iPhone Archives

Foursquare Swarming and the death of the Mayorship

Posted on May 22, 2014

I’m a big FourSquare user and i have been since they launched. I think I was one of the original 10k users to sign up for the service. Looking at my profile, i can see that i’ve done over 5700 checkin and am the mayor of over 20 venues. I’m all over it.

I learned a few weeks ago that 4S was going to change up their business. They discovered that there are two distinct personas that use their app: (1) the user who checks in a lot and views where their friends are; (2) the user who uses the app to find places to go and search for tips. They found that they were constantly limiting each personas experience so they could wedge both into the service. They also recognized the rise of “App Constellations” where multiple services such as Facebook, Dropbox and others are producing multiple apps that deep link to each other (read this good Fred Wilson blog post about it). So, they announced that they are splitting their business into two apps: one for the checkin user (like me) called Swarm and another for the venue researcher called Foursquare (which will compete directly with Yelp).

Swarm screenshots

I like this change. Since it happened, i found myself using Swarm a lot and because it didn’t have the other stuff in there, it’s more streamlined and easier to use. They also were able to add a few extra features like “Where are you going to be?” because they have the room. In short, I love the new strategy and like the new app.

Also, the mayor is being killed off. From the foursquare blog:

Mayors 2.0. We wanted to get back to a fun way to compete with your friends instead of all 50,000,000 people who are on Foursquare. With these new mayorships, if you and a couple friends have been checking in to a place, the person who has been there the most lately gets a crown sticker. So you and your friends can compete for the mayorship of your favorite bar, without having to worry about the guy who is there every. single. day. Mayors 2.0 means that places can have many different mayors, one for each circle of friends, instead of just a single mayor at each place.

I am mayor at 20+ places and found daily enjoyment in that fact. This change is a bummer. I guess it reflects society’s need for everybody to be a winner, which is also stupid. But I understand why they’re doing it, but i also hate it. It’d be nice to have a global mayor.

As a side note: I’ve currently checked in to Illegal Pete’s for 79 consecutive weeks. I feel like that’s some sort of record.

Google Crushes Its Complements

Posted on November 17, 2009January 29, 2018

: Image via CrunchBase

Just was reading about Google Maps, specifically their turn-by-turn, and its impact on the maps market.

As many people know, there are 2 main players in the map market: Tele Atlas and NavTeq. Google licensed both of them for Google Maps for years. While they licensed, they also sent cars all around the nation gathering their own data. These two guys, Tele Atlas and NavTeq, were the only game in town. TomTom, the leading portable GPS device maker, wanted to control their own destiny and agreed to buy Tele Atlas for US$2.7 billion. And Nokia, worried that they would lose access to the coveted map agreed to buy NavTeq for a cool $8.1 billion.

All was good until Google dropped a bomb. About six weeks ago, they went independent and didn’t rely on either for their map data. And then about a month ago they announced their own turn-by-turn navigation would be available in the Android OS. Now anybody from BMW to GM to Samsung can provide turn-by-turn by simply using Google’s OS.

The big losers here are RIM and iPhone. They either have to not allow that access or pay a large royalty. And Windows Mobile and Symbian are in an even more difficult situation as paying to embed this data could be more than the license fee they get from handset manufacturers. This all assumes, of course, that users really demand this feature. If they do, Google’s really in the catbird seat. lessthanfree

People will complain that this is incredibly anti-competitive. That Google is using it’s money making machine to unfairly compete in the map market. Well, the story is even worse than that. To get carriers to use Android, Google offers a cut on the search revenue that the phones produce. So not only is Android free but it’s actually paying providers to use it. Some people are calling it “less than free.” Google will go beyond cell phones with this strategy. Any netbook manufacturer (Dell, Sony, etc.) will get a cut of search revenue by building on Android or Chrome instead of Windows or Linux. It’s tough to compete with “less than free.”

It makes you think of the world of complements. Chris Dixon discusses Google and how its complement are the web browser and the OS. The best thing you can do as a company is drive your complements to become commodities. Well there’s no better way than driving their prices to be below zero. Kudos Google, I’m impressed.

Tools of the Trade

Posted on October 30, 2009

A startup really consumes your life. Luckily i have a suite of sweet tools to keep my efficient and productive. My favorites: icons

Balsalmiq. This is sick wireframing software. It’s so easy and intuitive, it can allow anyone to make fairly decent wires. It’s also a great way to get ideas across to other people. Doing a full-screen demo of wires always seems to impress people.

YuuGuu. If you want to share your screen to another person to either do a demo or just display a problem, this is the best way to do it. We’ve tried a bunch of different types (such as Vyew) and this is by far the best.

Dropbox. We’re not the only one who loves this. In fact, on the Balsalmiq blog they wrote, “If you don’t use DropBox, I will shake my head at you in disapproval.” Dropbox is a network file times 1000. It’s incredible. We put lots of files into Dropbox as a way to share. In fact, i’m about to start using it as a way to share all my files across my computers and my girlfriend’s. A great way to just do backup to another machine.

Skype. This remains the best way to do voice-to-voice communication. It’s also a damn good IM client. Haven’t experimented with the screen sharing yet.

Jing. For debugging, there is nothing better than Jing. If you don’t know Jing, here’s the use case it solves: (1) click a button, select an area of your screen, capture a video of that area for as long as you want, click to stop and here’s a URL of that video hosted on the Jing site. Easy as pie and incredibly useful.

TripIt. If you travel at all, this is a must have. When you make an airline or travel reservation, all you do is forward your email confirmation to tripit and they keep track of all the details. Once you’re at the airport all you need is their iPhone app (or mobile site) to easily grab confirmation codes

Google Apps / Docs / Tasks. Using corporate email through Google Apps is very easy to do and eliminates lots of effort of setting up Exchange or anything else – it’s both simpler and better. Through that we get Google Docs which has always been a tremendous way to collaborate on documents with others. For instance, i have a doc that i use that Nader (in San Francisco) can edit each day in real-time as i work on it. I also use tasks as a great way to keep track of what i need to do. I love that i can add tasks from the iPhone (great tasks interface) and then see them back on machine so i can knock ’em out.

Any other items that you use that you’d recommend? What are your favorite work tools?

I Want a Real Apple TV

Posted on August 27, 2009

Apple keep talking about a tablet to be released

sometime soon. What i really want is an AppleTV – and i don’t mean the box that attaches to the TV. I want an actual TV created by Apple that’s an LCD or Plasma that runs OSX.

appletv

The levels of convergence would be ridiculous. You could use it as a Time Machine device to back up all your machines in your house. It could have a built in cable modem and airport so it could broadcast wireless everywhere. You’re basically converging Time Machine, Airport Express, the AppleTV box and adding a device that has a screen and processing power. The different models will vary by harddrive size.

The experience would be sick. The TV would, of course, have an App Store so people could make living room applications. This could be anything from a Party Playlist to Pictionary, or Charades. The remote could be an iPod or an iPhone.

Apple tried to integrate iTunes into Motorola phones (such as the Rockr) and found it to be such a horrible experience that they just built the entire stack and worked with a service provider (AT&T) for the iPhone. They’ve been doing the same with television. They have the AppleTV which is an add-on and can never get into the experience.

There are so many possibilities. Come on Steve Jobs. Make it happen

The iPhone and the world of computers

Posted on June 17, 2009

I’m an iPhone users and i love it. It has transformed my mobile phone usage and dare i say, my life. With the internet at my fingertips, i no longer go more than 10 seconds without knowing the answer to a question. I have come to realize that the world of computers and the internet will always be with me, following me around and enriching my life. It also makes me realize that my relationship with my computer is going to change. Because i can Google, email, YouTube, Facebook, and check sports scores from my cell – my desire to have my computer near me is dwindling.

The new iPhone 3GS makes me think about the landscape of the computers out there. If you don’t know it, there’s a new type of machine that’s becoming popular called The Netbook. It’s a $200-400 machine that is quite small and sometimes comes attached to a wireless contract so it can be connected at all times. In this regard, it is very similar to a cell phone purchase except in a bigger form factor. (click here to check out HP’s 200 dollar machine)

When i think about the machines out there, i think of this continuum:

One thing that is interesting is how Apple is has high priced machines in their Macbook Pro’s and Air devices and “lowend” machines in their iPhone. Whatever market you’re at, Apple will have the slickest machine. Microsoft, on the other hand, has less slick highend machines, and netbooks on the lowend. Personally, i like Apple’s direction more but it’d be even better if they had a tablet or smaller sized laptop that was an iPhone/laptop hybrid for $400. I think the regular PC starts to disappear and all sales are Netbook sales. Why would anyone pay $1000 when they can get a decently powerful machine for $200?

What will be great is the day day when all i have is my cell phone and i just plug it into monitors and keyboards when i want to work at a desk. My iPhone cradle gets a lot more functional and my need for a second machine disappears.

Kindle and eBook Formats

Posted on February 23, 2009July 21, 2009

: Image by Getty Images via Daylife

I must admid it, i want a Kindle 2. I like the thought of having all my books in one nice little electronic device. I like the thought of downloading and saving and storing all the things i want to read. I’m intrigued.

This is why i was interested in this article in Forbes from Tim O’Reilly about formats. He talks about the importance of supporting an open format in the success of a product. For instance, the iTunes/iPod ecosystem is a popular platform and even though it has it’s own proprietary AAC format, it also supports the mp3 – an format that anyone can encode into. Supporting both allows the iPod to take advantage of both customers and the web at large.

O’Reilly argues that Amazon should do the same with the Kindle. The fact that it supports only it’s own eBook format will lead to its demise in the same way that Microsoft and AOL’s support for their own formats led to theirs. The O’Reilly camp is only supporting the open e-book platform and they have seen it have success:

But we can already see the momentum on the open e-book platform. Stanza, the epub-based e-book reader for the iPhone and other Web-capable phones. Lexcycle, the creator of Stanza, announced recently that its software has been downloaded more than 1.3 million times, and that more than 5 million e-books have been downloaded.

While The Kindle is the slickest of eReaders and the most popular with 500,000 – 700,000 sold, the game is far from over. The Sony Reader which also uses e-Ink has sold around 300,000. Should Amazon remain closed, it could very well miss out on a huge opportunity, or as O’Reilly says: “Open allows experimentation. Open encourages competition. Open wins. Amazon needs to get with the program”

Of course, another way to look at this is: AOL was about to build a $150 billion company by making it easy for people to get web information and only after the web matured did they fall. Perhaps The Kindle will be the first out of the gate and will take the early lead because of the streamlined format and operation of it’s service. Personlly, while i understand the need to be open, i’m still willing to check out The Kindle.

Is Stanza a threat to the Kindle or an ode? (kindleville.blogspot.com)
Hitwise: Interest in eBooks Continues to Grow (readwriteweb.com)
Is Amazon’s Kindle on Fire? (chris.pirillo.com)

Google Latitude

Posted on February 6, 2009

A new feature was released today from Google called Google Latitude. It’s allows you to post your location onto Google Maps and to see your friends’ locations. It’s done using GPS and other technologies (Gears, etc.) and works really well. Here are some thoughts i have on it

First, I like the way it looks and works. The interface is extremely simple. Entering in info is done inline and the interface is definitely not cluttered with too many bells and whistles. Adding and viewing friends is also braindead simple. Overall, it’s a snap to use

It’s a social app but it’s different than a social network. For instance it’s (a) only really useful for people you know, (b) more interesting for people you live close to, and (c) limited to only location information. It’s only a map. Again, very simple

Not everything is great though. One thing i don’t understand is why they force you to access it (on the web) through iGoogle. I have a homepage already and see no other reason to go to iGoogle. That’s annoying and i wish it had it’s own site like Google’s Calendar, Reader, Maps, Mail, etc. Also, I also wish it would use my profile from other Google products. It seems now that i have a different profile for Gmail, Calendar, Orkut, FriendConnect and Reader. Why can’t there be just one?

Since i’ve had a iPhone, i’ve become much more aware of the usefulness of my location. When this information is layered onto web services, those services can become much more useful. I like this new app because it shows that there’s a whole other layer (location) that is just starting to be explored. I can imagine many applications starting to layer in location and serve information based on this. Ad targeting, ticketing, messaging, groups all change when this is added.

Google’s Latitude Adds Location-Sharing to Mobile Phones (radar.oreilly.com)
Broadcast Your Location To Friends With Google Latitude (techcrunch.com)
Ten Reasons why Google Latitude will succeed (thenextweb.com)

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