MetaLab launches Flow Concierge personal assistant service

http://www.getflow.com/concierge/

by alibosworth • 14 years ago

39 11 14 years ago

jayp• 14 years ago

Nicely done. Really.

Nice way to differentiate and monetize yourself from the competition.

Would it not be good to be able to assign a one-off task to a concierge (a la Exec)? Alternatively, have a "roll over" for unused tasks.

heliostatic3• 14 years ago

I wonder if they're using somebody else for the actual assistant. It seems like a big business to build outside your core competency, otherwise. Great feature regardless.

pbreit• 14 years ago

Wow, that does seem like quite a departure from the original business. And MetaLab pitches itself much more as front-end expert. Is it conceivable this is a front-end for some other virtual assistant service?

heliostatic3• 14 years ago

My first thought was FancyHands, but the pricing is different enough that I'm not sure.

taitems2• 14 years ago

This is really exciting. If this stood alone as it's own service and paired with Siri, well... take my money! But something niggling with the banner: the strange depth of field, combined with the sheer size and incorrect angle of the laptop cannot be unseen.

stevedewald• 14 years ago

As an avid user and supporter of Flow I'm pretty sure this is a step in the wrong direction. The effort it takes to launch another offer in this already competitive market distracts them from some much needed updates to justify their price.

I was happy to pay the $10/mo for what looked like a promising service, but with other task management apps making real progress towards helping me manage my tasks and MetaLab focusing on monetization, I'm not sure I'll renew.

metalab• 14 years ago

Hey Steve,

We view this as a business within a business. Nobody from the Flow development team is being distracted with Concierge, it's just another part of the MetaLab umbrella.

Also, I find it weird that you think us "focusing on monetization" is a bad thing. What's wrong with having a sustainable business?

-Andrew

taitems2• 14 years ago

Wow, no idea who's downvoting. Have a sympathetic upvote for answering honestly.

CubicleNinjas• 14 years ago

After using a few of these services, I realize why they're so useless: you never have a flow. You're interacting with a changing team, with huge time delays (hours in reality) in between request and response. In my experience it would be better placing the same email text in a search engine. Maybe they've cracked this nut though.

I can't help but wonder, why go so far out of their core competency? Maybe they've invested in a support team and hope to generate ROI? It just doesn't seem to make sense from a focus perspective.

MetaLab launches Flow Concierge personal assistant service

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