our breath after launch, our development team is back with some great feature enhancements! But first, a quick update: we just cracked 100 registered users of Homecourt! For a brand-new project, for which we’ve done just a touch of promotion, this is a great start. For all you users, thanks for joining up! We hope you’re finding Homecourt a useful tool for your business.

As promised, we have been beavering away on the system to make it work better, faster, smoother. Top of the list has been the ability to manage your account more easily: as of today, users with free accounts can now upgrade to any paid account. Just click the “Account Options” link at the top of your window.

We’ve also added some niceties, like a slick little colour picker in your Website Options. As you use Homecourt, you should start to notice little improvements as we continue to tune the interface and do some cleanup.

Next on the list: coupon codes! Once we get that working, we’ll be in a position to offer our first users a nice deal on a paid account.

Greetings! And thanks for giving Homecourt a try.

As things stand right now, our new users have taken the very sensible step of testing out Homecourt using one of our free accounts; anyone can sign up for one, but it’s limited to just one project. If you really want to get the most out of Homecourt, you’ll need to sign up for one of our paid accounts.

As you may have noticed, we aren’t quite 100% feature-complete yet. When we launched last week, it was to go public in time to be online when an advertisement in the March issue of Azure Magazine was hitting newsstands. Our ad apparently garnered some positive response, because we now have over a score of free account users! This is very exciting for us.

However, one of the features that we don’t have ready yet is the ability to upgrade your account from free to paid. Our development team is still recovering from the launch phase, and we’ll be getting back to work as soon as possible. Allowing account upgrades is, obviously, a top priority.

So too, we’ll be putting up an account forum and activating the support form on our site. We’ll also be connecting the user manual to the application itself, so people can learn anything they need while logged in.

So don’t fear! We’re not forgetting about Homecourt, not for a long shot. In the meantime if you need any help, or have any questions, send me a message at aaron@innoveghtive.com. I’ll get right back to you.

As Homecourt ramps up, the word is getting out and some people are giving it a try. We have yet to sell a paid account, but I’m thrilled to see that right now we have at least 15 free account users!

I’m looking at the logs to see where our increasing traffic is coming from. It’s worthy to note that a few seeds planted on some “Web 2.0″ aggregation sites (like go2web20.net and feedmyapp.com) have led to mentions made elsewhere.

I received a great note from blogger Phil Rees, who really likes our concept, and provides a special bonus: a clip from the tennis scene in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead! It’s been years since I’ve seen this movie, so thanks for the flashback, Phil!

We also got picked up by a German Web 2.0 directory, which is just thrilling to see.

From what I’ve heard, getting mentioned by Bob Stumpel is a somewhat big deal, but here we are!

My favourite referral thus far has to be from KillerStartups, which, along with a nicely-done overview of Homecourt, has the virtue of having received a comment from an actual user. The verdict?

The concept really, really sucks. It has almost NO features. The invoicing is lamentable (only date/amount/description). What world do these people live in? My guess is a dorm.

Ouch! Thanks for the feedback, 1234gybotf! I would contend, however, that Homecourt’s apparent featureless-ness is a virtue, not a problem. I hope you can come back and give it another try.

I’m going to keep looking at where our traffic comes from; this is an exciting time for Alex and I, and I’m looking forward to the ride… yes, even the bumps.

For years, large corporations have espoused the notion that projects can be planned with exactitude, with every milestone set by date. Using applications like Microsoft Project, a complex project could number in the hundreds of actions. It looks great at the project’s outset, but it becomes nothing more than a fancy piece of paper when the project gets underway. At that point, humans become involved, and they are inherently unpredictable.

It’s our opinion that project management software is a fruitless endeavour. A real project isn’t composed of deadlines, it’s composed of actions. Trying to fit humans into deadlines is like herding cats.

Instead of using a term like project management, we think about client collaboration. Wherever you have interactions with a client — whether you’re a lawyer, accountant or designer — you need to agree on the work that will be done. You need a place to set up the actions that you’ll do for a client, and you need a way to lay out the implementation details.

Typically, agencies and clients use a combination of email, phone calls and in-person meetings to communicate the details of a project. But those mediums, combined, make for a real mess when it comes to recalling details. That’s where Homecourt comes in.

Homecourt’s goal is to centralize all your client communications in one place. Create an action, and use that action to have a discussion. If the action is “Assemble all financial paperwork”, then you could have a back-and-forth about exactly what paperwork is required, and the client can update you on the progress of finding it.

Naturally, you’ll find that you don’t just interact with a client electronically. For those times you have other offline meetings — like in person or on the phone — use Homecourt to summarize the results of that meeting. Ultimately, every facet of a project will be documented in one place.

Having used Homecourt for almost a year, we can say with certainty that it makes a big difference in how you manage your projects with clients. If you remember that you agreed to something three months ago, but don’t remember what it was, a quick search in Homecourt will reveal the answer. Try that in the old system: you had to decide whether you’d talked about it with your client, sent it in an email, or said it in a voice message.

Using Homecourt, email becomes nothing more than a notification mechanism. When you post to the system, the other participants will receive an email containing a clipping from your message, and a link to the discussion. It’s a great way to keep your inbox from becoming a management nightmare, especially since Homecourt keeps your discussion organized.

Another appealing aspect of Homecourt is its accessibility. As a hosted web application, you have no software to install — it works in any modern Web browser. And it’s available anywhere you go with Internet access. You can also add your own company logo, and choose your own domain name when you sign up; the point is to make it appear to your clients that Homecourt is your web-based solution, not ours.

We are truly excited by the possibilities that Homecourt enables; there’s no software like it out in the market. We hope you find it equally valuable, and we welcome your feedback!