Task Management Apps
Introduction
Asana[1] is a web and mobile application designed to improve and optimize team communication and collaboration. It was developed by Dustin Moskovitz, one of the co-founders of Facebook, and engineer Justin Rosenstein"), who were to, among other tasks, improve the productivity of Facebook employees.[2].
Asana claims to be used by tens of thousands of teams,[3] including companies like Twitter, TicToc Studio, Foursquare,[4] LinkedIn, Disqus,[5] Airbnb, Rdio, AdParlor, Flapps and Entelo.[6].
History
Moskovitz and Rosenstein left Facebook in 2008[7] to create Asana (the name comes from asana, a Sanskrit word meaning “yoga pose”[8]), whose beta version was officially launched in November 2011.[2] The company announced it had raised $1.2 million in private funding in spring 2011 from investors including Ron Conway"), Peter Thiel, Mitch Kapor, Owen van Natta"), Sean Parker, and former Facebook mobile head Jed Stremel, followed by another $9 million round of funding from an investment group led by Benchmark Capital") in late November 2011.[9] On July 23, 2012, Asana announced a new round of fundraising from Peter Thiel and Founders Fund, along with new funding from existing investors Benchmark, Andreessen-Horowitz, and Mitch Kapor, who had invested $28 million in Asana. Thiel also joined Asana's board of directors.[10] According to an New York Times article, the company's capital was valued at $280 million.[11].
Product
Asana is a collaborative application for task management. The product has many functionalities, such as workspaces, projects, personal projects, tasks, tags, notes, comments, and a mailbox that organizes and updates information in real time.[12] The product is designed to make it easier for individuals and teams to plan and manage their projects and tasks. Each team has a workspace. Workspaces contain projects and projects contain tasks.[12].
Moskovitz and Rosenstein think that “Tasks are atomic units of work.”[13] In each task, users can add notes, comments, files and tags. Users can follow projects and tasks, and when the status of a project or task changes, followers have information about those changes in their mailboxes.
Moskovitz and Rosenstein think companies need “a single version of the truth” about what employees are doing.[8] In November 2011, according to a Bloomberg Businessweek article, the product was described as “a single place to see what project team members are working on, answer questions, and get instant updates on work progress.”[8].