Where's Kickstarter? Should Every Company Have An App?

I'm a big Kickstarter fan and the other day was searching for them in the iOS App Store. Not because I'd heard they had an app, just curious to see if they did. None found but several unrelated products including one who seems to have a "Kickstarter-like" logo.

In a smartphone world, having a spot on screens (especially the home screen) is a huge advantage. One-click to access. Sure you can create website icons which open your browser and direct to the site, but my guess is that most people don't (on my iPhone I've done this for Techmeme & Grantland). If you're "just a site," browser+autofill URL is likely the quickest navigation path - quick, but doesn't beat seeing a product's icon again and again and again as you turn on your phone.

Which lead me to wonder - should every product have a MVA (Minimum Viable App), even if it's largely a framed mobile website? Is (a) having something relevant appear when users search for your brand in Android or iOS App Store and (b) getting that space on mobile screens, important enough to make not having an app in 2012 much like not having a website in 1998?

What do you guys think - is having a barebones app better than no app at all?

Tim O'Reilly Goes to Vidcon (aka sees the future of video)

When I Get Angry, I Give Money to Charity

Was sharing my charitable donation strategy with Matt Cutts earlier this week and he seemed particularly amused by one dimension. As someone lucky enough to have a great job during these past few years of economic turmoil I try to be generous in my philanthropy. There are three catalysts:

1. Ongoing support to organizations I care about (such as donorschoose.org, charity:water, taproot foundation)

2. Support my friends in their causes. You know, the charity bike ride, 10k, etc. I always respond to these requests with a small donation.

Pretty standard I assume. But it was my third pathway that Matt suggested I discuss: 

3. I give as a counter to wrongness encountered. Basically if I'm reading a newspaper article or hear about an event that just pisses me off, I figure out how to give money to try and counter. Like if Taliban militants commit an act of violence against a female students, I will find a way to give money to an organization building schools in Asia. Or if the North Carolina government passes anti-gay legislation, I'll support the local chapter of the ACLU. Does it change the world? Probably not. Does it make me feel better than if I just read the story and did nothing? Yeah it does.

Actually though it's a bit of a pain in the ass sometimes to find a charity that matches against the issue. Can someone build a Chrome extension which for a given URL supplies links to charitable organizations (or politicians) who are pro or con? Either that, or how about some of these news website put a "donate" button in their social sharing which can highlight organizations we can support.

Don't Just Watch: YouTube Works with Change.org, Causes & DonorsChoose.org

"Awareness" is the most common answer I hear from nonprofits about their goals on YouTube. That's great, but awareness is hard to measure and doesn't pay the rent. One of our efforts has been to push harder on the metrics of success - do you want dollars donated? A petition signed? An email address submitted? All of these steps are about compressing the distance between the content and the call to action. Getting someone who is interested to take that next step.

Today we're excited to share that YouTube is supporting the ability to link directly to Change.org, Causes and DonorsChoose.org webpages from within your video. Instead of having to bury your link somewhere in the video's description, you can now make it appear in the video player itself. Front and center.

I've written previously about the 3 Cs of a successful social media campaign: Content, Community and a Call to Action. This improvement is just one of several coming to help the YouTube community continue to change the world.

Old Interviews, New Viewers: How one journalist is reinventing the archives for a realtime world

One of my favorite recent Kickstarter projects is by Blank on Blank, a team of journalists soliciting old interviews from their colleagues. They then take these "lost" audio recordings and breathe new life into them by adding animations or other visual components. Already some great examples on their YouTube channel, including one by Bono I'll embed below. What's so great about this initiative is it fits into my theme of "in a realtime world, archives are undervalued." That's to say, we get so obsessed with what's happening now, that's there's actually a lot of great content which didn't find it's maximum audience but isn't getting surfaced in our social newsfeeds. Blank on Blank doesn't just publish, they embellish by taking this content and turning it into a richer work. They take old and make new. Great stuff.
 

Branded Content: Spotify Playlists & Birchbox

Last October I started beating the drum for brands to think about Spotify playlists as an engagement opportunity after sitting in a restaurant grooving to the tunes playing during our meal. Rachel Jo Silver of Birchbox immediately pinged me to chat about some of programs she was running. As a lifestyle products company it makes perfect sense that they'd use music to help solidify the emotional connection between their brand and potential customers. Here's what she told me:

1. Sweepstakes with Stila. Every week we host sweepstakes on our Facebook page sponsored by one of our brand partners. Recently, Stila gave away a makeup-case music player. So, for that sweepstakes we embedded a 'Getting Ready' Spotify playlist into the sweepstakes template. After fans entered the sweepstakes we asked them to comment with songs that they thought we should have included on the list. To support that sweepstakes we asked our network of 1,000+ bloggers to write a blog post featuring their favorite songs for getting ready. We published three bloggers' playlists on our blog along with our own Spotify playlist.  We saw great Twitter engagement around this campaign with people Tweeting us songs they wanted us to include. 

2. Link to Spotify playlist in Birchbox Man box. Because our Birchbox Man box is focused on not just grooming products, but lifestyle as well, we decided to include a Spotify link on one of our in-box cards. We used a custom URL Birch.ly/JohnnyCash2012 which linked to a Spotify playlist based on a list Cash had made of his 'Desert Island Albums'. 

Chocolate Water? We all deserve diabetes.

The Metromint waters showed up in the Google microkitchens some time last year. Peppermint water, spearamint water - they're quite delicious. No sugar, no sweeteners. Kind of just like a sprig of mint in your plain glass of water.

But alas, we now have the latest addition to the product line, chocolatemint water. Still, no sweeteners and according to the website, recommended by many Weight Watchers groups. Call me skeptical. Sure their version might not be bad for you but it trains your body to want sweetness, to associate the refreshing aspect of water with the pleasing flavor of chocolate. And what happens when you find yourself thirsty without access to your chocolatemint water? Well my guess is that regular water just won't be tasty enough for you but, yum, a 500 calorie Starbucks frap will do the trick. The best path to health is to not need everything to be a sweetness fix but to ween yourself off of these crutches.

Really???

Make Good Art

“Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: make good art. I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. I.R.S. on your trail? Make good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do is stupid or evil, or it’s all been done before? Make good art.”


- Author Neil Gaiman at 2012 University of the Arts Commencement

Bill Murray On His Career

"To the degree that i can get the things that want to control me out of the way, then there's less stuff in my field of vision. Then I can work"

"You want to say no at the right time and you want to say yes more sparingly"

- Bill Murray

Checking In On New Foursquare

Foursquare's recent redesign launched to significantly enthusiastic reviews for its simplicity, design and speed. And it was no incremental release - founder Dennis Crowley emphasized how they ripped apart the old app and basically started from scratch. Why? Because despite their success, Foursquare couldn't afford to just optimize around the existing user behaviors - with Yelp, Google Local and Groupon all investing in discovery experiences, Foursquare sought to put "local" front and center via the "Explore" tab. As a longtime fan of Foursquare I waited a week or so before detailing my thoughts - largely to understand how the product wanted me to behave rather than just noting what had changed about the app itself. My guess is that I'm both more active and have more connections than the average Foursquare user, and I think this is the main cause of my pain points with the new app. They solved the casual user needs first and then will (hopefully) refine for the power user.

Clear Improvements

• Check-Ins: Emphasis on photo and description creates much richer story around what was previously largely business name and location metadata.  I find myself taking more photos. Crossposting to Facebook or Twitter still easy but moved lower. Together a real focus on creating content to be published and consumed on platform. 
• Visual Design: So much cleaner. The location iconography is distinct and informative while still maintaining equal visual weight with the rest of the page information. 
• Faster: Loads and transitions are quicker.
• Friend Requests: Previously these were obtrusive and bothersome. Now I don't have to take action on them unless I want to.
• Profile Tab: More organized with nicer presentation of my own history. All the tiles except stats provide realtime stats without having to go a level deeper.

Where I'm Struggling

• No Local Filter on Friends Tab: Given the size, activity and geographic spread of my Foursquare friends, the lack of a "local" filter here is killing me. I've already defriended several folks to try and manage the noise but it's impossible. As a result, I've spent very little time looking at this tab, which eliminated the serendipity of seeing where my friends are locally. This is a really important use case for me - it's what builds habit and causes me to open Foursquare even when I don't need to check in. There's been some talk of putting this filter in Explore instead. That feels wrong to me - since maps are hard to pan and scan. I don't just want to know who is nearest to my current location. I want to know in a summary format, where in SF my friends are right now.
• Touch Targets on Friend Icons & Business Icons in Feed: Ok this is kinda clumsy to describe, but on the left hand side of each post snippet in the feed you have the profile pic of your friend and the icon representing the business right alongside. Touching your friend's picture goes to their profile page and touching the business icon goes to the business page, but they're both small targets and for fat or fast fingers, I find myself hitting the wrong touch point. Since the rest of the post goes to the business page, I would not link the business icon and make that entire graphic link to the friend profile.
• Comments Still Don't Result in Community: For reasons that I can't quite figure out, comments on Foursquare still feel really lonely. I rarely reply to those left on my check-ins and similarly, don't usually get responses when I leave a comment.
• Hearts!: I'm not a fan of the "heart" system. I don't think it's a very sophisticated feedback loop and I'm still not sure what it means. I like this restaurant? I like this person? I like what this person said about this place? I like the photo? My personal opinion is that they just need to bite the bullet and allow people to rate locations or some similar feedback mechanism which speaks specifically to the quality of the experience. 

What Do I Still Want?

• Easier Way to Save Places & Smarter Lists: In the global feed I can now see lots of my friends' activity across the world, including items they save to their lists. Don't make me go to location pages and click "save" one by one. I really want to save from the feed and then have smart lists that allow me to easily filter my saved places by location and/or type. For example, i can see restaurants I've saved in LA without having to create lists for them. I also have trouble managing lists - adding, removing items. It's all very clunky - i want to swipe them and get action icons or delete. The addition of this would make the Global Friends view valuable and when combined with a local filter on Friends, give me the exact combination I need to get local serendipity now but also mine the Global feed for things I want to do later.

All in all I'm bullish on this release as the platform to build from but would very much like to see a Local filter back on Friend feed and improvements to the To-Do list feature. 

So Alex, tell me where I'm wrong or an outlier :)

[Previous: In February 2010 I wrote about their needed evolution from a "post your location" utility to a more rich experience built around pillars of local discovery, and in September of last year, evaluated their progress towards being the place you turn to answer the question "where."]

Foursquare founder likes Nestle Crunch

Does The World Need Product Managers?

The Death of Social Proof

Social proof is dying as a startup differentiation heuristic during fundraising. Why?

A) Blame Angellist for an Advisor Bubble

Every company I see has some roster of advisors and/or soft-circled seed investors already committed. It's gone from evidence of company traction to merely an execution step before hitting 'publish' on the Angellist profile.

The prominence of "Advisors" on the Angellist profile has artificially inflated the perceived value of attracting "name brand" confidants. This in turn has resulted in an advisor bubble, where people are constantly getting asked to "advise" in exchange for a small amount of equity (Naval at Angellist has mentioned looking at a better way to present this information on site). Often advising means very little beyond "let me put you in the investor deck." [Personally, I've started to not disclose my relationship with some companies in order to allow us to focus on the product not a recognizable avatar for their About page]

As a result, most savvy investors are starting to discount (or at least push on) the value of an advisory board unless the founder can articulate why that's important. For example, a friend of mine is building an app with a very specific target market. Within this market there's a name or two that would really help him build credibility with customers, and thus he's pursuing a strategic advisory relationship.

B) Abundance of Dollars

So many investors. Angel investors, incubators, early stage funds, later stage funds with seed side funds. And they're all spreading little bets everywhere so any one of them deciding to back your company is less differentiated than prior.

C) Maybe Social Proof Doesn't Work?

My personal experience is that the angel investments where I relied more on social proof than my own direct relationship with the team, have been less productive (both in terms of return and fun). So while investing syndicates are cultivated over time, the happenstance moment-in-time collection of a handful of investors seems to not add much value, especially when there's a first time entrepreneur. I'd go so far as to say a party round for me is now a negative signal in many deals because the lack of a lead investor suggests there might not be a single individual who really has a personal stake in the outcome.

A Quora question on whether social proof works as an investing strategy has an interesting answer from Naval who notes that if all investors rely upon social proof it changes the nature of the marketplace.

Conclusion

So if you're a founder, don't worry as much about signaling. Figure out who you want to work with, have a great rationale for involving them and then build a relationship.

For angel investors, if you don't have time to actually understand a company and are just following social proof, you're better off becoming a LP in an early stage fund and letting them do it for you.

For advisors, please focus on adding value. If you're not delivering 2x more than your equity is worth, consider stepping aside.

Do tech turnarounds even exist?

I Made $1000 Eating Dinner on Grubwithus and You Can Too!!!!!*

Linkbait headline but let me explain the asterisk :)

Have you heard about Grubwithus? It's basically a service where you can sign up for a group meal at a local restaurant, joining other people you probably don't yet know. Sometimes the meals have themes or hosts, but many are just random collections of interesting folks (you can see who else is attending before you register). The meal is a fixed price, family style deal - restaurants love it because it generates demand. Overall Grub is catching on and they just raised a second round of funding.

I'm a big believer that new services need to be actually tried before you can have an opinion, so last month Jason Shellen and I hosted a Grubwithus charity meal. This basically meant we scheduled a meal, bought two of the 12 seats ourselves, and worked with the Grub team to get all proceeds donated to charity (Architecture for Humanity, a charity we both support). After the restaurant's share was deducted from the ticket price, we raised ~$800, just by having a meal together with some new friends (we priced our meal at $100 but most are <$40). Being a new dad, my free time is increasingly scarce, but the serendipity of meeting interesting people while doing good (and getting fed) means I'll probably do this again (btw, charity meals will soon be a self-service feature but for now, if you want to host one pls email partnerships@grubwithus.com).

A few other observations:

• Grub is KILLER for people new to town. I'd say half of our meal were people who only recently had moved to San Francisco. I also wonder how many tourists/daytrippers would use this to get a better flavor for a place they're visiting?
• One person was a repeat user (this was his 4th!). I think everyone else was new.
• I recognized one of the people from Twitter - it was fun to meet them in-person. I'd like a feature which lets me curate attendees more - for example, restrict it just to people who follow me on Twitter.
• Seemed like several of the attendees exchanged contact info but I think this could be better done automatically by the Grub system.
• I'm hoping to try out some affinity meals - bringing people together with common interests.

Thanks Sen for making this happen!

Content, Community & Call to Action: The Three C's of Successful Social Media Programs

Visited UN this past week to speak at the Social Innovation Summit on video & social change. My basic advice is broad enough to apply to any type of social media campaign, so here it is: You need three Cs -- Content, Community, Call to Action. Missing any one of these will prevent your message from being heard or turning awareness into actual results.

A) Content

It all starts with the content, the message. There's no one right answer here as to what's best. But you should ask yourself some questions, such as: does the content match the distribution medium, is it authentic to me, what is the emotional hook, which community segments does it connect with, will it work internationally, is it timely? If you don't feel good about the content or it's not resonating with your target audience, don't push it out.

Myths: content needs to be expensive, exclusive, highly-produced, celebrity-driven, short.

B) Community

If you just create a piece of content and hope people find it, you'll be waiting quite a while. Instead you need to bring your community to it and ask them to help spread it to their communities. The Internet is quite literally a network of hubs and spokes. Traverse it.

For example, if you were releasing a YouTube video, best practices would be:

• share it across G+, FB, Twitter. Embed it on your site. Consider sending it out to your mailing list. 
• trying to get people to take a sharing action right when you release the video ("tweet at 9am") is fine but realistically you're better off encouraging folks to just take some sharing action within the first few hours.
• connect in advance with important hubs who aren't already part of your community and try to get them involved in the effort so you have the multiplicative effect built in

Myths: a celebrity RT is all that matters, things go "viral" without community support (possible but rare)

C) Call to Action

Of course you want "awareness" and "engagement" but these are meaningless words. What do you want people to do? Donate money? Call their congressman? Sign a petition? Be clear about your call to action and weave it into your content. Minimize the distance between someone being moved by your content and taking action. Optimize your call to action just like you would any other performance based web interaction.

Myths: social media can't translate to "real world" change