Community Pages

Frequently Asked Questions


What is Tawala?

Tawala was invented to enable ordinary people to use the web more easily and effectively in their daily lives, and particularly with regard to organizing and communicating with groups of people.

How do I use Tawala?

Tawala has ready made web apps and solutions that you can easily personalize and use. They can be used by inserting a Tawala link into your website or into an email you send to a group of friends or associates.

When someone clicks the link, they typically get a form asking for information and what they want to do next. Tawala can process and organize this information, and even send the information via email to the right people.

How do I know it's for me?

Tawala has a large library of Tawala apps for you to try and use. You can personalize and format them. You can even create your own web apps usig our simple, visual scripting tool. It is designed to be approachable by moderately technical people. You do not have to be a programmer.

Is it safe?

You control the process. We believe that Tawala will be successful by being useful to people. We do not believe in aggressive marketing tactics, and we will never use any information for marketing purposes or spam.

What is the Tawala apps library?

The library contains a large number of Tawala apps. Some are created by our own team, and others are shared by members like you. You can download any of them to personalize and tinker with.

Who are the members of your team?

We are a group of 7 experienced developers and entrepreneurs. Led by Doug Carlston, former CEO and founder of Broderbund Software, we have been involved in the founding and successful development of several software companies, including Broderbund Software, GlobalEnglish and Personal News (acquired by Intuit). Our team has been and is active in the non-profit arena, and Tawala came about because of a problem our founder had in this area for which there was no good solution.

What can I use Tawala for?

Our most simple apps can be used to organize a meeting or dinner, create a web based sign up sheet, or decide who's bringing what to dinner. These are simple, ad hoc, one time uses of the web.


You can add features to an existing website. These might include a guest log, sign up sheets, simple games and contests, surveys and polls, and feedback forms. You can manage membership and have them update their contact information and preferences.


Professional developers have found Tawala useful as a rapid prototyping tool to show applications to colleagues and clients.


Look in our library.

How is Tawala different?

Tawala is easy to use regardless of your technical ability. Simple applets can be personalized and used with very little technical know how. However, if you want to more fully customize or even create your own applets, you can (unlike other sites). We have a simple visual scripting tool designed for non-programmers. We also have a library of applications, all of which you can download and tinker with. Once you have it the way you like, you can use it as much as you like.

How much does Tawala cost?

Tawala is free during its beta period. The pricing model will always be consumer friendly, and it is likely we will have both free and for pay versions.

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