First Cozimo Review

This morning, while executing the mandatory first e-mail cleaning pass, I was surprised by a message directing my attention to an entry on David Strom’s Web Informant blog on Video production collaboration.

It really caught me by surprise. Cozimo hasn’t been announced yet and here it is: the first review. And a positive one.

While I’m not a big fan of David Strom (I often find David’s articles a bit too light for my taste), I believe David has a few good points in this brief review. In particular, he states that a recipe for a good collaborative solution should contain:

• enough content management,
• enough workflow,
• simple, powerful, well integrated messaging.

But most of all: it should all be very close to the content. In the Land of the Second Web, YOUR Content Is King.

I also believe that the UI plays a first role in this context. The average Web 2.0 application is just distracting and IMO plain ugly. Shaded round buttons, reflective logos, gigantic fonts, distracting gradients, none of that leaves room for what really matters: directing the attention to the content.

Cozimo’s UI appeals to its target crowd: designers, creative minds and media professionals. Have 5 minutes? Read this. Then read this for a hint on how we are dealing with UI design. On the usability side, we are working on a few well known quirks, and clients react positively.

Only time will tell whether these human-to-group interfaces are here to stay. In the meantime, Emacs awaits.