19 June 2008
Meet Matt, our new web app
Keir recently came up with a really fun web app idea … so the whole team is taking a week off to build it. It’s going to be called ‘Matt’ and it’ll be built in Django on a popular API, include a desktop AIR app, and will be hosted on an elastic computing cloud (probably Flexiscale, but yet to be determined).

Those of you who have been following us for awhile will remember that we did something similar recently called Idea Week where we built HugMyMac.com. It was a blast and we’ve decided to do something similar again.
We’ve never built anything in Django, AIR or used elastic computing, so it’ll be fun to learn. It’ll also be a difficult but fun challenge for Mike to come up with a complete visual identity, site, web app interface and desktop interface – all in four days. Yikes.
We’ll be starting on June 30th, so I hope you’ll tune in for the adventure. If anyone is stopping by Bath, come on over to Carsonified HQ to say hello.
P.S. Thanks for the photo Scott
P.P.S. Any affiliation with Matt Mullenweg, WordPress extraordinaire, is entirely coincidental :)

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David S.( @seemsArtless on Twitter )
# June 19, 2008 - 3:50 pm
Hm, M.A.T.T.
Mac Air Twitter Tracker ?
Midford Ashwicke Tadwick Twerton ?
Gotta give this one more thought, but I’m looking forward to hearing about the progress and seeing the result.
Judson Collier
# June 19, 2008 - 3:50 pm
Mullenweg is officialy creeped out :D.
Have fun, it sounds interesting.
Also, you should blog about your experience using django (vs whatever you usually use).
kevin
# June 19, 2008 - 3:53 pm
ryan and the team – I look forward to following you guys on this project.
django is an amazing web framework, so you’ll have fun with that one.
Ryan
# June 19, 2008 - 4:00 pm
Thanks guys – look forward to sharing how things work out.
Yaili
# June 19, 2008 - 4:00 pm
More Apps To Twitter?
Jonathan Lane
# June 19, 2008 - 4:07 pm
I’m betting on a Facebook app.
I haven’t a clue what it will do, but it will be foxy.
Andy
# June 19, 2008 - 4:10 pm
This sounded like an excellent idea, can’t wait to give it a go. Good luck chaps.
Dave Stevens
# June 19, 2008 - 4:29 pm
Me And The Team
Storming collaboration tool, that’s my guess.
Looking forward to following along :)
Nathan
# June 19, 2008 - 4:45 pm
I’m thinking that we’re looking at a comms app. Connecting people called Matt from all over the globe.
Either that or some sort of cover for your Windows laptops made from used door mat(t)s. Mmm…
Michael Grinstead
# June 19, 2008 - 5:48 pm
I’m just envious of anyone who’s a carsonite. Look forward to reading more about it.
As for the invitation to stop by, I’m about an hour & half drive away, it would be worth the trip (coffee included?) ;)
Ryan
# June 19, 2008 - 6:04 pm
@Michael G. – You bet! Come on by, we’ve got coffee on tap :)
Matt
# June 19, 2008 - 7:07 pm
Can I get a sneak preview? :)
Michael Grinstead
# June 19, 2008 - 8:44 pm
Cool, well I might take you up on the offer :)
Ryan
# June 19, 2008 - 9:45 pm
@Matt – thanks for stopping by. I’d be happy to give a litte preview. Hope you’re well – thanks again for the WordPress shirt for Jackson :)
Matt Lee
# June 19, 2008 - 10:36 pm
Maybe, M.A.T.T? Kinda like D.A.R.Y.L, but without the Michael McKean…
Brad M
# June 19, 2008 - 11:28 pm
Ryan – great news about the app – look forward to seeing it.
I’ve seen from recent tweets that a number of the team (the most established members to my knowledge) have left the company. How is that affecting the balance and has it made you review the company?
Ian S
# June 20, 2008 - 2:21 am
It’s impressive the way you do this, constantly putting yourself and the company up there in the firing line, Ryan. The upside is that the business gets great exposure, but if your efforts go wrong, or are less than impressive (you know how critical “we” can be), it could really backfire. For what one person’s opinion is worth, I really admire your approach, and clearly you have many more hits than you have misses. What’s really inspiring is that you have an idea and see it through to completion – you “execute”. To me it’s fun, fresh, innovative, and exciting, and why your newsfeed remains in my list. A big “thank you” to you and the team.
Rob Mason
# June 20, 2008 - 1:09 pm
There’s a worrying new trend here. First we get a TV channel called Dave. Then a yoghurt called Paula. Now a web app called Matt! When will the madness end?
Luke Anderson
# June 20, 2008 - 5:12 pm
[...] To start off my blog properly first of all, I’m going to talk about web-apps. What are web-apps? Web-apps are normally small applications that run on the internet using online technology for example PHP or Ruby on Rails. Web-apps are normally quite interesting and Carsonified are going to release their new web-app “Matt” in a few days so here are some web-apps that I think are quite cool [...]
Ryan
# June 20, 2008 - 8:46 pm
@Ian S – Thanks for the kind words. We thought it’d be fun to set ourselves a real challenge and see what we learn. It’ll be fun.
cjagers
# June 21, 2008 - 4:03 am
I’m all for fast messy iteration … but why the time constraint. Why not do it “right?”
Ryan
# June 21, 2008 - 8:37 am
@cjagers It’s a very simple app so we’ll be able to do it right, don’t worry.
SuggestionBox.com
# June 21, 2008 - 8:53 am
Cool to see another site developed in django.
Elliott
# June 21, 2008 - 12:24 pm
Hopefully the next one we make will be K.I.T.T.
Roberto Alamos
# June 24, 2008 - 12:08 am
Will really love to see this new django app. Django is such an amazing web dev framework, and its facebook api is so fine (I suspect this new carsonified app will go on facebook), that I’m sure the final product will be really great.
BTW, I have some years of experience on django development, if you need some help don’t hesitate to ask ;)
Ollie Kavanagh
# June 25, 2008 - 9:52 am
Will check this out whilst I’m on holiday, sounds great….. wish we did stuff they like this at our work ;-/