I’m profiled today on WeareNYtech.com! They’re creating a really neat “look book” of the NY tech community.
Some highlights from my bio: I had my first profitable business at 5, I fear not taking enough time to slow down and reflect on the moment, itineraries and Amber don’t get along very well, and I’m hoping to get inspiring stories from Frank Chimero, Shepard Fairey and Jay-Z in the near future… :)
Thanks to Matt and team for the interview, and Teresa for reco’ing me!
Forbes features Ben, Allan, Jonathan & I re: the NYC tech and start-up scene:
Fisher’s vision of a business built within the community and to help the community is indicative of a larger trend—and the commitment of the New York scene to stay strong and innovative. Like Liou, whose Meetup event aims to connect entrepreneurs, programmers and investors, Adopt A Hacker is rooted in strengthening the community from the bottom up.
Fisher also runs a multi-city event called The Lean Startup Machine, a startup competition rooted in the “Lean Startup” principle, a method of using customer feedback to adjust the product or service on the fly. His colleague and friend, Amber Rae, is a founder of New York Night Owls, a weekly meetup of working professionals who’ve found there aren’t enough daylight hours in a week—and commit to working together from 10pm to 4am every Tuesday at the New Work City space.
If offering up couches to strangers and extreme late night commitment isn’t a sign enough of the strength and electricity of the community, consider the Night Owls’ rapid growth. Since March, what started as a late night Twitter conversation between Rae and cofounder Alan Grinshtein has exploded to over 700 New York members and outposts in 30 cities worldwide including burgeoning US scenes in Los Angeles and Boston as well as London, Stockholm and Tel Aviv.
NYC & ENTREP - Launched by Jonathan Wegener, me and the crew after 54 hours of Startup Weekend lockdown!
Want to donate your NYC couch to a hacker? You can!
this = awesome.
(via steadyconscious)
And then I found out about Indaba Music. this is awesome.
Jesse founded it. He is very awesome. He takes good photos too.
If you like mixing music and working with others, JOIN!
They’re changing the way music is made.
Silicon Bowery: Thoughts On Email...
I met a great company today in the email space and couldn’t help but think to myself how much the larger web-mail properties could use some of the thinking and solid things that many of these emerging players are creating. Email, for the most part, still sucks and I’m amazed that the category hasn’t really evolved. Some things that I am seeing that are awesome right now in email:
1) Social CRM - Isn’t it crazy that I still don’t know who I have been out of touch with? Where is the pane that maps to my sent mail folder and tells me who I have not connected with in 30, 60, 90 days? Better yet, where is the form email that gets deployed (i.e. ‘hey, we should catch up’) based upon how far out our last point of contact was? While still early and just scratching the surface, I really like how businesses like Etacts, Gist and Rapportive are thinking through this.
2) Scheduling - Going back and forth with emails trying to schedule meetings is a nightmare. Unless you are in the walled garden it’s really tough to map schedules and get something on a shared calender. I like tungle.me and think you should too.
3) Task Management - Do you star emails? Do you put all your emails in a folder as follow ups or, better yet, keep them all in your inbox? Craziness. Likewise, I’m a big fan of sites like Basecamp but for simple tasks that are not complex projects I don’t really want to work through a separate environment. Producteev is a good solution that I am starting to use.
4) Organization - Things like confirmation emails really annoy me. I can’t do anything with them and they only really help me on the day of the trip (what’s that confirmation number again?). Tripit and others take a novel approach to that email and really help from an organization standpoint.
Other than these folks, I’d like to see some companies think more around the funnel of the inbox and what really needs to get to me directly. Email overload is not even funny anymore, and it’s not like we are all going to unsubscribe from everything tomorrow. Why can’t newsletters have a separate pane that refreshes every day? They don’t really need to hit my inbox and I rarely read them anyways. Why can’t someone parse transaction emails or email alerts effectively to take them out of my inbox and place them somewhere else (i.e. I don’t necessarily need the email telling me that I need to pay my AMEX- why can’t that automatically show up in a chat window, a calender invite, a calender alert or maybe be added as a task automatically)?
There is still a ways to go and this is hardly an exhaustive list, but I love how these and other folks are thinking through the problems within email.
What Mike said!
A few additional thoughts:
- Scheduling: Tungle.me is good but won’t be great until they have more widespread adoption. I also don’t love the UX. I’m more frustrated than I am happy with the experience.
- Task management: I use multiple inboxes (feature you can enable in Google Labs) which helps me more effectively manage email based on context and immediate next step. I use four inboxes: requires-reply, requires-action, requires-checkup and backburner. I also label everything based on project and contextual keywords. It’s helped me tremendously in terms of prioritizing and staying on top of what I need to do now vs. later.
Brilliant. While I don’t know the details of why Michael is doing this, six reasons why I love this immediately come to mind:
- Street Cred: Msg’s blog is mostly a mash-up of links, news, ideas and random web findings. We have yet to see his full-length writing but we know that he’s been busting out 967 words while feeling affectionate and concerned about relationships. We also know he’s crazy smart and likely capable of producing very high-quality content.
- Novelty: Michael is the first I’ve seen to do this. $4/mo is a nominal fee when there’s little to no competition or choice. Even if the writing isn’t good (which I’m sure it’ll be awesome), the mere fact that he’s the first to do it will spark interest.
- Free No More: I think we give too much away for free. Ideas and quality content take time and effort and $ helps keep it going. Major props to letter.ly and Michael for driving this.
- Confidence: If you don’t like it, you can take his money. (That’s a damn good guarantee. And using Venmo, he still has a level of control because you can only take his money if he “trusts” you.)
- Tech Partners: On the topic of Venmo (a super cool start-up changing the way we pay for and receive money), Michael’s experiment will likely drive usage and sign-ups. Same goes to Letter.ly. Triple win.
- No ads?: Who needs ads when the product is actually paid for?
Have you heard of Urban Signals yet? It’s a movement! I’ve been working with them for the past few months and soon, everywhere, we’ll be bringing love back to the streets.
Ever see a cutie in a coffee shop but you don’t say hi? (Yes! I’ve been there.)
Ever walk past someone who catches your eye on the street, you exchange glances and a smile but no… you don’t say anything!? (This happens to me all the time!)
Problem no more! Enter: Urban Signals.
It’s a location based mobile app that shows you who’s around you, if they’re available, interested and ready to meet up…right there on the spot.
No more missed connections! That’s what Urban Signals is all about.
(ps - coming mid-June: version 2 of our iPhone app with Twitter/Foursquare/Facebook integration as well as BB and Android apps. weee!)
solid campaign.
I love Square. These commercials are brilliant.
The Square commercial is awesomely geeky. Reminds me of The Hangover.
(via: david-noel)
Love it.
What you taught me about @Foursquare, @Tumblr, love at first sight and Mark Zuckerberg in 5 days
Five days ago, I put an Urtak on my blog to learn more about you and what you care about. More than 1000 responses later, I spent some time today analyzing the results.
Those who read my blog…
- are more likely to have a Tumblr and most likely use Foursquare
- Half of you work for a tech start-up and start-up workers tend to be more upset with Obama
- You like Facebook but wouldn’t share your business concept with Mark Zuckerberg
- You’re happy and living life with passion
- You enjoy inspirational quotes and think inspirational stories give you the confidence to act on your ambitions
- You’re probably in a relationship and most likely believe in love at first sight
Those who use Foursquare…
- Like 4sq more than Gowalla
- Are likely to watch tv, prefer fiction over non-fiction, don’t usually comment on blogs and enjoy inspirational quotes
- You are most likely in a relationship, more likely to have had your heart broken by a Facebook status update and less likely to believe in love at first sight
- You’re much less likely to like Facebook and much more likely to use Tumblr
Those who have a Tumblr…
- prefer Tumblr over Twitter, Foursquare over Gowalla and non-fiction over fiction
- You’re much more likely to play a musical instrument and inspirational stories put you in a good mood
- You’re most likely in a relationship and less likely to believe in love at first sight
Whew! That’s a lot of information. It’s definitely fun to play around with analyzing the results but I’d love to see Urtak graphically package this information in a compelling way. Tumblr does a great job of this.
One thing, however, that really differentiates Urtak in my mind is that transparency is one of their guiding principles. If you participate and answer questions, they think you deserve to see and analyze the results too.
Participate in the Urtak, check out the results… what interesting insight were you able to contrive?
let’s get to know each other with Urtak!
I just installed an Urtak on my blog which allows me to get to know you better!
Urtak, an NY-based start-up founded by my roommate Marc and friend Aaron, presents an innovative and addictive way to discover what people really think and care about.
They do this in two ways:
- Yes. No. Don’t Care. - answer the questions, see real-time results. (ps - scroll over the pie chart to see more specific numbers.)
- Ask a question you want answered - unlike traditional polling methods that assume the surveyor knows what questions to ask, Urtak allows the community to ask questions of their own. (I LOVE THIS FEATURE!)
Potential use-cases:
- Help publishers and advertisers better understand who visits their site; thus making better-informed decisions faster
- Provide content creators with better insight into their audience so they know what to write about
- Also for content creators, I think Urtak could potentially replace comments. Urtaks can be placed on individual posts which gives you feedback on that specific topic AND everyone can analyze the results (I can see this being massively successful on Mashable)
- Get real-time qualitative feedback on product development and any important company announcements
I think there’s A LOT of potential here and I’m excited to see where the boys take it.
“Most companies equate success with growth; like waistlines in ancient times, size becomes an indication of prosperity. But Sagmeister believes that remaining small has been the key to retaining his integrity as a designer and making ideas happen. He explains, “The conventional wisdom in our business is that you have to grow and keep moving to survive. We never grew, always stayed tiny, and it serves us very well over the years, allowing us to pick and choose projects, and keeping our financial independence from our clients. We actually have a rather good track record, because we do select projects carefully. Most of our ideas don’t eat dust but glimpse the light of day because we find it much more helpful to spend some serious time and effort before we start working on a project, rather than suffer through it afterwards.”
Stefan Sagmeister: Life So Far :: Articles :: The 99 Percent
This reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a friend about internet start-ups and growth strategies. Most start-up tech companies correlate growth and how quickly they scale with success.
“LET’S GET AS MANY MILLION USERS AS POSSIBLE!!!” (insert sarcastic tone)
There’s a large emphasis on usage and the number of users. When did Facebook start sucking? When the entire world started using it. When did Twitter start sucking? When there was too much noise, too many people.
This is nothing new… as illustrated below in the technology adoption lifecycle graph
But what happens when we start focusing on less? What happens when the emphasis is on creating a quality experience for a niche audience? What happens when we take our time appealing to and getting to know a certain group of people? Might this allow us to create more unique and relevant advertising/brand experiences that add value to the audience rather than interrupt the experience? Might this help the idea spread? Might this help us make more money while also keeping our niche audience happy?
Who does this really well? Photojojo. Why? Because they focus on doing one thing and doing it really well. They find the best photo shiz anywhere. Plain. Simple. Amazing.
MacAddict Magazine, 1996: Windows User vs. Mac Addict. The original Mac vs. PC.
The line between those who like Apple and those who don’t is increasingly fuzzy. Today the only real differentiation is that the PC user is grumpy.
I had this issue of MacAddict… it may have even been the very first issue. I was definitely on board with carrying the Zip disks in my backpack…
hahahaha. this is fantastic. someone needs to use Aviary to mock-up a 2010 version.
“Money is nice, but I actually needed expertise more than anything else,” he said.
“Betaworks had a track record in this field back when no one had a track record in this field.”
In the two years since then, Betaworks has become prominent in New York technology circles for helping entrepreneurs fine-tune and expand their companies. The company has guided some entrepreneurs to lucrative sales and helped others raise cash from notable New York and Silicon Valley investment firms.”
Betaworks, a New York Tech Incubator, Has Grown a Following - NYTimes.com
word.
Dear Pandora and music platforms trying to make cash money… your model sucks.
Dear Pandora,
After many many months away from you, I’ve decided to try you once again in hopes of discovering more new music I like. While I think your platform is very powerful and has much potential, my 1GB library of music on shuffle always superseded your ability to “predict” the right song for me at the right time.
Four songs in, I’m quite impressed with what you’ve recommended so far. That said, I’m quickly reminded of another reason why I was turned off by your platform: your irrelevant and interruptive advertising model. As much as I support your monetization efforts and desire to drive usage, advertising that interrupts my music experience not only pisses me off but makes me not want to use your product.
I’m also not sure who to blame - you, the music platform, for selecting irrelevant advertisers who pay you well OR the advertisers / brands who should be an expert in knowing what their customers care about and how they use the internet.
Based on my past music stations, do you think I care about Clorox when I’m entering in “the xx” radio station?
Fuck no. And family music guide? #1 - I’m single so I’m far from thinking about family and laundry. #2 - I live in New York and therefore do not do my own laundry. I drop it off and have it done for me for $13. #failClorox - this is a waste of your advertising dollars.
The next ad takes a less family-centric approach with birth control. So maybe they are actually accidentally onto something with the birth control / sex angle (the xx is essentially sex in music, in my opinion) but still - way off and poor timing.
Third, when you (Pandora) tell me why you’re working with advertisers (aka “Why Ads?”), you fail and discredit the very brands paying you $$. You also shouldn’t have to tell me why the advertising fits within your platform. It should be a seamless and relevant part of the experience that encourages usage of your product and simultaneously helps a brand reach their business objectives.
That said, a few ways Pandora might improve their platform and advertising model:
- Improve artist/station prediction model to be based on mood/listening style: tap into how the user feels in the moment and the scenario in which they’re listening to music (writing, working out, cleaning, party, sexy time, etc.) - ASK and predict accordingly.
- Location-based advertising: Say I live in New York and Whitley comes on through the XX station… Say tickets for a Whitley show are going on sale in a week - BINGO! Perfect advertising opportunity.
- Location+artist-based advertising: Similar to above, artists could be recommended based on when they will be in town in your city. Since I live in New York, the new artists I’m exposed to could purely be from a pool of artists coming to NYC in the next 3 months. This not only provides a compelling and relevant advertising opportunity but it also creates an immediate call-to-action for me (if i like the music) and a way for me to sustain my interest in the band.
Lots more where this came from…
Much love,
Amber
