The Status of List Central – April 2009

I suppose it is time to give an update on the progress of List Central. This is the first official update of this nature, and I’m feeling a little bit funny about shouting out this sort information so publicly. In a way, it feels that I’m hitting my commitment issues head on, but that’s a topic for a shrink’s couch, so lets get on with the update.

Having started the development of List Central in December 2007, I have set and reached many milestones. It has been very satisfying to see this thing that was once only an idea in my mind, slowly but surely come to fruition.

• The core functionality of  list creation and management
• User sign up and management, and user settings
• Search
• Tagging
• Feedback system
• Social ranking system for the lists
• The branding and design
• The business plan
• Administration system to monitor and manage user and list activity
• Custom Ad Server to help manage and evaluate the performance of advertising

There is still a lot more work to do. A lot of fixes, refining and polishing as well as a ridiculous amount of testing! On the bright side, there are actually no more big features to implement! Realizing this now is both exciting, and scary! This thing I’m making is REAL!

As of right now I am aiming for a private beta release on May 15th. I will be inviting friends and family to check out List Central then, in hopes that they will be a kind, and forgiving group of users. Following the success of this release, I intend to open the beta release to a wider group of users, inviting specific members of the web publishing and blogging communities to join and provide feedback on how I can further build List Central into something that they love. If everything goes well, I’m expecting to open List Central to the general public in early July.