Joel Spolsky Launches Trello - Organize Anything Together

My first question is where's the API? This is something I plan to use but I will want some way to export the information to non-users, dead trees, etc. (I'd need it anyway for private boards, The boss wants it in excel etc.)

I'd also like to question the wisdom of closing the 'public' content off from non-users. Choosing 'Public' will make the board visible to all Trello users. Very closed-web, I don't use Orkut anymore and I wouldn't be on github if it wasn't so visible and ubiquitous. Not a complaint, just food for thought.

If i should be honest I didn't like it so much. It felt too cluttered, the interface has way too many visual elements for my brain to process in efficient time. It's also missing more obvious visual indicators such as color or shapes. The list look all the same, they don't even have different icons identifying them, only the the name. That will do it but it's not the ultimate visual indicator.

As a person that barely uses the mouse, I don't find this so practical, it's click after click after click, but I guess that problem affects almost every web application out there.

I might be too focused simple/minimal things, this tries to lay information in a rather complex data structure, which in practice it means a lot of mental exercise before you get the info. I believe many like it, not me, give me a search box and a list of results every day.

How about email integration where you can forward emails to different lists? Is there an API that we can integrate with Mailgun?

Use case I had in mind is for a sales funnel (or any funnel) where I can bcc the list corresponding with the stage in the funnel as I am corresponding with a lead and have the email move through the lists accordingly.

FogBugz definitely suffers from what you describe. Despite what Fog Creek might say about it being easy, it feels clunky and indirect. And slow -- it's 2011, yet everything that manipulates the case table (arguably the most important part of the app) seems to require a full page refresh. It definitely suffers from the "you must mold your brain into our mindset to use" mentality. Furthermore, it's languishing -- most of the updates release to the On Demand version in the past year feel like small tweaks, many related to Kiln. Where's the leadership?

Kiln, on the other hand, is excellent. No problems whatsoever. Does what it's supposed to and does it well. No friction.

Now, Trello. I've only used it for a few hours, but already I look forward to using it for as many projects as I can. Simply amazing and simple and intuitive, all at the same time. It has negative friction -- practically invites me to put everything I have on it. I don't know what Fog Creek's doing in regards to product design, but it's working.

(And granted, most of those FogBugz problems could simply be because of a hefty anchor of legacy code. Maybe FC has simply moved on entirely)