I’m sure I’m not the only one who is facing this.

You come across a great, new, well-built Web app.
You get psyched about the “usefulness” of it.
You feel like ‘this was what I wa waiting for’ and religiously sign up and do the first steps.
You won’t forget to share it with your buddies.

But then, the activity goes low and reaches an almost-zero level.

No, this is NOT the case always. But this has been the case with me regarding Penzu and 750Words.

Both of them are relatively new apps but built around the same concept – Private Journaling. That is, you keep it as a private notebook of yours, where you jot down anything and everything off your mind, not necessarily in complete sentence or grammar; as-it-comes style.

I admire good copy-writing and both of this sites does exceptionally well in that.

Penzu – “Not only can keeping a personal journal or online diary help your immune system and overall physical health, it can better your mental health and functioning as well.”

750Words – “The idea is that if you can get in the habit of writing three pages a day, that it will help clear your mind and get the ideas flowing for the rest of the day.”

Highly inspired and motivated, I signed up for Penzu (I didn’t knew of 750Words that time). I wrote about 7 entries in one single day and one each for the next two days. It WAS a real life-saver for me, at that time. It helped me off-load a lot of things and successfully fulfilled it’s objective of improving Mental Health.
About a week later, I got introduced to 750Words. It had more “niceness” than Penzu, may be because of the fact that 750Words is built by an individual and Penzu is a group of people. Also, 750Words’ explanation sounded more inviting and convincing and the interface and the app itself was very light, neat and simple. So, I signed up there.

I wrote about 670 words on the first day and didn’t write any day after that.

Because, I didn’t have the need to. At 750Words, it’s seen and approached more as a ‘therapy’. While the creator advocates super-simplicity and clarity, he gets ironical introducing some points-system and monthly challenges with rude after effects like having your name on the ‘Wall of Shame’ if you fail to adhere to the challenge you signed up to. I was amazed to see how the creator could talk in two different planes at the same time. Maybe it’s how I perceived it, but it’s what matters when you make something – what the customer/user will feel.

The whole point is – use something when you need it or want it. Don’t try doing something for the sake of it. Ah, this is a golden line always recited at many places!
Here, two things that were made with the sole intention of lightening the mental load and make me feel better, ended up making me think over it and write up this post (by the way, after about 5 months of silence here).

But then, writing this indeed made me feel good. So I guess, the objective is attained.