I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but, uh, the summer is over.
And while you were sitting by a pool or beach (as I was), you might have missed a couple of changes from Betterment and FreshBooks, two startups on our perennial radar.
FreshBooks
The in-the-cloud competitor to Intuit’s QuickBooks added four add-ons to its service, bringing its total to 75. Chrometa is a timer for capturing the time spent working; GeckoBoard creates dashboard from FreshBooks data and activities; Easy Insight lets users track financial performance versus various benchmarks; and Active Campaign is a tool for building marketing emails. The add-ons are a key component to FreshBooks. The add-ons enhance FreshBook and allow it, through its open API, to offer a more robust service than had FreshBooks tried to create the tools on its own. For the record, QuickBooks offers its users add on-like software, too.
Betterment
Betterment, an personal investment site, revamped its look and feel. The site went for a “sleek” look, that seems to include a healthy amount of white space. Betterment said the new look “is just the start of a plethora of new features we’ll soon be rolling out.” At least one user asked for the ability to prepare his portfolio to the Dow Jones Industrials Average, so perhaps that is one feature Betterment might add. Do users like the new design? Well, not so much. Wrote one:
I’m not a fan of the new design. I think the site went from a very well designed Financial/ Investment web site to now what looks like a not so well designed Financial/ Investment blog (Confetti paper background? Really?). This design fail could possibly drive away new investors. I also agree with Dominic that the site is too large on your standard 1920×1080 page view. Maybe Betterment should go back to the old site or look into a re-re design. Just my opinion.
That’s certainly an “opinion.” Check out the new design at www.betterment.com.