I’m excited to announce that StyleSeat is now officially in beta. We’re currently recruiting independent hair stylists, estheticians, massage therapists, personal trainers and tattoo artists to try out our online tools. If you know anyone that fits the bill, we’d love to hear from them! Send an email to info@stylseat.com for more info.
You can also follow us on Twitter @StyleSeat
This year promises to be a pretty big deal for me in the scheme of things. I’m leaving Current TV and a talented team of folks who’ve become my good friends. Over the past year and a half I’ve had the honor of starting the digital distribution department and helping to build it into to a team of five, and a source of revenue for the company.
While the decision was difficult, it became increasingly clear that it was a move I had to make. My side project, created in the wee hours of the morning has gained traction enough to allow me to bring on two technical co-founders and brilliant designer who’ve built it into a real, actual product that now has real, actual customers.
I’m pretty proud of our work and excited about what we’re out to accomplish. More to come on that soon, but in the mean time I want to express my gratitude to Current TV for being such a great place to work, and my excitement about the year to come.
If you’d like to know more about what we’re working on, drop us a line at http://www.styleseat.com/
Thanks,
Melody
Customer Development at Startup2Startup
View more presentations from sblank.
This is a great overview about how to build a customer development process (hypothesis>testing>information) parallel to an agile development process (stories>development>iteration>release). It also touches on how to focus on the sales cycle and how changing customer needs affect your product.
Also you’ve got to love the quote: “Only you can put your company out of business”
Hey folks! I’m at TechCrunch50 today and tomorrow getting a preview of some of the upcoming tech companies and I’m planning to post about a few of the most exciting ones here.
One of the cooler companies in the gaming space is Spawn Labs, which has created a device that is essentially a Slingbox for gaming. Using a piece of hardware, users can plug in their Xbox, Xbox360, PS2, PS3 or Game Cube and play games remotely via their computer. The major processing is done locally, allowing the gamer to play from anywhere in the world.
This comes in handy for a few reasons, if users want to play while someone is watching tv in their home, they don’t need to fight to get in play time. Users can play multiplayer games with people in other cities using the device, or can play their games while in an airport or traveling.
While the idea of playing games remotely using my home console definitely seems like a cool idea, latency and bandwidth are big question marks. Though they’ll get better in a few years I’m not convinced that I’m going to get solid wifi in airports or on the go enough to be able to really use this. In addition, the device is retailing for $199, no small purchase.
The biggest question mark I had however was the fact that the founders weren’t really sure about the size of the market we they were going after. When asked by the panel of experts (including Paul Graham, JasonHirschhorn, Yossi Vardi and George Zachary) what the landscape was like Dave WIlson, the founder/ceo had anecdotal info about the product’s reception among top gamers but had no data about what percent of gamers would use the device…which seemed pretty crucial to making their case.
But all those silly numbers aside, the wow factor is definitely there. Seems like the IP is the most valuable element anyway, and the company might not always be limited by an expensive piece of hardware. If this is the case the sky’s the limit and I’m looking forward to seeing how this product evolves.
I just tried out Blindsearch, an experiment by Michael Kordahi which removes all branding off of search engines and allows you to see which ones develop the best results. Bing keeps winning, though reviewing my queries I was looking for mostly local results (i.e. where to buy printer ink in San Francisco)
Overall results of the tool:
Google 41%
Bing 31%
Yahoo! 28%
Kordahi works for Microsoft and claims this is a side project so take the results with a grain of salt, but interesting when trying it out for yourself.
I wanted to break down my thoughts on where I think our industry is going because I feel like with all the micro-sensationalism we can lose sight of the bigger picture stuff.
Looking at the facts, there’s less VC money available now than in the past few years, Robin Wauters at Tech Crunch gives a grim but solid overview. We’re in a technology slump, with many big name founders/innovators tied up in companies they bet big on a few years ago and few other standout players doing innovative things. The biggest excitement in the past year or two has been Twitter as a real time platform. While this is huge, it’s the only very major trend we’re seeing and there isn’t a new Google, Paypal, LinkedIn or Youtube these days besides, perhaps Facebook.
What does this mean? We’re going to see lots of smaller companies, getting more modest valuations, taking in less money (not necessarily through VCs), and selling for less. The average period from inception to exit may lengthen (I think it’s around 7 years right now), and the wins may be smaller.
Knowing this, what can we do to be in the best position when the upswing takes effect? The truth is there are many many more opportunities available now that weren’t when the industry was growing five/ten years ago. Whereas entrepreneurs were hand-picked, fostered and groomed by the few at the top, this training is now much easier to come by. The technology (hardware, etc) to start a company is much cheaper than it used to be, and we’re going to see lots of smaller, non-glamorous anti-web 2.0 companies sprout up.
Organizations like the Founder’s Institute are educating the next generation of entrepreneurs and providing them the tools, knowledge and contacts to build businesses. There’s also a huge opportunity for the industry to leverage our civil society, building communities around product and collective expertise (not just cupcakes) to help drive the next innovation. Let’s talk about how we got to where we are now, and hash out ideas for where we need to be [I actually wonder if this needs to be driven by one person rather than the collective, interested in opinion here.]*
Here are the main opportunities I see in the next few years:
I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas and anything you think I’ve missed. What are the best companies out there right now? I posed this question on Twitter with intention to post the answers here, but Search.Twitter doesn’t allow historical searches more than a few days (fail) so sorry about that. All the more reason to weigh in here! Also, I’m still working on a fix for video comments, hoping to roll it out soon. That one’s for you, David Kadavy 
*I’d love to rally a group of people obsessed about product and technology to meet and hash out ideas. Let me know if you’re interested in something like this, I’m still thinking through the format, etc but if you’re interested in coming or contributing let me know.
The URL shortenting market got even more crowded today with the launch of StumbleUpon’s su.pr. Though the list of competitors are long, Su.pr has one thing they don’t have, superior analytics, and added traffic to the link, something content producers, writers and social media gurus (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) are very hungry for.
The way su.pr works is simple, users type in a URL and has the option to shorten it or post it directly to Twitter or Facebook. Su.pr then tracks the number of clicks the link receives and submits it to the StumbleUpon system which the community is then exposed to and can spread based on the quality of the content. Users can see how many others clicked on the link through Stumble, as well as what times people are clicking. The site even suggests optimal times to post for maximizing traffic based on that person’s community. Users can also schedule tweets based on these times to optimize clicks.
I predict this service will take off based on the analytics package alone. We all know clicks are the crack of the internet, so a service that provides clarity around how to maximize these clicks and also gives a link extra traffic will certainly have an advantage in this space. The site will also rollout a listing of which su.pr links have been shared on a per-domain basis as wlel as seo-friendly re-directs which allow users to maximize traffic among search engines.
To date, bit.ly has been the most exciting player in the space. Unlike url shortening services before it, bit.ly tracked url clicks over time, referrers, location, site comments and retweets for both the user’s shortened url and aggregated for that link. This data is essentially a snapshot of what content users are sharing on twitter, how that content disseminates across the community, demographic information for users in relation to the content they like, etc. all enormously valuable information that has not even begun to be taken advantage of.
Because su.pr provides the extra traffic boost that bit.ly doesn’t, it has a chance at taking some real market share, and it’ll be interesting to see how this one plays out.
Great Articles:
Exclusive First Look: SU.PR – StumbleUpon’s New Traffic Builder
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/06/09/stumble-upon-supr/
If bit.ly Is Worth $8 Million, TinyUrl is Worth At Least $46 Million
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/30/if-bitly-is-worth-8-million-tinyurl-is-worth-at-least-46-million/
Digg is Working on Toolbar To Go After StumbleUpon, TinyUrl and All The Rest
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/26/digg-is-working-on-a-toolbar-to-go-after-stumbleupon-tinyurl-and-all-the-rest/
Other Competitors:
Digg
snurl
tinyurl
Ginx
*Disclaimer
I’m friends with people that work at StumbleUpon, Digg and a few of the other sites mentioned. Please take this post as my opinion.
UPDATE: I was able to snag some invite codes, the first people to sign up at http://su.pr/ using the code suprmcc (I didn’t choose it) will get an invite!
About a month ago I was introduced to a site called TwitVid (http://twitvid.io), a two person Y Combinator backed company that allows users to share videos via Twitter. I recently spoke to co-founder Chrys Bader, who said they want to be Twitpic for video. Bader said they plan to embrace an open strategy to grow quickly, using services like Facebook Connect on top of Twitter to power a functionality where users already are rather than trying to create and wrangle a community like Seesmic and 12seconds. By doing so, TwitVid hopes to build usage quickly and translate those users into consumers of other products they plan to build. He’s quiet about the ways they plan to monetize, but methods will likely include premium services, analytics, advertising and rev-share with partners.
After the launch of Bader’s site, a five person venture-backed competitor launched TwitVid (http://www.twitvid.com) with a very similar design and feel. I asked Bader about this and he replied “In the long run it’s going to work itself out”. The sites have been racing each other to get features out like web cam uploads and video responses as soon as possible. Mo, co-founder of twitvid.com sent me a note differentiating the two sites “We have something that Bader can’t copy, it is our patent-pending Realtime video streaming capabilities (followers can watch the video as it is uploading). [In addition] our API supports upload and resume functionalities, allowing for uploads to be continued where they left off.”
The stakes are high in this squabble, the first to establish itself as the video sharing tool on twitter will get best chance of becoming the partner for the large Twitter clients that want to provide a video sharing option, which would mean major market share instantly. Twitvid.com has a call out to developers of these applications directly on it’s homepage. There’s even a third company that calls itself TwitVid (http://twitvid.in), claims to do the same functionality and while it doesn’t seem to have any bells and whistles, comes up first in Google search results.
One thing tiny Twitvid.io has in its favor is that it’s powered by Fliggo, a video platform for building communities. The platform has been in development for over a year and a half and allows the team to roll out Twitvid.io features quickly.
We’ll have to see where the battle leaves us in a few months. Though there’s room for two video sharing tools on the immense Twitter platform, it’d be great to see them differentiate themselves from each other a bit more. Coherent video interaction has been notoriously difficult to foster online to date, maybe the TwitVids on Twitter’s platform is the right medium to finally make this happen.
I’d love to hear your opinions on which service you prefer, feel free to @reply me with your opinion or leave a comment below!
@melodymcc
The Obama administration has launched a site Recovery.gov to help spread awareness about the latest stimulus package and how the funds will be spent. The site will provide information helping people understand where money is going, what grants and contracts have been awarded and how many jobs are being created as a result. Watch the glossy YouTube explainer:
In theory this is a spectacular idea, let’s take a moment to be thrilled about our government’s ambition. Obama’s got a short time to spend his political capital, and must tackle one of the most daunting challenges in history so now is the time to aim high. For the stimulus to be successful Obama needs to shock the nation with his recovery plan so that we change our mindset and open our purse strings to invest and spend our way back into a healthy economy. This site is a solid step in that direction, but only if Obama’s team can execute with nothing short of brilliance.
One of the core components of the plan is to create true government accountability. Movement towards transparency is a major win and will create goodwill and great press. Hopefully holding recipients of stim money accountable will be enough to keep some measure of corruption at bay. Think of how Yelp made local restaurants and businesses care about every review they receive and make real changes as a result of patrons speaking out.
The downside of this however, is that too much transparency may open up floodgates and render the government unable to respond adequately. As Saul Hansell says in his New York Times article:
“Even a rudimentary system to actually track and respond to such reports seems unfathomably complicated. EBay, for example, has many hundreds of people, and a decade of community experience, policing the many accusations of bum deals…and many eBay users feel that company is woefully inadequate. How this might work on a $787 billion scale is difficult to imagine.”
I wouldn’t be shocked if some major tech players (I’m thinking a Gates or a Jobs) stepped in here with new technology to help build the framework for this ambitious plan. I’m also excited thinking about the technology they’d have to create to really bring the feedback piece to life. The government should make sure however that it knows what it’s getting into here and that it answers the phone if it gives the nation it’s number.
Another beautiful element of this idea is that it brings tangibility and locality to this issue for people. Where concepts like seven hundred billion dollars, investment in infrastructure, bank bailouts might not resonate with most Americans, when the government says Obama’s stim created 1,200 jobs in your hometown, people get that message and stand behind it.
I’m very eager to see what comes of this idea. The Obama campaign was the most flawlessly run in history and there’s no shortage of first-rate talent here. We’ll likely see a slew of shiny data visualizations with plenty of gradients, and perhaps an innovative product or two. Imagine the possibilities if they released an api that provided access to real-time data for example.
What’s certain is that the optimism and innovation behind programs like recovery.gov where technology is being applied to new industries, will likely stimulate the next tech boom, so let’s keep our ears to the ground for what’s to come.
Working at Current, 90% of my day is spent trying to understand how we can use video to discuss current events and build an experience for our community. Hypothesizing and testing is a big piece of this, and naturally this same curiosity has spilled into my personal life.
I’ve been thinking about how video will be a part of our lives in a few years. Can I use it to build experiences around my personal community i.e. friends and family? Can it be more engaging or valuable than a phone call? Can it improve my relationships?
I’ve found that this is absolutely true in some cases. As an example, my brother is an introspective soul and does not do phone calls. I’ve never had a great phone conversation with him and since he’s moved to LA and we rarely see each other. I hate this, so I decided to start sending him videos of me talking about my day. Simple, short clips talking about what I’d done or was thinking of, figuring they’d be boring and terrible but trying it out anyway. Check out an embarrassing but candid example here:
I have a pet slug from Melody on Vimeo.
Not only did he enjoy the videos, but he bought a Web cam and started making them himself. They were incredibly well-articulated and insightful. He’d tell me all about what he was thinking, doing and nervous about as a freshman in college, things he’d never say over the phone, maybe even face to face.
To continue my experiment, I showed my parents how to use video ichat and made them log on to chat with me and my sister, who lives in LA one Saturday morning. Again, I wasn’t sure if it’d work, but thought it was worth a try. Result: hilarity. We talked while my dad cooked oatmeal and did the “breakfast dance” while my mom popped into the frame telling jokes. There was a novelty and show-and-tell component as each of us enjoyed showing the others what we were doing in our respective corners of the world. The conversation lasted an hour and felt almost as if we were in the same room. Infinitely more engaging than a phone call. [screenshot]
A third experiment was to create a video of my family’s Thanksgiving dinner which I sent that night to my dad who had to work. Not only did he watch it, but he told me he had a great time sharing it with coworkers, friends and family.
How did video make these interactions more meaningful?
1 Participants are aware that there’s a time limit so they engage themselves, rather than zoning off as they would on the phone, or even face to face
2 Video plays on people’s vanity, they realize they’re being watched and make an effort to be entertaining
3 The permanence and share-ability of video makes the value of the interaction last much longer and can be exposed to more people
4 Convenience means that anyone, anywhere can participate with little imposition
5 The human face fascinates us. Being able to interact with a person, even via video is exciting and makes the interaction personal
6 Video is personal. You become vulnerable when putting yourself on camera, which is scary, but can be more rewarding.
My next experiment is to ask you to leave video comments telling me what you think, how you use video in your personal/professional lives or just say hi. I’m really really excited to watch/hear what you think (unless I get zero comments) so speak up!!! Video commenters will get a shoutout via twitter so mention your @handle in the video.
UPDATE: I’ve gotten feedback asking how to submit video via a comment. I’ve enabled a Web cam plugin, so try it out! Also feel free to post links from another site like vimeo, youtube, etc.