Friday, June 11, 2010

The Next Web

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Kayak Explore is travel planning like you’ve not seen before.

Posted: 11 Jun 2010 02:41 AM PDT

If you haven’t used Kayak yet to book a trip, it’s likely that you will.  Kayak is an up-and-comer in the travel industry, and is making its mark pretty quickly.  The simplicity of the Kayak homepage is what’s really setting it apart.

It’s that same simplicity that, implemented in a really unique way, that puts the Kayak Explore feature into the forefront.

Kayak Explore is like asking your own travel agent where you can go with the money you want to spend.  Just tell it where you want to fly from, give it a range of money you’re willing to spend and Kayak Explore will go to work finding you the lowest fares around and suggesting places for you to go.

Google Maps powers the mapping function, so you’re probably already familiar with the controls.  Using your mouse you can click, drag and scroll your way to vacation search victory.

Your choices can be really simple, with just location, money and a time frame, but you can choose to get incredibly detailed as well.  In each of the 3 sections, you can choose specifics such as places you’d like to stay, activities that interest you and even a temperature range that you’d like to be in.

Suffice it to say, Kayak gets it.  I think I’ve just found my new travel site.

Cheers to Sam Sethi for the tip.

Original title and link for this post: Kayak Explore is travel planning like you’ve not seen before.

Microsoft To Open Its New San Diego Store On Same Day As iPhone 4 Launch

Posted: 11 Jun 2010 01:07 AM PDT

Microsoft is to open its new San Diego store on the very same day as the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4, with the retail outlets just four stores apart.

According to Electronista, the launch dates are purely coincidental but due to the demand of Apple products right now, it might provide a little bit of a dampener on Microsoft’s grand opening if Apple fans are queuing past it’s doors to get their hands on the latest iPhone.

Microsoft hasn’t commented on whether it plans to honour its launch day, events where the Redmond company traditionally stage mini-concerts as an incentive to get customers to arrive early and queue outside the store.

We think that Apple would easily draw the bigger crowd but something inside of us wants Microsoft to push ahead with its opening so we can see for ourselves (and of course report on it).

Original title and link for this post: Microsoft To Open Its New San Diego Store On Same Day As iPhone 4 Launch

Read it Later finally arrives on the iPad. Brings some stand out features with it.

Posted: 11 Jun 2010 12:25 AM PDT

It’s been a painful experience for many an app developer anxiously awaiting Apple’s approval into the app store. Despite Steve Jobs claiming 95% of apps are accepted within 1 week, there are plenty out there who aren’t. Some app developers eventually give up, others hang in there, one of the latter is Read It Later.

Read it Later does what it says on the tin. It lets you save articles fast to read later on a variety of platforms; desktop, web, iPhone and now the iPad. The iPad app is packed full of awesome features that aims to set it apart from competitor Instapaper. While I’m still as confused as ever as to who to pledge allegiance to, these are just three of many Read it Later features you should know about:

Digest

Initially making its debut on the web version of Read it Later. Digest is a magazine like layout of the articles you’ve saved, automatically grouped into topics. Grouping is all done without any effort on your part but you are able to customize the groups if you so wish – you simply tell Digest what topics/tags you care about and it takes care of the organization for you.

Video

In addition to articles, the new Read it Later allows you to save video to watch later. Something that should come in very handy when videos have slowly emerged as the source of all my procrastination.

Position Sync

Read It Later on the iPad remembers where you left off in every article. Not just on the iPad, but everywhere.

Similar to the Kindle, your position is synced with every place you access Read It Later. This means you can start reading an article on your computer, get up, grab your phone and pick up exactly where you left off.

Read is Later for the iPad is a universal app and available to download now. If you already purchased Read it Later Pro (itunes link) on the iPhone, you’ll be able to download the iPad version for free. Otherwise, it’ll set you back $4.99.

There are free versions (itunes link) of both the iPad and iPhone versions of Read it Later, albeit with fewer features. Find a comparison of the two here.

Original title and link for this post: Read it Later finally arrives on the iPad. Brings some stand out features with it.

Startup Lessons Learned: The Pitfalls of Copycat Marketing

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 11:47 PM PDT

Editors Note: This is another guest post from Danny Wong, co-founder and Marketing Manager of Blank Label, a custom dress shirts startup that has built a lot of traffic through Search Engine Optimization and Media Relations. We’re delighted to have him share his thoughts and experience on marketing startups here.

Copying another business' marketing strategy is silly. It doesn't allow you to innovate with your marketing campaigns and if you are following a competitor's strategy, you can be sure that they will always be ahead of you. You have to outsmart and outthink your competition.

It is foolish to think that you can do exactly what they are doing and overtake them in growth, revenue or sales because while you are executing Marketing Campaign A' (which is a derivative or copy of their main marketing strategy, Campaign A), they will have moved onto Marketing Campaign B, so you will always be falling behind.

Copycat marketing is not likely to bring you long-term success, even if you have tons of money to inject into your marketing budget to overpower your competition. For many startups, having a ton of money is unlikely, so you can try marketing on a shoestring budget.

It might be reasonable for you to use a copycat strategy for a short while if you are comfortable being #2 and never #1 because the market you are targeting is 'big enough for the both of you' and if the market isn't highly saturated. But do understand that there are smart entrepreneurs out there, that once realizing that the market you and your main competitor are operating in is not saturated and in some respect, 'up for grabs,' you might see yourself quickly falling behind to be #3, #4 or even #50 in the list of market leaders.

So how do you avoid copycat marketing?

  1. Understand what your competitors are doing. They are clearly doing some smart things, so identify what exactly they are doing.
  2. Figure out what is working best with their strategies and double down on what works. Now isn't this copying? Yes because you have taken an element of what they've done and are just doing more of it, and no because you will be doing more than just what they have done. In fact, you are not doing the things that are failing or are not very successful for their business, which makes you the smarter business.
  3. Try out new things that your competitor hasn't yet and figure out marketing strategies that work just as well or even better than what they are doing. Test, test, test and innovate!

Really, what you want to do is learn from the best, but don't try being them. Your business is unique in its own way, and copying another business is poor strategy. Instead, you need to find what your competitors aren't doing that will work really well for your business to have an overall unique marketing strategy.

Here's an interesting interview with Oodle's Craig Donato on how he is innovating with Oodle to differentiate from his competition. While he doesn't talk specifically about innovating marketing strategy, there are great takeaways on how to be innovative with your brand and differentiate from your competition so that 'competition' is a non-issue when other companies aren't doing exactly what you are doing and yet you are still solving a problem consumers need help with.

img src = Kyle Brady

Original title and link for this post: Startup Lessons Learned: The Pitfalls of Copycat Marketing

Yahoo! and Microsoft join forces to artificially pad their search share.

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 08:41 PM PDT

The numbers don’t lie…or do they?  According to some insight, apparently the increased search share for Bing and Yahoo! isn’t entirely what it’s cracked up to be.

Business Insider has the scoop about the May search numbers, showing a net increase for both MSFT and YHOO (0.85% and 2.79% respectively).  Should be cut and dried, no?

Well, no.  Not exactly.

You see, there are ways to increase search numbers.  We’ve known about various ones for quite some time, but Ben Schachter from Broadpoint AmTech brings up the talk of old dogs and old tricks.

According to Schachter (and this is a bit in depth, but take your time and read it, because it’s important):

“While these numbers are correct on an apples-to-apples basis (in the sense that certain types of searches – e.g. contextual shortcuts and slide-shows – are being counted consistently across properties), the trending data for which we think comScore is most useful shows a different picture.

On an adjusted basis…we estimate YHOO’s share declined roughly 30 bps m/m in May to 16.6%, while MSN’s share was flat m/m at approximately 10.8%. GOOG, after a small data collection adjustment to the April data, appears to have gained roughly 30 bps of share in May to 66.4%.”

You get what he’s saying?  In a nutshell, what this means is that either comScore’s ranking data needs to be changed, or Bing and Yahoo! need to have their hands slapped for exploiting.

That’s right folks.  In this case, the numbers are indeed lying.  But the question again comes down to who is to blame?  comScore needs to clear things up, but is it really comScore’s fault that Bing and Yahoo! are exploiting the loophole?

On the bigger picture, this comes down to outright theft.  Make no mistake, Yahoo! and Bing are perfectly aware of what these slide shows and other types of searches are doing.  So to put these out, knowing what it will do to results, is a fallacy being thrown into the faces of shareholders.

The honestly sad part of this?  Bing is a great service.  It’s not my personal search of choice, but it is very good.  There’s really no need to try to inflate numbers.  If the results that you’re getting from honest numbers aren’t good enough, then do something different.

With Yahoo! on the cusp of having full Bing integration by the holidays, it’s likely that we’re going to continue to see some false inflation until either comScore or someone else raises enough of a stink about it.  And after that integration is complete?  Heaven help comScore if something hasn’t been changed by then.

Original title and link for this post: Yahoo! and Microsoft join forces to artificially pad their search share.

Internet Procrastination at its absolute finest. This is you, really, YOU.

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 08:09 PM PDT

Wordpress.com is down and so are 10.2 million blogs. (Update: Blogs are up, other parts not so much)

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:50 PM PDT

Wordpress.com, the Internet's largest blogging platform is down and has taken over 10.2 Million blogs with it.

We are working on restoring WordPress.com as quickly as possible.Fri Jun 11 00:47:02 via webWordPress.com
wordpressdotcom

The good news is that the team are aware and hard at work attempting to get things back up and running. The bad news is that along with wordpress.com, the akismet spam detection plugin is also out and therefore it's feeding time for spam bots. Apparently Akismet is working fine thanks to apparently being hosted separately.

There's no word on what caused the problem but sites like TechCrunch and GigaOm have also felt the brunt of the outage and are currently down.

The last time this happened, it reportedly deprived 10.2 million blogs, including its VIP service blogs, of about 5.5 million pageviews. It’s kind of a big deal.

Update 1:

Wordpress have sent a tweet updating its users that they’ve “isolated the issue on WordPress.com, and are working on a fix.”

Update 2:

Wordpress seems to be back up, although no confirmation from Wordpress that the problem has been fixed. Oh and TechCrunch isn’t happy.

Update 3:

Update from Matt Mullenweg, Wordpress’ founder. The vast majority of blogs are back up, bringing up the rest over the next few minutes after we verify them.

Update 3:

Another update from Wordpress. Blogs are their number 1 priority to fix, their homepage is down so that’s next, then their stats package. Clearly things aren’t in order just yet.

Update 4:

All down again.

Update 5:

And back up again. Not good this, not good at all.

Update 6:

All is reportedly back to normal now, if you spot any issues contact Wordpress support: http://en.support.wordpress.com/contact/

Original title and link for this post: Wordpress.com is down and so are 10.2 million blogs. (Update: Blogs are up, other parts not so much)

Updated: Foxconn reportedly considering shutting down at least some, perhaps all Mainland China factories

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 05:49 PM PDT

The UK’s Register is quoting an ON.CC report (in Chinese, Google translation here) that Foxconn, which has seen a rash of suicides at its Shenzhen plant recently, will close down its entire operation in Mainland China. The Irish Times, however, is reporting that, “Taiwanese electronics maker Foxconn says it is considering moving some of its production back to the self-ruled island where it has its headquarters.”

So it is unclear what exactly the company is thinking right now regarding its future in China. Foxconn has about 800,000 employees throughout Mainland China, and has said that the labor-intensive approach that it’s taken in China is probably not sustainable long term.

Foxconn of course most famously produces the iPhone for Apple (which has reportedly ordered 24 million iPhone 4’s for 2010 from Foxconn, and Jobs at D8: Foxconn is not a sweatshop), but the manufacturer also supplies products for numerous other multinationals. The Register report says that parent company Hon Hai Group will move the Mainland operations to Vietnam, Taiwan and India.

The suicides are of course tragic and still the main story. However, if Foxconn were to move all or a significant portion at least of its operations out of Mainland China, this could have far reaching implications not only to tech hardware prices worldwide, but also could have a (probably small) negative impact on China’s economy (even in China, 800,000 jobs are still kind of a lot), and perhaps even a bigger impact might be on the general bad taste the entire incident has left on the country, especially around labor relations and conditions on the Mainland.

Original title and link for this post: Updated: Foxconn reportedly considering shutting down at least some, perhaps all Mainland China factories

A trial change to Google News: Editors’ Picks

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 04:36 PM PDT

In typical Google style, some of you will have this, some of you won’t.  Google has laid out a new feature that aims to bring content curation by humans, rather than by algorithm.  According to Google:

At Google, we run anywhere from 50 to 200 experiments at any given time on our websites all over the world. Right now, we are running a very small experiment in Google News called Editors' Picks. For this limited test, we're allowing a small set of publishers to promote their original news articles through the Editors' Picks section.

The experiment is meant to do precisely what it would seem.  Instead of digging deep into current popular stories, using algorithms to predict what will be up and coming, the Editors’ Picks goal is to highlight what someone with a pulse considers to be valuable information.

Sometimes, we want to know about things as they’re happening, and other times it takes a bit more humanistic interaction to find what we love.  In this manner, Google is addressing some fundamental needs that humans have for interacting with one another.  No matter how good an algorithm is, a human’s ability for random is unmatched.

Though Google isn’t being paid for the experiment, it is still allowing the editors of choice to pick the articles that they want to promote.  It will be interesting to see the ratio of popular to unpopular as far as what gets pushed out more into the public view.

If you want to check out the new Editors’ Picks feature, look for the tab on the left of your Google News page.  So far, there are Picks available from less than 12 editors, but they are heavy hitters from across the industry including Reuters, Newsday and The Washington Post.

Leave us a comment, and let us know what you think of the Picks versus the results from the algorithm.  It will be interesting to see what our readers preference is.

Original title and link for this post: A trial change to Google News: Editors’ Picks

Ubuntu Multitouch OS Coming For Tablets Next Year

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 04:18 PM PDT

Canonical, the company behind Linux OS Ubuntu, is preparing a touch-specific OS for tablets that it will build on Ubuntu 10.10. The OS should be available sometime early next year.

According to NetworkWorld, Canonical VP Chris Kenyon said that not only is the company going to direct the new OS, they are also working with chip manufacturers (Freescale, Texas Instruments and Marvell were mentioned in the article) on speed and power-saving chips. The touch-based Ubuntu OS will be lightweight and will focus on quickly accessing popular applications as well as feature an on-screen keyboard and support for multi-touch drivers.

There was no mention of any tablet manufacturers in the article, and honestly, Ubuntu has had a hard time on the personal computing side of things when it comes to hardware. While Linux was an early favorite on netbooks, Windows quickly swooped in to become the most commonly pre-installed netbook OS (of course many people wipe Windows and install Linux, but that’s a different story). The combination of this relative failure plus the promise of tablets and the success of the iPad must have made UCanonical think that this is a direction that they want to go in.

If done right, this could be a really exciting addition/option in the tablet market.

Image

Original title and link for this post: Ubuntu Multitouch OS Coming For Tablets Next Year

FBI investigating the iPad security breach

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:41 PM PDT

I suppose that the question I’ll start off with here is this: if one of the users had not had an @usdoj.gov email address, would this investigation be happening?

The FBI has taken a sudden keen interest into the reported brute force attack on some iPad 3G owners.  According to the information yesterday, some 114,000 iPad users had some limited information about them exposed.

A black hat hacking group known as Goatse Security used brute force to exploit a small security hole and then gain the information.  Though according to reports, there is no immediate danger or risk to iPad users, it is at least something that both AT&T and Apple should investigate.

However, the inclusion of the FBI, I’m certain is in no small part related to a long list of government and military email addresses that were featured as part of the leak.

So far, there’s been no comment from the Justice Department, but I’m sure we’ll hear more about this in the coming weeks.

Original title and link for this post: FBI investigating the iPad security breach

Apple Offers New iPhone App For Developers To Track Their App Stats

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 02:31 PM PDT

Apple has released (may not show up quite yet) an iPhone app called iTunes Connect Mobile, which is the mobile version of their iTunes Connect interface for developers that build apps for iOS.

The app shows developers stats on their apps on what looks to be a nice interface. One of the main drivers behind the expansion of the iTunes Connect to the iPhone must be iAds. Apple CEO Steve Jobs mentioned at this week’s WWDC in San Francisco that developers receive iAds payments through iTunes Connect – and we’re guessing other controls will be available as well – so this mobile app is another piece Apple’s attempt to move developers from AdMob to iAd by offering them more tools (although from the screenshot it doesn’t seem to have iAds integrated yet, but of course, iAds won’t launch until July 1).

As you can see from the screenshot by TUAW, the app allows developers to see sales data in time increments as well as other useful features including “Markets” and a summary view. We’re not sure how or if this app works with around the different user roles (i.e. admin, legal, finance, and technical) yet.

Original title and link for this post: Apple Offers New iPhone App For Developers To Track Their App Stats

Kevin Rose Leaving Diggnation? Say It Isn’t So!

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 01:15 PM PDT

Update – This is out of date information. Please read this for the latest.

If this is true, the wonderful weekly drinking game in tech world called Diggnation is looking to go bust. Kevin Rose, according to Arrington is leaving the show.

That would leave one co-host in two man show left holding the bag. We feel sorry for you Albrecht.  For the uninitiated, Diggnation is a weekly show hosted by Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht that is famous for the two talking about popular Digg stories while drinking themselves into a stupor.

With hundreds of thousands of viewers a week, it is one of the largest and most popular shows online, and is the crown jewel of Revision3. Without Kevin Rose, they show will only have two options, cancel the show or find a new person to sit on a couch with Alex and ramble about technology.

I humbly nominate myself.

This has yet to be confirmed by Kevin, Revision3, or anyone else. We will bring you more when we have it.

Original title and link for this post: Kevin Rose Leaving Diggnation? Say It Isn’t So!

Twitter Releases Videos To Teach You How To Tweet

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 12:41 PM PDT

Twitter is working to make itself easier to get started with, and to further that mission has just released a number of videos that outline some very basic Twitter activities.

The short YouTube clips (check out Twitter’s new YouTube channel here) cover timelines, retweeting, following, and how to find people that you might want to follow. The question on ever Twitter user’s mind is simple: did I make it into the films? You are just going to have to watch and see.

We have embedded all the clips below for your perusal. Hat tip to TC for first noticing this.

Original title and link for this post: Twitter Releases Videos To Teach You How To Tweet

iPhone Headed To T-Mobile? Not Likely

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 12:11 PM PDT

Analysts are at it again, fabricating contrarian reports to garner endless headline space across the internet. In today’s episode of ‘Analysts-Gone-Crazy’ we have Shaw Wu claiming that it is not Verizon that will perhaps get the iPhone once (if, more like) Apple and AT&T decide to let it go, but T-Mobile.

Best part? His timeline, which points to the addition of T-Mobile as an iPhone carrier no later than next year, and possibly by this fall. If you know anything about Apple product release cycles, you know what bunk this is.

Apple, after just announcing a new product on AT&T, a rejigger of their entire plan line with AT&T, and the gigantic slobbering wet kiss that AT&T is giving everyone to help them upgrade to the iPhone 4, T-Mobile is in the works as the next US iPhone provider? There had better be some good reasons to think so that we have not yet seen. Enlighten us, Shaw.

Just How Important Is The GSM Question?

AT&T and T-Mobile run on GSM networks, and that will make it simpler to port the iPhone over to the provide, Shaw reasons. Fair enough, but that seems to be more a reason to keep the iPhone where it is now. After all, Apple is hardly having a difficult time selling the phone. What is the value add of bringing on the fourth largest US provider, known for having weak coverage, to a phone that requires oodles of bandwidth to handle?

The advantage of adding Verizon (technical problems aside), has always been its 93 million subscribers. That is 6 million more than AT&T. The iPhone, if it was added to Verizon, could tap the userbase of the largest US provider. If Apple picked T-Mobile, it would only have the option to join up with 34 million new people.

So, yes, the iPhone could be a simple port to T-Mobile from AT&T, but the provider would not be able to service the phone as it needs. And, by pulling the phone from AT&T exclusivity Apple would lose bargaining power with AT&T, the company that it is currently making hundreds of millions of dollars off of. Damaging the golden goose just to add a lesser provider with a small subscription base? Not likely.

Does Apple Need Another Provider To Compete With Google?

Apple works with providers all over the world, so the question is a touch US-centric, but it is a fair thought. To compete with Android here at home, does Apple need to toss its lot in with another provider of the next few years? Assuming that Android continues to grow as it has been, yes seems to be the correct answer.

Apple needs access to more consumers, especially those entrenched in their current provider.

If you were a company with a hot product that you could put on any network you wanted in the world, would you pick the more reliable network with more customers to sell to, or the smaller, lesser network because you feared some technical back-work to pull off the larger deal? Of course you go with the bigger provider, you have the brand to sell the phone massively across their base.

Apple is a corporation of amazing technical prowess, if they wanted to move the iPhone to Verizon they could, and it would shine.

Finally, Is Verizon’s Size Important?

To answer Shaw’s question, yes.

And there you have it, why Apple would no sooner pick T-Mobile than quit making the iPhone. Perhaps Apple will add on another provider, but they will hardly pick the weakling from the pack to be their new horse. Steve is too smart for that. Don’t let the analysts get to you quite yet.

Original title and link for this post: iPhone Headed To T-Mobile? Not Likely

Twitter acquires Smallthought Systems. Better analytics coming soon.

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 10:19 AM PDT

Twitter is taking yet another step into the legitimate business world.  Many places (ourselves included) realize the importance of Twitter to their business’ communication, and nothing screams information louder than good analytics.

With that in mind, Twitter has just acquired Smallthought Systems, the company the brought you Trendly.

So, what does it mean to you?

Trendly tracks data from the outside of your site, taking a look at Google Analytics, and then providing you with true, sensible information.  That’s been the company’s selling point since day 1.  Now, imagine if you could use this same method to track all of the data that is pushed through Twitter.

When you’re looking at 65 million tweets daily, that’s a rather mind boggling amount of potential information.  However, it takes some very strong code to wade through the noise and figure out what is good and what’s not.

Another huge point of Trendly is that it looks at trends, rather than peaks and valleys. Again, put that into a Twitter perspective, where we have topics that come and go on an almost hourly basis.

With Twitter’s purchase of Smallthought Systems, the analytics information that will come out of Twitter could very well change the way that we do business online.

Original title and link for this post: Twitter acquires Smallthought Systems. Better analytics coming soon.

Kiss and tell. Couple’s first kiss caught on Google Street View.

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:58 AM PDT

We’ve all seen the sites dedicated to the odd things that Google Street View pics up.  From fights to theft to car crashes, there’s a myriad of often-gruesome images.

This time, we have one that’s a bit different.  Let’s set the stage for you:

Eddie Bateman and his girlfrield Hayley Moss were out on a lovely afternoon, laying in the grass.  After having spent some time together that day, the young gentleman rolls to his side and plants a kiss on his lady…right as the Google Street View car passes.

According to Moss:

“I couldn’t believe it, I wouldn’t admit to it being me at first, as I was worried it looked quite bad, as it looks more than it is, but it really was just a kiss.”

So much for sneaking off eh?  The couple had been attempting to hide from friends and family, as they had only just started seeing one another.  Not having any way to go anywhere, after walking to meet up with one another, the two took in a simple delight of just spending time together in the grass.

As for the reaction from the parents?  Moss adds “mum saw the funny side of it”.

We do too, Hayley.  Here’s wishing the both of you all the best.

Original title and link for this post: Kiss and tell. Couple’s first kiss caught on Google Street View.

Topguest Lets You Earn Travel Awards By Checking In

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:53 AM PDT

A new website called Topguest allows check-in service users to earn travel awards simply by checking in.

How it works

Basically, the site works like this - you can use any or all of the following check-in services; Foursquare, Gowalla, Brightkite, Google Buzz, Yelp! and/or Loopt, and then when you check-in at a Topguest travel-focused partner and they will automatically send you rewards through your account. To make this clear, Topguest is not a stand-alone check-in service – you need to be using at least one of the above check-in services for this to work.

Also, you’ll need to have your rewards accounts for each of the different partners that Topguest hopes to sign up (right now, they only have the Standard Hotels chain). Signing up for Topguest is pretty simple, requiring just your first and last name and an email, and you can also connect your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts to the service, which is pretty standard. Overall, the set up procedure and linking of check-in and social media accounts is well done, which certainly scores Topguest some points (rewards?)

Rewards system needs to be dead simple

Now, how the actual travelers rewards system is going to work, may not be as clear. First of all, it seems (and as they only have one partner it is hard to tell) that all of these rewards are going to be done separately, meaning that you check-in at LAX for your Virgin America flight and you get points with Virgin America. Land, check-in at your hotel, and you get points with the hotel chain, etc. This to us seems like a lot of work for the user. Here’s what we suggest…

Make a unified Topguest rewards account, that will allow users to then trade-in their rewards with Topguest partners. This way, a check-in could be say worth 5 points, and then when you get to 100 points you then have a range of rewards options. This is basically what credit cards do. This just really makes things much easier for users and lets them really start saving up points now while Topguest continues to add partners (the Standard for example is a high-end hotel and you have to check-in 10 times right now to earn the 25% off your 11th booking – that could take forever).

Competition will be high in this vertical

Also, while its a smart play by Topguest to go after the travel vertical, they are hardly alone in this ambition, and you can bet that many of these check-in services will also directly compete with Topguest (of course, a check-in on Foursquare could earn you double points by getting points with a Foursquare partner and then with a Topguest one, but not if they are exclusive offers). Basically what we’re saying is that being the  middleman isn’t enough – especially if it puts a strain on users – Topguest is going to have to make the rewards dead simple and add special value moving forward.

That said, its a nice start that makes a lot of sense.

h/t ReadWriteWeb

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Original title and link for this post: Topguest Lets You Earn Travel Awards By Checking In

dashboard: Organizing your leads, and making you more money.

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 09:50 AM PDT

Time for a little-known fact: I used to sell cars.  When I did, I had a box on my desk with 3×5 note cards that I kept in a small system to tell me who I was dealing with and what step I was at with them.  The system was effective, but lacking.  If only I could have had something like dashboard.

dashboard is a leads management system with a few twists that set it apart from the crowd.

The ultimate goal of any leads management is to help you to turn those leads into deals.  Along the way, there are generally a lot of steps, status changes and obstacles to overcome.  When you’re only juggling 3 or 4 potential clients, that’s not such a huge problem.  But when you get to 10, 20 or 200 you’ll spend more time trying to figure out what you’re doing than actually working.

dashboard has an included scheduling and reminders interface that makes it easier to stay on top of what you need to be doing.  Instead of just presenting you with a face full of leads, all at a different status, dashboard is truly smart in helping you to manage your time.

dasboard makes it simple to add new leads, just by clicking the + symbol on the top left of the leads overview screen.  When you do, you’re given a wealth of options for what information you want to put into the leads.  The more the better, clearly, and that’s where the functions of dashboard really start to shine.

If you’re thorough, and have this wealth of information, you’ll have more choices from which to pull data.  dashboard is different because of its form builder.  The form builder lets you sort by any or all information, and then create forms that you can set as visible either publicly or privately.

But let’s say that you want to do more than just share it over your company intraweb.  dashboard includes a full suite of editing and publishing tools for HTML, CSS and JavaScript validation.  The form builder function is so robust, in fact, that I could see it being used entirely by itself as a standalone product.

So now that you’re organized, and keeping track of your leads, what’s next?  The guys from dashboard tell me that an “app store” type of leads-sharing environment is in the works.  Soon you’ll be able to purchase leads in real time from different areas of sales.  So let’s say that I’m still selling cars, I could then choose to sell my leads to local insurance companies, providing them with accurate information on the fly.

On top of the leads sharing, dashboard is also working on integration with a few other popular platforms such as Mailchimp and the Five9 dialer.  When it comes to having a one-stop source for managing your leads, there simply isn’t a better option around.

Original title and link for this post: dashboard: Organizing your leads, and making you more money.

Chasing Pigeons vs. Catching Pigeons

Posted: 10 Jun 2010 07:45 AM PDT

When I was a kid I used to keep pigeons. That has taught me a lot about them. As you might know pigeons aren’t too smart. They eat, fly and breed and that’s about it.

Oh, they are great in navigating so you can drop them off 500km from their home base and they will fly straight back to it. Apart from that, they don’t achieve much. Reason why they are so abundant is because they breed so often.

Pigeons are the worst nest builders of all birds. Their nests are often so bad that their eggs will fall right through the cracks when they lay them. To compensate for that they just, well, breed a lot.

Still, catching a pigeon seems hard. Ever seen a kid chase pigeons? They never seem to catch them. Considering the mental capabilities of pigeons this seems odd. They aren’t too smart so why can’t you catch them?

The reason is that kids don’t actually want to catch these pigeons. They might want to scare them and would even love to hold one but they aren’t prepared to make the necessary sacrifices to actually catch one.

I regularly catch a pigeon. It isn’t that hard once you know the trick. Want me to teach you the trick to catching pigeons? This is the trick: It is easy to catch a pigeon if you REALLY want to.

Yes, that is how easy it is. If you want to catch a pigeon and think about it for a while it becomes fairly easy to do. If you want to catch a pigeon, and don’t mind what happens to the pigeon during the act of catching it, it becomes even easier. The pigeon might die, lose some feathers or break a wing, but you will catch it.

Also, if you don’t mind what happens to you, or how it makes you look, than catching it becomes even easier.

Once I sat on a terrace full of people. It was a quiet sunday morning and most people were reading their newspaper or just staring in the distance. A bunch of pigeons walked around under the tables looking for crumbles. I was looking at the pigeons when a friend said ‘Can you catch one for me’. I waited until one of them was next to my chair and then I grabbed it. What happened next was awful: I got hold of its tail and in a panic the poor pigeon lunged forward and I ripped half of its tail off. I could have still managed to grab it but that would’ve meant really hurting it and in that split second I hesitated and let go. I didn’t really want to catch the pigeon. Not if it meant hurting it.

There were feathers all over the terrace as a flurry of pigeons all flew away in a panic.
One of them flying slightly less straight than all the others.

(Don’t worry, those feathers grow back within a week. Or maybe two.)

Catching pigeons and starting companies are pretty similar in some aspects. You too can start a company and make it successful. But it does mean you have to go all in. A lot of people say they want to start their own company. But if you dig deeper they don’t really mean it. They don’t want to make less money than they currently do, are worried about the risk and aren’t sure whether they have enough energy and persistence to pull it all off.

You shouldn’t really care if it means you will lose money, sleep, time and friendships because you will.
You should be able to sacrifice things and REALLY want to reach those goals you’ve set.

If you don’t you will just be chasing pigeons.

P.S. You don’t want to swallow them alive either:

Okay, the REAL secret to catching pigeons is to give them what they want. You aren’t too sexually attractive to a pigeon so no point in seducing it that way. But give it food and it will overcome its fear for you. Sit down on a bench and throw down some bread crumbs around your feet. Pretty soon you will have a few pigeons running around trying to get to the bread. Hold your hand out and as soon as a pigeon comes close to your feet just grab it by pushing it down.

The female pigeons are easier to catch because they are braver than the males. How to spot a female pigeon? I will tell you in my next post titled. It will be about pigeons, sex and investing.

Original title and link for this post: Chasing Pigeons vs. Catching Pigeons

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