Update November 26th, 2008 at 10:10am PST: In case you haven’t heard, iwantsandy.com is going offline on December 8th, 2008. You can read more about why from Sandy’s creator here. There are hopes that Twitter will make good use of Sandy’s intellectual property, but that remains to be seen. In the meantime, please enjoy the following as not only a tribute to what Sandy was, but a call for someone to create a service that will fill the void iwantsandy.com will leave.

She’s a hub for your life. But she’s not a person, she’s a web application. So, she’s an “it”– a program. A great idea for people whose lives are so busy they need a little extra help keeping themselves on track. It’s Sandy. Here’s how it works:

Get an account. Open up the channels of communication (email, SMS, Twitter, Jott). Use those channels to tell Sandy to remember things for you, remind you of things, and keep a calendar of your to-dos. Sandy will then bounce that information back at you via your chosen channel(s); when you want and as often as you want. Basically, that’s what Sandy does. She/it is the virtual string tied around your finger.

Here is a generic example:

Me: Sandy, remind me to go to yoga at 2pm.
Sandy: Okay, I’ll remind you to go to yoga at 2pm.

Sandy (slightly before 2pm): Go to yoga at 2pm.
Me: *runs out the door to yoga*

Pretty nice!

You: But what if I don’t want to go to yoga, or yoga got canceled?
Me: In that case you can either tell Sandy to forget it or to snooze the reminder.

You: And what if I don’t want to constantly ask Sandy to remind me?
Me: The first time you ask, tell Sandy how often yoga happens and she’ll remember.

You get the point.

Generic user (maybe you): So, how do I talk to Sandy?

Sandy is very flexible in how she/it receives information. The designers of this service did a great job taking into account that their target user base–very busy people–may not have time to read a gigantic manual of Sandy commands. Sandy assures the user that she/it can interpret “a simple shorthand that feels natural to read and write”. Basically, that means Sandy can take it any way you want to give it.

Example:

“Remind” = “Remember” = “R”

What Sandy does with the command is based upon the qualifiers. “Remind at 3pm” means you’ll get a reminder just before 3pm. Same for “Remember at 3pm” or “R at 3pm”. However, if you just send “Remember that Nyco’s husband’s name is Jed” Sandy will hold that piece of information until you retrieve it on your own. In that capacity, she/it is like an extension of your long-term memory.

It is even possible to tell Sandy not to remind you of something, even if you say “Remind” in your message. That’s power user stuff, and I’m only including that tidbit to illustrate just how smart Sandy is.

Super cool, right?

Now that I’ve got you all excited, let me tell you my opinion on Sandy:

She’s a great idea for someone who is starting fresh; who isn’t fully reliant on a calendar already, who does the majority of their communicating on a single piece of technology (a smart phone, for example), and who doesn’t have a lot of ongoing projects to inform Sandy about upon registration.

Who is that someone? Not a geek.

I say that for three reasons:

1. Sandy sends communication on top of communication many of us already receive. For geeks, that’s one more email, text, or tweet among a roiling sea.
2. Sandy keeps a calendar for you, but cannot automatically integrate with the calendars you’ve already established. You can work around that, but you’re really busy, remember? (Fellow geek, Ted, pointed out to me that Sandy can talk to iCal via feed, but Sandy still cannot receive information directly from iCal. Thus, he is still integrated in the circle of communication between local and remote calendars.)
   
3. Sandy requires you to be fully reliant upon her/it in order to be effective. For geeks, that means prying yourself away from already established systems. If what you’ve got is already working for you, then there is no reason to switch. (Ted, who is experimenting with Sandy as his calendar manager, sent Sandy one email with 15 appointments listed in it in order to make his switch more efficient.)
   

Now, geeks can get creative and use Sandy in a limited capacity if they do not want to fully commit. Maybe Sandy can’t organize everything in a geek’s life, but she/it can handle single aspects or single projects. For instance, I might like to use Sandy to remind me to pay the bills that don’t auto-draft from my checking account. On my days off of work and away from my computer, Sandy can send a text message to my mobile phone reminding me to make sure that I take care of those “off-line” things. That’s just one example.

Ultimately, I think Sandy would be great for a busy mom or dad. Scratch that–Sandy would be a life saver for a busy mom or dad. Sandy would be helpful for a person whose life is coming at them so fast that they have a tough time sorting it all out. Or, for someone who gets so engrossed in something that they forget to feed the parking meter, step away from the computer monitor and stretch, or take daily medication.

She/it isn’t your mom, your secretary, or your best friend. But Sandy is a good minder for anyone, as long as you recognize up front the pros and cons of introducing she/it into your life.

Think Sandy may be just the thing for you? Not sure? Go to iwantsandy.com and find out for yourself.