Drwn News

An app startup idea or three

I think everything Craigslist does would be better done on mobile. The service is highly local and the need is often local.

Airbnb is a great example.

So here are a few ideas
- gigspot - post local jobs and find them
- graffy - write "on" and read places - micro-local-publishing
- spotmarket - buy and sell stuff right here and now
- meetmoi - personals in real-time and real-place
- hookups - same but adult
- all of these would scrape and aggregate their "web" equivalents but would pretty soon be unique marketplaces

These all would use your phone, gps, camera, phone, web browser, and real-time communication like SMS, email and voice.

Sent on the go from my Peek

Specialized wireless sports-watching device

More things for that Internet of Things. Anybody used one?

From The New York Times:

Gadget for N.F.L. Stadiums Vies for Fans’ Inattention

FanVision, a handheld gadget that made its debut this year at N.F.L.
stadiums, allows fans to watch the game they are at, out-of-town games and
the NFL Red Zone channel.

http://nyti.ms/as5s5u

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device,
free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

More things for that Internet of Things. Anybody used one?

From The New York Times:

Gadget for N.F.L. Stadiums Vies for Fans’ Inattention

FanVision, a handheld gadget that made its debut this year at N.F.L. stadiums, allows fans to watch the game they are at, out-of-town games and the NFL Red Zone channel.

http://nyti.ms/as5s5u

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device, free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

Flash from the past: Y Combinator: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund

Every one of these has been very active the last 2 years

The Internet Of Things

People often write to Peek asking to use our device this way. We usually say
yes. But this is a nice option too, isn't it?

From The New York Times:

You Too Can Join the Internet Of Things

ARM, the chip designer, has released a kit to let engineers and hobbyists
experiment with chips and sensors everywhere.

http://nyti.ms/cFgCy8

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device,
free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

People often write to Peek asking to use our device this way. We usually say yes. But this is a nice option too, isn't it?

From The New York Times:

You Too Can Join the Internet Of Things

ARM, the chip designer, has released a kit to let engineers and hobbyists experiment with chips and sensors everywhere.

http://nyti.ms/cFgCy8

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device, free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

Food ecommerce > Food telecommerce

I was in a Dominos picking up a pizza yesterday (weird, right?) and the
guy told me "Internet orders exceed every other type of order they get
including phone". "Nobody calls anymore". Crazy right? I had no idea.

Probably not true at the mom-and-pop restaurants yet.

But boy should it be.

And ordering from a phone - even more inevitable.

Supercute household moment

Pascale is 3 3/4 now and man she is capable of sweet ideas.

Tonight we read The Giving Tree (again). Some hilarious questions, like "how will he carry all those apples?"

But half an hour after lights-out -- some scratching at our door and (we were expecting naughtiness) "I want to tell you something. I want to give a sticker to The Giving Tree." Sweet!

Sent on the go from my Peek

Twitter is stupid

Why are they sending me this message?

Someone, please invent some new "talk to your friends and share links"
service. I will use it.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Update: Twitter Apps and You

Hi @asarva,

Over the coming weeks, we will be making two important updates that will
impact how you interact with Twitter applications. We are sending this
notice to all Twitter users to make sure you are aware of these changes.

*What are applications?*

There are over 250,000 applications built using the Twitter API. To use
most applications, you first authorize the application to access your
Twitter account, after which you can use it to read and post Tweets,
discover new users and more. Applications come in many varieties,
including desktop applications like TweetDeck
, Seesmic , or EchoFon
, websites such as TweetMeme
, fflick , or Topsy
, or mobile applications such as Twitter for iPhone
, Twitter for
Blackberry , or Foursquare
.

*Update 1: New authorization rules for applications*

Starting August 31, all applications will be required to use “OAuth” to
access your Twitter account.

What's OAuth?

* OAuth is a technology that enables applications to access Twitter
on your behalf with your approval without asking you directly for
your password.
* Desktop and mobile applications may still ask for your password
once, but after that request, they are required to use OAuth in
order to access your timeline or allow you to tweet.

What does this mean for me?

* Applications are no longer allowed to store your password.
* If you change your password, the applications will continue to work.
* Some applications you have been using may require you to
reauthorize them or may stop functioning at the time of this change.
* All applications you have authorized will be listed at
http://twitter.com/settings/connections

.
* You can revoke access to any application at any time from the list.

*Update 2: t.co URL wrapping*

In the coming weeks, we will be expanding the roll-out of our link
wrapping service t.co , which wraps links in Tweets with a
new, simplified link. Wrapped links are displayed in a way that is
easier to read, with the actual domain and part of the URL showing, so
that you know what you are clicking on. When you click on a wrapped
link, your request will pass through the Twitter service to check if the
destination site is known to contain malware, and we then will forward
you on to the destination URL. All of that should happen in an instant.

You will start seeing these links on certain accounts that have opted-in
to the service; we expect to roll this out to all users by the end of
the year. When this happens, all links shared on Twitter.com or
third-party apps will be wrapped with a t.co URL.

What does this mean for me?

* A really long link such as

http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048

might be wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj for display on SMS, but it
could be displayed to web or application users as
amazon.com/Delivering-

or as the whole URL or page title.
* You will start seeing links in a way that removes the obscurity of
shortened links and lets you know where each link will take you.
* When you click on these links from Twitter.com or a Twitter
application, Twitter will log that click. We hope to use this data
to provide better and more relevant content to you over time.

Thanks for reading this important update. Come and check what's new at
http://twitter.com
.

Thanks,
The Twitter Team

If you received this message in error and did not sign up for a Twitter
account, click not my account
.

Fake Facebook names

Dear world, help me collect some great fake facebook names.

The only ones I know are for a famous comedian and a reality TV ho-bag.

One is sort of like Willy Glengarry

and the other Jem Touchdown

I like the Touchdown!

Android's Free Isn't Free

Daring Fireball

From Skyhook's filing

23. On information and belief, Google has notified OEMs that they will need to use Google Location Service, either as a condition of the Android OS-OEM contract or as a condition of the Google Apps contract between Google and each OEM. Though Google claims the Android OS is open source, by requiring OEMs to use Google Location Service, an application that is inextricably bundled with the OS level framework, Google is effectively creating a closed system with respect to location positioning. Google's manipulation suggests that the true purpose of Android is, or has become, to ensure that "no industry player can restrict or control the innovations of any other", unless it is Google.

It is actually worse than this. Google is withholding the Marketplace from folks who want to make Android devices simply because they are not accepting new vendors. That's it - just because they don't like you. Not even for any specific strategic reason like this but perhaps just a whole slew of reasons.

While the source code for the Android Linux libraries are out there, you can't have the Marketplace. So you can't install apps.

I guess *somebody* needs to build a credible third-party app store for Android...

How to do research for your startup. My talk at #nyfi last night at Founders Institute @gzicherm

The cliff notes.

What you need
- A hypothesis
- Testing
- So you can be credible
- And right
- Or know when you are wrong

First about testing - which can be cheaper and more credible
- Use ads and make a checkout cart/signup page
- Make a prototype - of anything
- Or Vaporware -- $400 iPhone app
lets you test behavior

Desk research "real"
-- This is my background
-- Swivel and Scribd
-- Your friends at banks or subscribers to market research
-- But you will need some charts somewhere that look like this page that say
MARKET SIZE and possibly re: competitiveness

Desk research "made up"
-- You can guess how many fire hydrants there are, so you can
probably guess anything

Anthropology
-- Study yourself or your friends CAREFULLY
-- Time it
-- Write down steps/crazy detail
-- Photograph or video and have others watch
-- Hire others

-- Use the internet
-- Find "real life" on Facebook or Flickr
-- Read user reviews and comments

"True market research"
-- Pro
-- Hire a firm to write questions, run the data gathering, analyze the numbers (stats methods), make you a powerpoint
-- Because the nuances really matter or if the target group is hard to find

-- DIY
-- Pay to have some questions fielded online or by phone ($100/question/1000) and wait for the spreadsheet
-- Regular people are OK, need to quantity some non-binary distributions

-- Super DIY
-- Ask your friends to fill out out a Surveymonkey or Google Docs form
-- Need binary direction, want more people like you

The Paranoid Style

Oh man. About 10 books I need to catch up on. From Nixon to Palin.

From The New York Times:

BOOKS OF THE TIMES: The Engine of Right-Wing Rage, Fueled by More Than Just
Anger

“The Backlash,” by Will Bunch, analyzes the Tea Party movement and the
sources of right-wing anger.

http://nyti.ms/amHO2S

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device,
free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

Oh man. About 10 books I need to catch up on. From Nixon to Palin.

From The New York Times:

BOOKS OF THE TIMES: The Engine of Right-Wing Rage, Fueled by More Than Just Anger

“The Backlash,” by Will Bunch, analyzes the Tea Party movement and the sources of right-wing anger.

http://nyti.ms/amHO2S

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device, free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

Weird "consumer" venture-backed companies

Serena and Lilly - baby stuff catalog/site
J Hilburn - Men's clothing
Some random "custom" wallet startup in Silicon Valley - ABKO? Something like that?
Polyvore - women's fashion maker/seller

Why Twitter is stalled (word up to @nichcarlson)

The best reason to short Twitter is the absence of any real product-making talent at Twitter itself (from Alley Insider)

Hacker culture in the 1950s

Graham on Yahoo's non-hacker culture

Hacker culture often seems kind of irresponsible. That's why people proposing to destroy it use phrases like "adult supervision." That was the phrase they used at Yahoo. But there are worse things than seeming irresponsible. Losing, for example.

I wonder what the great enterprises of the 50s and 60s were like -- NASA, Boeing, Ford, etc. I wonder if they hired top-notch fluid dynamics guys to be secretaries too. As in, are the elite institutions of today really so different from the values of the elites of the pre-software era. Engineers rule...

Inventions I'm glad I didn't make...kind of

About 18 months ago I posted an idea for a cheap, handheld, wifi, 2 way video device that lets you do Skype calls.

Well, that's iPod Touch kind of isn't it? Except for $229.

Note that iPhone, iPad, iPod touch all use that 1 chipset core -- it's one device core with display and modem options.

Sent on the go from my Peek

Some Labor day ideas

1. Sleep tv. A channel for falling asleep and sleeping better all night.

2. A white label groupon for local newspapers to launch their own daily deal programs (and local blogs - anything)

3. Prediction: Ping will very quickly be doing everything Facebook does

4. A group/community calendar plugin for local sites

Sent on the go from my Peek

The national tech conversation is all about TV right now

From The New York Times:

THE MEDIA EQUATION: The Glut of Shows Unwatched

Television, which was once the brain-dead part of the day, has become one
more thing that requires time, attention and discernment.

http://nyti.ms/9aWzPZ

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device,
free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

From The New York Times:

THE MEDIA EQUATION: The Glut of Shows Unwatched

Television, which was once the brain-dead part of the day, has become one more thing that requires time, attention and discernment.

http://nyti.ms/9aWzPZ

Take The New York Times with you on your Android or other mobile device, free of charge.
For more information, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/services/mobile/apps/

A use case for real m-commerce

To buy something...when you remember you need it. Like this Listerine I just put in my Amazon Prime cart.

Sent on the go from my Peek

Full text: An epic Bill Gates e-mail rant

Gates complaining about microsoft.com

If every CEO rants about all the stuff their company is doing wrong, how do the good ones make it actually work right? Apparently this Gates rant wasn't enough to make MS not suck.

Sun sets over LIC, recently