I’ve always loved making lists and checklists so I’m really happy about the new release of Wunderlist 3.0 which includes the ability to create and share public lists! Now to most people this is no big deal. We’ve been able to publish blog posts or share documents for a long time. However, this is different. Much different. For the first time, we can now download someone else’s curated public list straight to our own Wunderlist account and use it ourselves.
Here’s an example of what I mean. I created a checklist that I’ve used for a long time that tracks all of the Best Picture Oscar winners. There have been 86 winners so far as of 2013. I’ve watched 45 of them so far. My goal is finally watch them all. This list will make easy.
Check it out: https://www.wunderlist.com/lists/121812267
The best part about this is the fact that anyone with a Wunderlist account (Free, by the way) can now download the entire list right to their account. This means we no longer have to manually enter each and every item! Anal Retentive idiots like me rejoice! Woo Hoo!!!
This is just one example of course. There can be any type of public lists out there now that we can download and use immediately. For example, lists for must see places, best restaurants in the world, best books to read, museums to visit, things to learn, best resources for visiting NYC, and so on and so on. The possibilities are endless.
I do have some complaints and suggestions for improving this feature.
For one, we need the option to embed our public lists anywhere we want such as on our website. Anytime we update the list it should be reflected in the embedded list. Here’s what it would look like if I could embed it. This is just an image file so it’s not nearly as good or useful.
The other thing we need is the ability to create public lists that people can vote on. I’ve seen this option on other sites like List.ly so it can be done and it’s been proven to be useful. This turns a regular checklist into a live online poll. Checkout the voting list I created on Listly for the best zombie movies.
Another irritating thing about this release is the limited options for sorting the list. You can only sort by name or the date the items were added. We need the options to keep the list static in the order it was created as well as reverse alphabetical order.
Summary
I still love www.Trello.com more for managing all of my projects. It has a public list feature which you can checkout here and compare to this one. The only downside is that you can’t easily download a Trello public list to your own personal account. I do like how it shows how many of the items you’ve accomplished. For example 45/86 (I’ve seen 45 of the 86 Best Picture winners). Wunderlist needs to add that feature too.