The image above contains some of the most interesting data a business could have on an individual. This is heat map of my foursquare checkin’s in San Francisco. It’s powerful data, and it’s only static. Here in lies the info to make assumptions & predictions about my behavior that will changes services I use and businesses I interact with drastically. As a location drivin transportation company it is data like this that will allow us to fundamentally disrupt our market.

This information did not exist even 12 months ago. The services that now collect this data with decent contextual awareness are just recently being enabled by the right devices & the right changes in user behavior. The checkin is a beautiful thing & not just for the foursquare’s and Yelp’s of the world; it’s services like ours that may stand to benefit the most. Here are a few areas that I get most excited about when contemplating how to apply this data to make your life easier and our business stronger…

Marketing

Think about how accurate user location data changes the marketing game. If presumably I checkin to 50% of the venues that I visit on a daily basis, this map does a pretty good job of showing someone where not to advertise if they’re trying to reach me. It’s clear where I spend my time, and it’s clear where I don’t. Now I know not everyone uses these social location services but when this data gets aggregated across a particular demographic or user population you get very targeted results on how to reach that customer group offline.

When applying context (which I discuss next) in these marketing channels you can almost tell what a person will be doing, where they’re doing it, and when. The advertising dollars saved are enough to get excited.

Context

The next factor of awesomeness that this particular map doesn’t yet capture is a sense of contextual awareness. How easily, with foursquare’s new categorical breakdown of venues, could you tell me where are the bars I’m going to, where are the business meetings I’m attending, where are the houses that I’m hangin’ at, etc. What is context:

• time
• activity type
• social

These contextual filters provide yet a deeper layer of understanding to the consumers behavior. Each layer of context that is added to this map the more powerful it will become. The opt-in checkin that foursquare has created is brilliant because it enable someone to feel very comfortable with sharing tons of data. Which in turn allows services to create more value for those users.

What we’re excited about is tying checkins together and realizing that certain combinations of checkin types require different types of transportation and different experiences. By understanding context around checkins we can understand how best to serve our users and be efficiently available for them, when they want us, without them having to tell us ahead of time. For example, you’re at your favorite sushi restaurant with your significant other, we think you’ll likely head to the movie theatre and we’re happy and ready to take you there :)

Logistics Optimization

With an understanding of where our users spend time, and when during the day those transitions occur, we have the ability to offer an incredibly efficient and simple service. As MG at TechCrunch said this week in a post about social location features; the check-out feature or the designation that you’re actually leaving a venue, will likely come very soon. Great! This makes it even easier for us to offer service at the exact times, in the exact locations, that users may want.

With our Uber fleet that is growing quickly, it’s quite possible that we can use information like this that is either publicly available or shared by our users for this specific purpose, to never have to wait for a cab again. With a single click we may know what type of service you would want depending on the context of the venue your checking into & out of.

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The opportunities for this type of contextually filtered data to influence location driven services like ours it unreal. I’m so excited for things like background processing in iOS4, and check-out features from our beloved check-in apps. The real time monitoring of this data is really where it’s at and the better the technology gets and the more transparent the user behaviors become, the smoother overall experience we’ll be able to offer.

This request came from Ad.ly, the in stream advertising company that is run and was started by a friend of mine Sean Rad. Sean was funded last year by a very well respected VC, Mark Suster of GRP. What I really like about what Sean is building is his focus on “streams” and not only Twitter. Obviously, Twitter is the webs strongest stream today, but many services are going to the stream model & this will be a huge opportunity.

This is the email that I received, a request to tweet this appropriately called out (Ad) for a total of $4.23. So, as a starving entrepreneur I decided to get my $4 bucks.

I clicked ‘Approve’ shortly after I got the email and this was the result…

For $4 bucks, I’d say it was totally worth the tweet. I do think it would be a pretty shady practice if that little “(Ad)” was not included in the tweet however.

Maybe the most interesting realization after the tweet was to see my friends/followers respond to the tweet. I had about 2 people tweet me to call me out for selling out my stream, 1 person who thought my account was jeopardized or hacked and then friends just curious about my tweeting ads. Friendly concern.

So, would I tweet more ads in the future? Possibly. I can tell you that I’ve turned a couple other tweet requests down, so I won’t be tweeting just anything (my stream is respected, I love you guys) so I’ll keep it pretty clean. However, I’m not apposed if I’ve used the services that are included in the sponsored tweets.

Twitters Solution

Twitter is executing a similar behavior by promoting tweets within Twitter searches. I’m still skeptical about how much people actually use Twitter to search, but like anything the search behavior on Twitter, will grow. Twitter posted on their blog this answer to the question about promoted tweets.

Q: What are you launching? What are Promoted Tweets?
A: We are launching the first phase of our Promoted Tweets platform with a handful of innovative advertising partners that include Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America—with more to come. Promoted Tweets are ordinary Tweets that businesses and organizations want to highlight to a wider group of users.

What this means is that when someone searches for “coffee”, Starbucks will have a tweet (like the one above) that regardless of timing of that tweet it will stay at the top of that search. The kicker here is that the Starbucks tweet will NOT be to the side like a Google ad, these tweets will be “in stream”, just like Ad.ly.

I do think, for the record, that there is plenty of space for third party in stream advertising regardless of Twitters entrance to the space.

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.

For those interested in how I slept last night, here’s your answer. This graph, capture by the Sleep Cycle iPhone App, shows when I was in my deepest sleep and when would have been best to wake up. I went to bed at 11:21pm last night and woke at 6:23am, 7 hours and 2 minutes of sleep. If this morning is any indicator to how the app works, it’s amazing. I was SO refreshed and ready to crush it this morning it was amazing. No caffeine necessary.

I’ve always used my mobile phone as my alarm because I like the consistency that provides when I’m traveling for biz or pleasure. As long as I have a power outlet I can trust that I’ll wake the same way. For some reason when I’m using someone elses alarm clock I get really nervous about falling asleep, not sure why, I’m just weird.

Although I do like using my mobile phone as my alarm I was not all that impressed with the iPhone’s alarm. When the most appealing sound for waking up is a barking dog, you know that the options aren’t great. So, on a twitter recommendation (I believe from @msg) I checked out the Sleep Cycle app.

Here’s how it works:

You set the time you’d like to wake up (6:30am) then it tell you to place the iPhone in your bed. I put it just under my pillow.

Throughout the night, a person’s sleep moves between different sleep phases – from deep sleep to nearly-awake. Sleep Cycle analyzes the movement in the bed to determine in which stage of sleep a person is in and, according to the app itself, “uses a 30 minute window that ends at your set alarm time to wake you up when you are in the lightest sleep phase… a natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed.”

We’ve all waken up in a funk, and hopefully, we’ve all waken up fresh. If this app can guarantee that you’ll be fresh in the morning it’s worth much more than $0.99.

Some of the limits are, the phone must be plugged in; the app must be left on (do not lock the phone); the phone is placed face down on the bed and be next to – not under – your pillow (I put it just under and it worked very well). Also it apparently takes about 2 days of calibrating, so the graph above might not be perfect since it was my first night. When the alarm goes off, the sounds are soothingly subtle and get increasingly louder as the vibrate feature of the phone also activates from intermittently to constant. One thing I actually love is that there is no snooze. It knows when you should wake up so it doesn’t give you the option to delay waking up, which makes perfect sense.

Many folks have used Withings.com to send their weight via a WIFI enabled scale to Twitter. This type of tech that can affect how your body feels is awesome. I love tools that bring the web to the world and the world to the web. If I can can feel 20% more alert during the day due to the Sleep Cycle app it may become one of the most valuable apps I’ve purchased.

Have you tried out Sleep Cycle, let me know what you think. Also, if you have other app recommendations PLEASE let me know!

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?

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.