---
title: "43 Things Launches"
date: 2005-01-02
author: "Richard MacManus"
categories:
  - name: "ReadWriteWeb"
    url: "/category/readwriteweb.md"
tags:
  - name: "2005"
    url: "/tag/2005.md"
---

# 43 Things Launches

Congratulations to [The Robot Co-op](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508062938/http://robotcoop.com/) for releasing their new goal-setting social software app, [43 Things](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508062938/http://www.43things.com/), in time for New Year resolutions. I’ve only added a few things to [my account](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508062938/http://www.43things.com/people/view/ricmac) so far. I’m still working out the balance between private and public goals, but once I sort that out I’ll add more things.

Another observation – I originally entered my goals in my own words, but I found myself converting some of those into the words of similar-sounding goals that were already shared by a group of people.

One example is that I originally came up with this goal: “Build a Web 2.0 business.” That’s what I’ve got written down in my personal notebooks, but on 43 Things I converted it to: [“Start a company that survives longer than 2 years.”](https://web.archive.org/web/20060508062938/http://www.43things.com/things/view/9). I did that because 46 other people share that particular goal and I want to link up with those like-minded people. If you click on the above link and view the goal, you’ll see a long – and very interesting – list of comments that folks have made about the goal. A lot of inspiring stories about starting a company, motivations, suggestions, support, progress reports, etc. In summary, a loosely-formed community has gathered around that one goal. *That’s* social software in a nutshell. 😉

So I’m looking forward to defining my goals more on 43 Things and I encourage you to check it out for yourself.

*Originally published on ReadWriteWeb ([archived copy](https://web.archive.org/web/20020204040018/http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/43_things_launc.php))*