When pg used a todo list as an example app to challenge email, this was to be expected. A million todo apps everywhere. People have so little imagination.

I don't think pg is to blame for this... todo list apps are inherently simple to design and build. If anything, they're a great 'first app' for new or aspiring developers, so a marketplace flooded with (many shitty) todo apps is not surprising.

Indeed.

And the second is a Time Tracking app followed by a Project Management app.

He (PG) was talking about a new protocol that allow people to share tasks and control how many tasks they can have. Not a simple TODO list though.

I don't think this is suppose to be an email killer. If they are doing this because of what PG said then I am afraid they might misunderstood him.

Apparently the author turned down a job offer to work on this full time:

http://samsoff.es/posts/staying-strong

I applaud the effort and entrepreneurial spirit and even the quality of the UI work. I'd question the judgement when there are so many to-do apps out there already.

I am agree with this... It's great staying strong in the things that you believe. I am not sure about questioning him though. Starting in a dense market is not an excuse for failure. There were too many "searching engines" back in the day and that wasn't a problem for Google.

Also, companies often evolve in different directions from where they start. Take Instagram for instance, they evolved from a social network and in the middle decided to take another path.

Markdown, for one.

So thats the reason why all other Todo apps get abandoned after the first week? I don't ever remember lack of formatting being the reason why Things or Wunderlust never worked for me.