Booking Bee

Good news: the public beta is finaly out in the wild.

If you are a holiday apartment owner and looking for a simple, easy expense tracker and booking manager for your let, you could do worse than give Booking Bee a go.

I also set up a customer support site at GetSatisfaction so if you have any questions, problems or ideas feel free to leave a coment. 

It's been long, long time since the last post. Too long, in fact.

But I am pleased to say that finally, things are moving in the right direction! The new landing page is done. Yay! This also means that the beta is just round the corner, waiting for the final polishes :)

If you are interested to get the notification when it is finally available, please head over to The Booking Bee and sing up for the beta program.

See you soon!

If you were given a choice to pick one kitchen from the pictures below to cook diner tonight, which one would you choose?

Exactly. I would pick the same. I would absolutely pick the kitchen on first picture. And i think i can almost certainly predict that 99.99% of other people would do the same. And do you know why? Because it is clean. There is joy to work in a clean environment.

When it comes to applications, clean is a synonym for simple.

There is beauty and freedom in simplicity. Freedom is a great motivator and beauty is the ultimate inspirer. When people are inspired and motivated they accomplish great things.

Booking Bee is simple. It does one thing. It helps you to keep track of bookings for your holiday apartments. It doesn’t get in your way with clutter. It respects your time. It is there to help you. Because you matter.

note: pictures from www.istockphoto.com

Imagine you arrive home from work and your better half promptly announces that he just got a dog. And not just any dog but an elegant and aristocratic dalmatian. Being an animal lover that you are, you immediately think “Whoa, cool!” and say “we need to give him a great name. Is it a he, right?”. “Oh, but I already gave him a name. It is called Dog. And yes it’s a he.”

“Now wait a minute,” you think. How can you name a dog ... well, Dog? It is as plain and boring as it gets. And it doesn’t tell anything about this beautiful creature. I want to give him a name that screams elegance! No, i am definitely not calling “Dog!” after him when he is running through the park.

And yet, I’ve come across many names that were something along the lines of Such And Such Mail Protection And Spam Filtering Application. What is wrong with, let’s say, Buster? You can do better than just name the thing after its function.

One of the most important things for an application (when the really important bits are sorted out) is its name. If the name is catchy it will stay with you. It will stick in your head. If the name is cheerful it will make you feel good. And you will feel good about the product. A great name creates a universe of associations in your mind that connect you with the product.

If you think about it, every time we are about to create something new the first thing we do is to come up with a name. It is almost if the whole life cycle of it depends on a good, well chosen name. And if you think about this even more you see that it is true for almost anything: music bands, babies, applications, books, songs, pets ... you name it. It all starts with an idea and a name.

A name is telling a story about its owner. And people are hungry for stories. If it is a good one, the story will inspire and engage.