Y Combinator-backed RescueTime is a web-based time management tool that lets users monitor the time they spend on the Web, like what applications and websites they’re visiting most frequently, all in an effort to help heavy web users cut down on inefficient uses of their time. (Maybe those three hours in Chrome Angry Birds weren’t adding to your overall productivity, friend.) The service can be used on an individual basis or by businesses — priced by number of users per month — to help keep their employees on track and focused.
RescueTime’s awesome user-friendly service inspired a $900K investment from True Ventures, Chris Sacca, Tim Ferris and some other notable angels back in 2008. The company broke even in 2010, and has since been focused on building hockeystick-type growth. Today, RescueTime is cleverly expanding its service into complementary territory with a new feature called RescueTime Introductions, which offers a way for top talent to find jobs at top companies — and may very well excite that next round of funding. → Read More
Y Combinator startup RescueTime lets users monitor which applications and websites they use/visit the most, and then lets them use that information to try to cut down on inefficient uses of time. It’s useful on an individual basis, and it helps businesses (who pay $4-$8/user/month) monitor what applications are being used, and where time is being wasterd.
It’s also a lot of fun to look at the patters from the aggregate data. → Read More
Wakoopa, the application monitoring service that we’ve described as a Last.fm for desktop apps, has raised $1 million in a funding round led by Big Bang Ventures and HENQ Invest. Wakoopa monitors the amount of time each application is open on a user’s desktop (or iPhone), and uses the aggregated data to create a social network. The site also serves as an application database that can be used to look up general information or reviews. Wakoopa launched in May 2007 and has grown to 30,000 users that that have generated 250 million hours of software usage data. The site has compiled the data to create Alexa-like graphs, though most of the data is highly biased towards the tech-savvy. RescueTime is a similar offering in this space, but it is geared more towards improving productivity than discovering new useful applications. You can see a recent analysis we did on their data here. CrunchBase Information Wakoopa RescueTime Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
New Y Combinator startup 8aweek aims to help you stop wasting all that time on random Internet sites. They offer a Firefox plugin that monitors the web sites you visit and how long you spend on each site. If you are on a user-defined “restricted site,” the plugin will tell you when you’ve spent too much time there. Or alternatively, it will block sites if you tell it to be a little more aggressive about time management. Some users may not be all that Interested in having the plugin try to change their surfing habits. But the service also provides an interesting chart showing all the sites you visited the previous 24 hours and how much total time was spent there. Some users may be surprised to see, for example, just how much of their life is spent on Facebook. The product includes a privacy option that allows users to turn off monitoring, or have the data stored only on their PC, not the Internet. The company is offering the plugin for free; they want to make money by selling the service to businesses who want to limit the amount of time their employees waste on the Internet. Today businesses can buy a web filter to block access to known time wasting sites. But filters don’t catch everything, and some companies may want to take a softer stance by simply monitoring time on these sites rather than blocking them outright. 8aweek is very similar to RescueTime, another Y Combinator startup that launched last November. RescueTime montiors usage of both websites as well as desktop applications, so the products are not identical. But the products seem too close for comfort – I’m surprised Y Combinator is backing both of them. CrunchBase Information 8aweek RescueTime Y Combinator Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
Tony Wright has been up to a new project since selling two-month-old Jobby to Jobster last May. It’s called RescueTime and it’s meant to help manage your time and stop you from ending up like this guy. We looked at the product previously, but they’ve now come out of private beta. Wright and his team have also taken funding from Y Combinator, and stand in stark contrast to the usual twenty-something ramen-eating stereotype of YC founders. Wright and his team wanted to make their time management tool as seamless as possible. So unlike other more manual tools or logs, ResucueTime is a desktop/web-based productivity tool that automatically tracks how long and where you spend time on your computer, be it Mac or PC. All the data the program collects is sent to your online account every half hour where it can be analyzed or shared with team members through their analytics package. Their souped up stopwatch tracks what program you have in focus and for how long. It also allows for advanced features, like program tagging and grouping, and can easily be turned on and off. Currently, it doesn’t get all too specific about what you’re doing other than the program’s name or tag. But for web browsers, it will track what domain name you’re on as well (IE, FF, Safari). In part this limitation is because of RescueTime’s privacy concerns and in part because RescueTime can’t yet recognize what file is open. They don’t want to play Big Brother, so users can always delete time entries or shut off the program for some alone time. However, since they only list the domain you’re surfing, your stats will probably see a lot of time on Google and Yahoo since they don’t recognize these sub domains. Although my own particular experience of using the application wasn’t all too enlightening, project teams could find it as a useful way of collectively managing time as the product gets more nuanced in the data they collect. After a day of trying it out, I found (surprise) I spent of a lot of time on Firefox surfing TechCrunch and Techmeme, while sifting through email. CrunchBase Information RescueTime Y Combinator Information provided by CrunchBase → Read More
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