304
Game of Thrones isn’t the only enterprise coming out of Belfast, Ireland. Over the summer, I sat down with Kris Nixon, the content crafter from DisplayNote Technology, for a web interview on the innovative new app called Swoodle.
Nixon’s current duties include marketing of the app, connecting on social media and writing Swoodle’s blog. The blog pushes productivity and shows ways to use the app in order to achieve goals more quickly than previously thought.
Working on group projects has finally become something to look forward to. Swoodle arrived fairly recently in Google Play as well as the iOS app store and has been a niche success, with upwards of 30 to 40 people signing up every week. By uniting messaging and collaboration, DisplayNote Industries has come up with an original interpretation of efficiency in the world of apps.
With offices currently located in Spain and Ireland, Swoodle was invented as a means of communication between DisplayNote Industries offices. Originally, the offices were switching between six different means of communication from Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, WhatsApp, etc. just to finally call in-person to check that these methods of collaboration were being performed correctly. The hope was that the messages, documents, images, voice recordings and other ideas were being interpreted correctly in the format that they were sent in.
Gonzalez: The first question I want to ask is in what way does DisplayNote Industries want the app Swoodle to be seen? Is it a messaging app? Is it a file sharing app? What can I do with this app?
Nixon: “First and foremost we [DisplayNote Industries] aren’t looking to try and steal messaging. We feel that we do it very well on our app, but that isn’t what this app is about. Our goal and primary concern is collaboration. We want to have the best collaboration app on the market, so yes, our app does file share, but it also is a messaging app.”
At this point, Nixon showed a virtual tour of the app and expressed the abundant of features.
Gonzalez: Could you tell what niche in the market exactly does Swoodle hope to tackle?
Nixon: “We are looking to immediately help remote business workers that are away from work sites and students. The hope is to have teachers connect with students and have them follow along a lesson in real time, while still having the opportunity to ask questions that are relevant to the lesson going on.”
Gonzalez: I love that. The idea of help in real time by asking questions and in reviewing documents is to me just revolutionary. The lag is nonexistent in the app and everything happens instantaneously.
Nixon: “Yes, thank you so much for recognizing that. We worked hard on this app and ideas were tossed around the office constantly, but one that stuck the most is who we are trying to reach with this app and what are we trying to accomplish. Parents who work from home or work nights aren’t always able to spend as much time as they can with their children. With Swoodle, a parent who isn’t around as often as they would like they can still help work alongside their child with their homework assignment. This to me is just a very intimate moment that many people can see themselves in and was one of the concepts we made sure were voiced through production.”
Gonzalez: What a great idea. I can see the amount of heart that has gone into the development of this app.
Nixon: “Thank you for seeing that. As I’ve said from the beginning, we are a messaging solution, but we are not looking to compete in messaging. Our goal is 100 percent collaboration.”
Gonzalez: Great, it seems Swoodle is well on its way to that goal. To wrap up this interview, I just had a question as to the security of the app; How safe is the app? Are employees at DisplayNote Industries able to see what I send as far as documents, images or chat messages?
Nixon: “As far as safety goes, I will say that your information is private. Not even DisplayNote Industries employees will be able to see your documents, images or chat messages. The only people able to see that would be those you are collaborating with. The app works on a peer- to-peer networking system and there is currently no data being saved off site it would all be on the collaborators phones.”
Gonzalez: That sounds great. There is definitely a place for an app such as Swoodle in the education system and no doubt in the business world as well. Take care, I’ll gladly be the first at my school to download Swoodle for this semester!
Nixon: Take care!
