Dave Naffziger's Blog

Matt gave Rahul and I an in-office blist (rhymes with twist) demo on Monday last week and I was really quite impressed.

Blist is building what I can best describe as a database for normal people that isn’t Excel. Kevin Merrit, founder and CEO, has a great post on the multiple dimensions of data and how blist is building interfaces to handle additional dimensions (something Excel does very poorly).

I was struck by two things as Matt walked us through the product:

• The 3rd+ dimensions of data. I love Excel. For a large range of projects, I’m convinced that working with Excel is faster than using a DB (despite what my developers tell me). However, Excel is not a DB and it is awkward to deal with multiple 1 to many relationships. I don’t encounter this problem frequently, but it is definitely a limitation and blist is attacking it head on.
• Flash is a viable Internet development platform. Blist’s product is more full-featured, more intuitive and more responsive than any AJAX app I’ve seen. From a user’s perspective it seemed equivalent to a desktop app. We were working on the local network, but I’ve never seen an AJAX app that was responsive enough to be confused with a native desktop app. The Live Documents team is also working in Flash, and I’m curious how their product will compare to Google Docs.

I’m also impressed with the coverage that Blist has been able to get. Unlaunched and unfunded, Blist has gotten picked up by Techcrunch, the Seattle PI as well as a number of bloggers.

I worked with Matt at Judy’s Book and he has done a great job raising awareness of Blist and bringing in coverage.