THE DREAM IN ACTION

This week I had back to back experiences with iPhone payment systems. I figured I’d document it here and show the differences between the two. Also I’ll shed some light on which, in my opinion, will win.

First, above is the image I took after signing my iPhone based receipt generated by Square. I had a delicious coffee at Sightglass Coffee in SOMA, SF. Just like at Starbucks I order my over-priced (it is SF) Latte and she whipped it up. Then when asked cash or card, I obviously said card and she pulled out a wifi enable iPod touch. The iPod had a funny little ’square’ plugged into the ‘jack’. The barista (if they’re called that outside of starbucks) sturdied the square and swiped my card. Then she handed me the iPod for me to sign with my finger. The next step was a prompt with the request, “how I would like my receipt, sms or email?”, so I requested email and entered my address. Very simple, I was done.

Below is the email that I received with a link back to my web based receipt.

This is an image of that receipt on Square’s web site. I was very intrigued by the inclusion of the “This is your first payment here.” This data got me thinking about the possible foursquare integrations, etc. It’s inherently social because Square begins to use payments as checkins (like Foursquare). They can tie in the location, with the transaction, with other peoples transactions around the same time. With a Blippy / Square combo you could have payment authorized checkins, with the social blast of the transaction.

My next experience was at the Apple store on Market St. in San Francisco. The experience was similar in that when I pulled out my credit card for payment I was greeted with an Apple device, this time an iPhone. This iPhone was sitting in a cradle of some sort that had a slot for the card on the right hand side. Much larger than the Square but still with one swipe I was charged, not interacting with the phone at all. The person manning this device asked for my email which he punched in and I was off. $30 bucks later for a Snow Leopard update, I got an email that was similar to Square’s except it had a PDF attachment with the receipt.

This is the Apple receipt. The gist here is that it just gets the job done. The payment process was simple but there isn’t really anything interesting about this, we’ve all seen a receipt.

So which system do I think will make the most impact? Well, if Apple lets Square into the app store which they must or it will be a PR nightmare, I really think that Square’s system has a significant upside. Here’s why:

1) The experience was a bit smoother

2) The trust is higher in that I was required to sign the receipt and if someone else were to use my CC I would immediately get an email about the transaction (once I associate my cc to my email, this should be automatic).

3) The distribution of the tiny Square device that plugs into any jack (not just iPhones) is small and cheap. They even plan to try and distribute these devices for free.

4) The potential integration with other social systems is huge. Although not everyone tweets, or blogs, 400 million people are on facebook and there are tons of interesting ways that venues could use this dynamic, recorded by actual transactions, to reach new customers.

Lastly, adoption is the only worry. We need to start to condition people to understand that a mobile device is no longer just a cell phone. With UberCab we’re training drivers that a mobile device can help then attract new business. With USAA’s new iPhone app you can actually deposit checks using images of those checks taken from an iPhone. This is not a phone anymore, it’s a computer, and with things like Square, UberCab, or new banking systems the world is changing literally in the palm of our hands.

So, it appears that Google is populating suggestion searches on Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, but apparently not Islam. At first I was very skeptical of Google censoring after hearing a story on CNN, so I wanted to see if it were true on my own. Well apparently it’s true.

My only guess at why they would be doing is is that they’re trying to avoid radical Muslims calling them out for auto populating searches like “Islam is bullshit”, “Islam (terrorists)”, or other potentially offensive searches. I can understand why they’d want to avoid this but I think by being completely transparent and equal across the board they would avoid the issue with less controversy.

What do you think?

Have you heard of Waze? It’s a mobile app that serves the purpose of a Garmin or any other navigation tool except it has the ingredient those other tools are missing — remember the one that I keep telling you will start to integrate in any successful application — social. With Waze you can report traffic, speed traps, construction zones, and basically anything else that’s going on that might affect your drive or the decision of which route to take, Waze even builds it’s map because off social contribution.

Like any social app there is a catch-22 in that the more people play, the more valuable it will become. Waze says safety first because if the GPS in your phone tells the app that you’re driving it will disable your ability to text at all (very cool). Waze has made some changes recently in the way that it compells participation that you should take a look at… read on.

Here’s a few screen shots:

As you can see by the pac man-esque figure in the screen shot, Waze is a game. You earn points for finding new routes, trekking and exploring new roads, reporting issues, or findings along the way. It becomes fun if you’re engaged in it. Like any game if you’re on the outside you’re probably not going to get it or have that much fun, but if you dive in it gets addicting.

Now games are colliding; Foursquare is allowing checkins via Waze (as you can see in the screen shot above). There are even badges for checking in a certain amount of times through Waze. The online world is becoming a game, all interaction is rewarded and more and more we’re seeing those rewards offline, not just stuck on the web.

If you’re using Waze now I’d love to hear what you think of it. What are the best uses, what’s compelling and what’s boring, and are you checking in via Foursquare?

Below: Some of the official announcement about the badge via foursquare and the gaming mechanics in Waze

Waze recently added ‘road goodies’ – small icons worth bonus points – to the map in areas where the waze system has identified map problems. As users drive around to munch these ‘goodies’, the system analyzes the driver’s GPS data to automatically solve the identified problems, improving map quality, and therefore navigation, for all drivers in that area. The holiday version features wintery, new ‘road goodies’ including snowflakes, candy canes and small gift packages, scattered all over the map.

Taking the gaming aspect of waze even further, this version also features an integration with Foursquare, a new location-based geo-gaming app with a lot of buzz. Users of both apps can now ‘check in’ to various locations on Foursquare via the waze client – a feature that’s sure to become very popular – and even earn a waze ‘roadwarrior’ badge.

Events are the things that bring us together, in real life, around a specific topic. Whether it’s a Victoria Secret Fashion Show, or a Monday Night Football Game, or an app launch party, people collect together in real life or with a shared common experience like watching the same TV show at the same time. Increasingly, the discussion around those events is becoming interesting and profitable.

Google and Bing, who do search better than anyone have realized that the real time conversation is incredibly valuable, which is why they both have agreements to use Twitter data — live conversation information.

I had a conversation with Justin Shaffer this week and he described the service as “collective storytelling”. It brings people together around an event so that they can discuss it. When I checked in at Wrigley Field for a Cubs game, Foursquare told me there were 8 others at the game who had also checked in. Now Hot Potato allows the people at the game, and the ones at home watching in engage in discourse.

Within Hot Potato you can add comments, images, or video to add to the conversation creating a powerful social network of people who experiencing something together. The service can currently be reached through their website but is optimized through the iPhone app (they’re working on other app platforms). Hot Potato also leverages Facebook Connect so no need for yet another username and password. When it comes to sharing the conversation and drawing others in, you can share the updates to Facebook or to your Twitter stream.

Where the Twitter hashtag does a decent job of measure how many mentions a topic has gotten and picking up trending topics, Hot Potato allows for a better use of that conversation content. Most people have heard the phrase “content is king”. That’s wrong now. Shaffer pointed out in our conversation that content is losing out as the most important aspect of experience. Now the social interaction is king. The conversation that is building around topics is more important that the event itself in some examples. Would anyone care about the Tiger Woods fiasco if people weren’t talking about it like they are? Doubtful. The interaction and conversation is now the most important aspect and Hot Potato now curates that better than anyone.

iTunes link to app here

This blog post is not meant to be insightful or meant to share an opinion on any particular topics. It’s sole intent is to ask you your opinion. I have a question.

Is the casual style of writing that comes along with blogging a good thing or a bad thing for society?

Some times I still have my parents read over my writing and usually their reaction is that it’s too informal. I write like I speak and often times that means grammatical errors, slang terms, and off the cuff remarks. What’s the big deal? Well, recently there was a phenomenal blog post on the Fake Steve Jobs blog about ‘why mainstream media is dying’.Whoever the fake Steve Jobs is, he wrote…

And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine.

Part of it is the form of the media itself. If you’re a reporter at the Times, you get one story, and a fixed number of inches, and you’re smothered by layers of editors. At TechCrunch it’s one guy who can get his teeth into something and there’s no limit on how many articles he can do.

I love this. He points out that the agility of the informal publishing platform of a blog is what will allow so many people to eventually make the “standard” journalism world irrelevant. But back to the question, is this casual style bad for the overall reporting of news and how society consumes it?

I think not. I think that a less formal style of writing will eventually be the way that most of us consume the news. Obviously good writing will rise to the top, and that’s why I encourage current newspaper journalists to team up, leave their paper, and start a top notch blog with higher quality writing and coverage. But the print is going to die, it’s just a matter of time, and it would sure scare me to work in a known dying industry. But if that journalist is really good, they readers will come.

Penelope Trunk wrote a great post last month on why the internet has created a generation of great writers. Her last argument, which I really like…

Finally, for those of you who think students don’t know how to write in full sentences, you are the people who probably don’t understand how to use text as a persuasive medium.

In summary, I think that the style of writing that is most affective is changing. It’s more casual but like most successful things these days, it’s more personal, it’s more comfortable, and it’s more fun. Looks like I did end up sharing an opinion. But, like I stated at the start, what I want to know is what do you think? Is this style of writing that I employ and that so many others are beginning to use good or bad for readers?

image via flickr

These days it seems like 25% of the ads on TV are for app this or app that. The iPhone app store just hit 100k in applications. Now the Verizon/Motorola/Google Droid comes out and says iCan do everything that the iPhone can’t. You know, Droid Does. One of the coolest things about this Droid phone is the fact that the app store will be just as open and the internets. If you know how to build an app for it, do it, no controlling application or approval process from Apple, Google, or anyone else…at least that’s what they say.

So, where is the money to be made in the App Economy? Well obviously the content creators, the folks who have the most data, whether that’s news, images, or a social graph. Those will always win. Then there are the builders, those who build the best apps will get the most attention, tons of shops have already popped up as the app developers, web developer just doesn’t market as well these days. Mobile is , so if you’re a developer and want to stay relevant, I’d be mastering the iPhone SDK and the Android 2.0 SDK (software development kit). Then come the aggregators, these folks make things easier on the users, and this is what I want to touch on today.

People always complain that the iPhone app store sucks to navigate and they’re right. It’s terrible. Nobody really knows what the Droid app ecosystem will look like because it’s going to be user generated and the users just aren’t there yet. One huge opportunity regardless of platform is application discovery. The proven model of discovery in almost any vertical these days is through the social graph. This means, what apps are my friends downloading, I want them too.

Enter, Appolicious. The social graph for apps. They’re creating compelling ways to discover new apps through a Facebook enabled social network and an easy tool to upload your entire (iPhone only for now) app collection…and if they’re smart, which I believe they are, there will eventually be no limit to which app ecosystem you’re interested in. Within Appolicious, when I search for foursquare I’ll eventually see both their iPhone app, their native Android 1.0 app, and their new Droid app, and also their Palm Pre and Blackberry apps (yet to be released). I want all apps, all platforms, and all my friends reviews.

How many app developers, content creators, and others will want to get a piece of that pie within Appolicious’s soon to be powerful network of people who own apps? Answer: All. This will likely become the most powerful site for application promoters and marketers because this will be the primary tool for application discovery. You might have said, “yea but Apple will just do it and wipe them out”, this application ecosystem diversification is exactly what will give Appolicious staying power.

Alan Warms, the Chicago based CEO of Appolicious, wrote an interesting post back in October about how free apps are the future (I agree) and this statement shows he clearly has a good grasp on where this application economy is going and how best to participate in it.

With yesterday’s announcement (10/15 Apple announces in app purchasing), every company out there can offer a free iPhone App, thereby reducing the friction of driving adoption, knowing that over time they can work with their consumers to find offers that make sense for both parties.

Alan is taking a big bet on Apps, and I think it’s a safe one. Applications, through the increase of mobile computing will become the quickest, easiest way for users to reach the web and the content they need. They’ll increasingly see their smart phones and mobile devices as their tool box to accomplish specific tasks and their apps will be their tools. We all know how much easier a job is with the right tools.

Here’s an interview Alan did with Robert Scoble about Appolicious.

image via flickr

staying power - n. the ability to endure or last.

Some startups today seem like they’re cool features or tools (insert twitter tool here) but I just don’t see how some of them will be around in a year or 2 when their budgets dry up. I could be totally wrong and maybe Twitters tool will get bought out left and right in some mass consolidation of the market, but I doubt it. When I evaluate startups today I look for staying power. In my mind that means, how do they change the status quo such that people will not return to the norm? For example, Twitter has changed the way I think about what I’m doing. If something cool happens I share it. If I read something crazy or have an experience that I think people would enjoy sharing with me I blog about it, then tweet the link. I take pictures and tweet them, I talk with friends on twitter way more often than I send text messages. Twitter changed the way I communicate and I don’t see that changing back.

I believe that Dailybooth has staying power because it’s changing the way people communicate again. It’s moving us ever so slightly away from text. With Dailybooth you can upload images in a stream and have conversations with images. This is just Twitter with pictures you say!? Maybe. Or maybe it’s the first step away from text centric twitter to something of the future. People probably aren’t ready for full video conversations just yet (although I believe they will eventually) which is why Seesmic has moved away from focusing on video conversations. I think Seesmic video was an amazing idea but I think it just came to early. But Dailybooth may provide that smooth transition away from text in a way that adoption will be much larger. Only time will tell. What do you think?

Both Gary V and Kevin Rose are investors in Dailybooth and both of those guys have proved repeatedly that they know how to trend spot when it comes to web services. When people change the way they communicate it’s exciting and those guys might have nailed it with their investments here. The staying power of Dailybooth is right in front of your eyes. Jump on and follow me!

The images below, if you haven’t look yet, are a crowd sourced image thread of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song. They start with the two images above and continue all the way down through the end of the song. This kind of image collaboration just doesn’t happen often and I do think that Dailybooth has caught onto something special here.

As described in their new release, “GetGlue.com is a social recommendation network for interests like books, music, and movies. GetGlue.com offers a stream of suggestions based on user interests, friends activity and things that are popular with everyone. Users can also add GetGlue to their browser to more quickly build their taste profile and get suggestions in context, on hundreds of popular sites like Amazon, Last.fm, Netflix, Wine.com and Citysearch.”

Today, they’ve announced a bunch of new features to their FireFox plug-in Glue, which I use on a daily basis. The changes are very interesting and I can already see how they’re going to make my browsing more fun. First I’ll tell you some of the new features, then I’ll tell you why I love the direction that the AdaptiveBlue team is going…

1. Suggestions Stream: A continuous stream of suggestions is generated for the users based on what they liked, friend’s favorites and everyone’s popular.

2. GetGlue Profiles: New profiles make it easy for users to save and share their favorite books, music and movies.

3. Stickers and Guru: Users can earn stickers for participating and get recognized as a Guru for things they actively comment on.

4. Browser Addon: Glue appears around the web providing in context suggestions, friend reviews, clips, and a way to quickly build a taste profile.

Now, the fun part, here’s why I think this is so cool. If you ever read this blog you probably know that I’ve a big fan of Foursquare, the bar/restaurant check-in game that connects the offline world and your friends via and online tool, so very well. Now GetGlue is doing that for online destinations (topics), and you don’t even have to check in. When I visit ‘Surfing’ for example on Wikipedia, GetGlue knows that I’m viewing it, then when I ‘like’ the topic on Glue it collects more information about my relation ship with surfing. Similarly, when I got to my local pub, I check in and Foursquare learns about my relationship with that pub. Now, I can become the Guru of a topic on the web. I just so happen to be the Guru of surfing :)

Because of AdaptiveBlue’s semantic web technology they are able to collect information (that I allow them to collect) and create an online profile that is likely more powerful than anything I could create on my own. They use the content that I browse on the web to build a profile for me. They sometimes are able to tell me things about myself that I didn’t even know. For example, why am I the guru of Brett Favre and not Philip Rivers (my home-town-team’s QB)? Am I a  traitor? NO!!!

If you’re not on FireFox you need to be, and the first plug-in you need to download is GetGlue, it will change the way your surf the web. It will allow you find more relevant stuff based on what your friends and looking at and it will make you more aware of what’s important to you. The technology has always been  amazing and now the usability and usefulness of the site will blow you away too.

In my short time in Chicago, I’ve realized that there are more folks into tech startups than many people realize, however our smaller but still passion startup community doesn’t quite have the “presence” and sense of availability of other startup hubs (ie. Bay Area & NYC). Hubs have events that pull these communities together and individuals who help to cultivate those communities. They realize that the more events, networks, and connections that people in the community are able to make the better off for everyone. We’ve also realized that the gap between the investment community and the entrepreneurial community is too large. These events seek to break down those gap and bring people together for mutually beneficial relationships. To that end we’ve decided to do something about it…

FounderFire

A few weeks ago John Fairley and I launched FounderFire, a meetup for web startup founders and executives, modeled after Dave McClure’s Startup2Startup in Silicon Valley. The goal of this group is to get people who are working on/in their startups together for a time of knowledge sharing and promoting the young. We want experienced entrepreneurs to help the less experienced in an effort to give back to and cultivate the startup culture in Chicago.

We call FounderFire a startup campfire with ghost stories and all. If you’re interested in attending FouderFire, we’re holding our first event on Thursday October 22nd. The venue has not been settled yet so please look to FounderFire.com for updates. Also, if you’ve like to attend please email me and let me know ryan[at]renliv.com

Chicago Tech Meetup

I’m also helping out Justyn Howard in organizing the Chicago Tech Meetup. We’ve recognized the success of the New York Tech Meetup and we hope to pull together our community in a similar, powerful fashion. The Chicago Tech Meetup is described on the meetup.com site as…

There is a new trend on the web and both startups and investors are taking note. Fred Wilson has called this trend, “taking the web offline”. Others call it the challenge of “local”. Companies like Loopt and Foursquare are taking this problem head on. As the only web nerd amongst my group of friends I love applications that are appealing to the non-techies (makes me feel normal). I really like the notion of using the web as a tool to improve life, not just keeping eyeballs and activity on the web, and I do think there’s serious lifestyle change and revenue potential in it. The key that makes this all possible is that the web is now mobile.

With the combination of smart phones with decent web browsers and the ability for developers to make applications on these machines, people can “check in”, connect with each other, and find reviews on the fly. I love seeing the Yelp stickers in bar windows because it tells me that the owners care what customers think and if that’s important to them than my experience at that venue is sure to be better. The web is moving away from just the office or home pc and moving into the actual establishment, into the venue, via our pockets. Because we now have the web in our pockets we can interact with a business via the web in real time.

Consider this: Prior to walking into my local pub, I “check in”, pub tender is monitoring Twitter or Foursquare, she see’s that I’m coming, she pours my drink without me even ordering it yet, it’s ready upon my arrival… yea I’d pay an extra couple bucks for that. Extreme example I know, but the information that venues can now access is awesome and will continue to increase. IMHO, they’ll definitely pay for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how and when this transformation will really pick up speed and I’m going to write about it a bit over the next week or so. I think that local is already big and going to increase in importance. Companies like Everyblock who was recently acquired by MSNBC bring you hyper local news, and other services make exploring your city and meeting people close to you easier than ever before.

What location based applications are you using? Everytime your iPhone or BB asks, can we use your location, how often do you say yes?

Over the past month or so I’ve had a similar feeling as I had back in April 2008. At the begging of April 08 I was evangelizing the use of Twitter. It wasn’t popular, it was “nerdy”, Ashton, Oprah, and Tila Tequila were not yet dominating the service but I saw value in it and I wanted my friends and colleagues to be early to the game. I got a lot of push back at the time but overtime people began to try it out. Now my entire family and my fiance’s entire family is on Twitter and they love it. I have tons of friends on Twitter and everyone finds it valuable and useful. Many of them have become evangelists for the service themselves, they love it, I might even say obsessed.

By no means am I taking credit for the growth of Twitter over the last year and a half but I do feel pretty good about the fact that I recognized it’s value early. I’m attempting to do that again.

I need you to join Foursquare. Even if you think it’s a waste of time or “nerdy”, I’m trying to help you avoid being late to the party…again. There are a few key reasons that lead me to believe Foursquare will be huge, at least huge enough for the non-internet person to benefit from. A few of those reason are the huge potential that is location based applications, it’s fun and non-internet people can see why they’d want to join it, and it helps cities work better.

The way Foursquare works is, you go to a venue (bar, restaurant, park, etc.) and check in. Once you’ve checked in Foursquare awards you points and tallies the amount of times that you’ve checked in there. You’ll receive more points at more popular places and if you’re the person who’s checked in at that venue the most you’ll become the mayor. Also, by checking in to multiple venues and checking in often you receive badges for your check ins. The competitive mood of the game works incredibly well for it’s distribution and is quickly addicting.

Here’s why it has so much potential.

1) Location

Location will be is huge for the same reason Twitter blew up; it’s ability to connect people and provide value to them. Twitter allows you to be connected with people regardless of their location, but imagine the benefit of knowing more accurately and more timely the things that are happening in your area, now. This works between friends on a personal level (where is Ryan, I want to hang out) and with businesses on a public level (where is Ryan, I want to know what he likes).

2) It’s fun

I’ve only been on Foursquare for a few months and I always make sure I can check in to the venues I’m going to. I don’t want to miss out on getting the points and raising the ranks in Chicago and amongst my friends on Fsq. I currently hold 4 mayorships, at my local bar, coffee shop, restaurant, and condo complex. I find myself defaulting to the places I’m the mayor because I want to keep the title. I became the mayor because I like going to these venues but it works backwards too. I really enjoy knowing what bars and restaurant my friends hit up even though I’m not with them and more than once I’ve used Foursquare to meetup with friends and it’ll only get better the more folks are on it.

3) Your life improves

Sorry to reference Fred Wilson again, but he recently wrote a post on Urban architecture and how services like Foursquare make cities easier to use. In short, this type of service makes your life easier. They’ve recently, and much more aggressively than Twitter, found a revenue opportunity.  They’ve launched Foursquare for business that will allow venues to provide deals to the mayors and advertise to the patrons. They may even be able to learn about their customers and what other venues they attend. Can you say partnerships?

Early this month Foursquare announced that they would be taking an initial stage of funding from Union Square Ventures & O’Reily Alpha Tech Ventures. I’m encourage that Foursquare will grow to build some amazing things with their $1.35mm that they’ve raised.

Even if you think the location thing is still ‘creepy’ or the extra effort to connect Foursquare to Twitter isn’t worth it, please signup. Whether you don’t have an iPhone or Blackberry, that’s not an excuse either, I use Foursquare through SMS and it’s great. If you don’t sign-up now you’ll be coming back to this blog post in 3 or 4 months saying dang, I wish I would have gotten on before the hype, now it’s so tough to be the mayor of your favorite joint. Trust me, don’t be late to the party.

I recently hoped to find an iPhone app so that I could pull up TV schedules really easily. I search the Apple app store for “tv schedules” and found 3 options (screen shot below), of which had reviews but they really weren’t enough to find out which app was actually the best. I needed more reviews, I needed better screen shots, basically I needed a better solution.

Well here it is, directly out of Chicago. Appolicios indexes and gives tons more user populated information on appropriate applications, in this case it pulled 49 applicable apps. We all know Apple just doesn’t give us enough information to decide whether or not to purchase. As applications cost money people really want more information before they purchase and Appolicious fixes that problem.

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I am a huge fan of Mint.com for managing and aggregating my accounts, I have the Mint.com application on my iPod touch (getting an iPhone soon) and use it all the time. I also use ING Direct for much of my savings accounts. I love the functionality ING provides of being able to split separate withdraws from my checking account directly into sub-accounts on ING. It’s super helpful when I want to keep saving generally but also need to pull some cash together for this wedding thing I have coming up…I heard they’re expensive.

Anyway, I would love to be able to feed my ING accounts into Mint for better management of them, but I’ve had some issues. They’re very strict with having all of my security questions aligned in order to feed the data to Mint.com which can be a pain, but I’ll deal with it for security. However, I recently got this response via email, from a question that I posted on Mint.com’s Get Satisfaction page (GS is a user feedback tool, if you’re not familiar with Get Satisfaction).

The email read:

“Justen replied to ING Direct account cannot be added!, a problem about Mint.com.

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Fred Wilson recently posted about the value of sharing on the web, which he called extroversion. Fred, and I, are both fairly open with our identities on the web and by doing that we’re taking a bet that the value of sharing is larger than the small chance that some web stalker will do something stupid. Personally speaking, this bet has definitely paid off.

In the comments I expressed an interest in identifying some sort of non-cash currency that could help measure the value that we receive from sharing on the web. Whether it’s specifically via knowledge sharing or something more tangible I’ll have to work that out, but it is an idea that I’d like to continue to develop.

Then shortly after that conversation, Blagica recently asked a similar question on her posterous blog:

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