Could 2011 Be Venmo's Year?

2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments

2009 was Twitter's year. 2010 is looking to be FourSquare's year. Twitter is in a better shape today than ever before, but it no longer has the buzz it had last year around this time. FourSquare's buzz will also subside. That is the nature of the innovation market. If they don't make the mistake of selling the company, (FourSquare Must Cut A Deal With Yahoo) I think FourSquare will go on to be a viable business that is no longer always in the headlines. Some company will take the space that FourSquare will at some point exit. Which company will that be? I might be proven wrong, but if I had to take a guess, if I were forced to come up with one name, the horse I am betting on is Venmo.

2011 could very well be Venmo's year. Venmo is a hot possibility that some venture capitalist wanting to strike gold needs to lap it up fast. The Venmo team deserves to go work full time on their beautiful product. They are onto something big.

Granted 2009 was 2009, the year of the Great Recession, but plenty of companies were getting funded despite that, and FourSquare was not one of them. They landed at South By Southwest last year with a thud. They were not going anywhere trying to raise money. They approached Yelp. Yelp would not invest. FourSquare's fortunes started picking up only later in the year. Location became a buzz word, and by now all that pain from early last year must feel like a distant memory.

Venmo does frictionless payments. Venmo is in the mobile web space. But it can do the old web good too.

I don't think Venmo will get called the next FourSquare like FourSquare is being called the next Twitter, and I don't think the buzz will be with any one company in 2011, likely it will be fractured and distributed among a few different names, and we might not even have to wait for 2011 to roll around; it might happen earlier. But Venmo sure is in sweet space.

When I said to Iqram (@iqram) last night at the Digital Dumbo party (Digital Dumbo: Here I Come) that 2011 could very well be Venmo's year, he immediately sent $10 to my Venmo account for my "kind words." That's what the email says. At the after party of the NY Tech MeetUp when they presented, Kortina (@kortina) sent me 40 cents, and that is how I got started on Venmo. That was a few months back.

Frictionless Payments - 10 Tech Trends for 2010 - TIME
Friction in onlin payments | Institute For The Future
The Future of Money: It's Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free...
Frictionless - and Almost Free - Payments?

@iqram, @kortina, @venmo

Related articles by Zemanta

• The NYC Echo Chamber (It's a good thing!) (adventurista.com)
• 4:16 PM @ FourSquare (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Venmo's Restful Coolness (rafer.tumblr.com)
• The Virtual High Five (or the Venmo Mavens Game) (marketing.fm)
• FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Venmo's Simple, Loaded Premise: Pay Your Friends From Your Phone (gigaom.com)
• Should brands ask for reviews? (sharemarketing.wordpress.com)
• Q&A: The New Digital Cash (blogs.wsj.com)
• Is it better to Yelp or to Tweet? (smartblogs.com)

Reimagining The Inbox The Simple Way

2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments

If You Like Your Inbox, Keep It

Like Obama never tired of saying on the campaign trail for health care reform, if you like your current coverage, you get to keep it. So if you like your current inbox where you get emails from your friends and family and those dictators in Nigeria, you get to keep it. You actively would have to choose to go for the multi inbox option. (Obama's Got Momentum: He Could Defy History In November)

The Inbox As A Spectrum

All human beings are created equal, but that does not apply to emails. All emails are not equal. And the inbox has to reflect that.

Inbox 1

This is the inbox that you see when you log in. These are emails sent by people whose emails you have saved as contacts. These are emails sent only to you and not to a group of people.

Inbox 2

Emails sent by people whose emails you have saved as contacts, but these emails have also been sent to other people at the same time.

Inbox 3

Emails from mailing lists I might have subscribed to.

Inbox 4

Emails from everyone else. This is not the folder for the spam emails. The current spam folder gets to hold ground.

Addendum

An email that should have showed up in inbox 3, if it shows up in inbox 1, you get to tell the system it belonged in inbox 3, and all future emails from that address would end up in inbox 3. You teach the system as you use it.

Also you get to set an expiry date on the various inboxes. All emails in inbox 3 that are more than a month old, please delete them without asking, something like that. Because even Gmail has a space limit.

And there should be an easy way to delete contacts. If you ended up saving an email address you did not mean to save, delete. Free the soul.

I think with this simple change, the inbox could see new life. Inbox 1 could again become something to always look forward to. And this suggestion is not to displace the already in place concept of threaded conversations and the other goodies.

Related articles by Zemanta

• HOW TO: Give Your Inbox a Master Cleanse (mashable.com)
• Multi purpose email address (teabreak.pk)
• Email Sanity: How to Clear Your Inbox When You're Drowning (zenhabits.net)
• Generate temporary email addresses to avoid spam (en.onsoftware.com)
• All Things Google: Using Filters to Manage Your Inbox (profhacker.com)
• How to Be a Rockstar Using List Building and Backlinks (sweetbusinesses.com)
• Go on an Unsubscribe Purge with a Simple Search [Annoyances] (lifehacker.com)
• Can Someone At Google Please Turn The Gmail Spam Filter Down A Notch? (techcrunch.com)
• In The Snake Oil Business (alwaysbcmom.com)
• Gmail - Inbox - adri.baard@gmail.com (mail.google.com)

Dropio's Indian Cofounder Darshan

Me: I just found out you cofounded Dropio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop.io Why did you leave?
Darshan: yup! helped build out the tech team there, and then hopped to a startup i began in high school - http://bit.ly/4DLylg

In case you did not realize, the Indians are statistically significant.

Darshan Somashekar - LinkedIn
Video Interview With The Founders of Drop.io
somashekar.com
Darshan Somashekar| Facebook
Darshan Somashekar| Guest of a Guest
Darshan Somashekar (darshan) on Twitter
Darshan Somashekar| CrunchBase Profile
Darshan Somashekar, Associate Consultant, Bain Company, Boston..
Darshan Somashekar's Profile - Indaba Music
drop.io pr
RRE Ventures – Drop.io Completes Second Round of Investment Led by...
LWALA artist auction event - Jacob Robbins, Darshan Somashekar...
ImagineEasy Solutions: A tiny company with big ideas.
EasyBib.com - American Libraries Buyers Guide
Credo Reference and EasyBib join forces to simplify student research
2009 Finalists: America's Best Young Entrepreneurs: Drop.io...
Drop.io File Sharing and Collaboration Portal Review from AppVita...
Easybib.com, Comprehensive Information About Easybib | Quarkbase

Related articles by Zemanta

• StatCounter: Facebook, StumbleUpon Generate More Traffic Than Twitter (techcrunch.com)
• Born Rich: How to Launch a Startup without Really Trying [How Things Work] (gawker.com)
• 2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• This Week's Developer Contest Category: Twilio + Drop.io (twilio.com)
• Drop.io Outlook Plug-In Sends 100MB Attachments [Downloads] (lifehacker.com)
• Tim Lytle Wins the Twilio + Drop.io Contest with DropMail (twilio.com)
• TechAviv Founders Club at MIT and Stanford Tonight (techaviv.com)
• MyLikes Raises $630,000 Seed Round, All From Ex-Googlers (techcrunch.com)
• Dogpatch NY's First Event (jonsteinberg.com)
• Google Reader Share: Join us for a screening of "The Startup" at Drop.io Offices (nyc30.com)

The FourSquare Appeal For Me

(1) Cutting Edge

FourSquare is on the cutting edge. (Fractals: Apple, Windows 95, Netscape, Google, Facebook, Twitter) I would add FourSquare at the end if I were doing this blog post today.

2010: Location, Random Connections, The Inbox, Frictionless Payments

(2) New York City

I love this city like no other geographical location on earth. FourSquare is the hottest technology company in town, and it is one of the hottest tech companies out there, period. They are a hometown gig. That is illustrious. I take unabashed hometown pride in FourSquare.

Silicon Valley Vs. New York City
Dennis, Fred, Scott: Tweet Boom Tweet Boom
Silicon City
New York City: Transformed Forever?

(3) Mobile

The mobile web is bigger and growing faster than the old web. There location is key. Location is the starting point of the FourSquare experience, and that is so in sync with the mobile web.

The iPhone, Nexus One, Or Droid?

(4) My People

This is key. I am a Third World guy. This is existential to me. This is spiritual. This is religious. This is fundamental. I was born in India, grew up in Nepal next door. I was in my 20s when I landed in America. I have to move towards one world. The First World, Third World dichotomy is a little too much for me. It makes me uncomfortable. My startup that I have put to rest after a rough 2009 wanted to bring a ton of new people online. But I perhaps made the mistake of thinking in terms of the old web. Mobile is perhaps the way to go. Four billion of the six billion plus people already can access mobile phones. And so perhaps software is where it is at. How simple can you make it? If they can do voice over their mobile phones, could they do a mightily stripped down version of FourSquare? Before, way before, a full web experience? Could they check in as a way to protest and tell the world that they are protesting? Checking in even the illiterates could do.

This is the number one reason I want to work for FourSquare: 4:16 PM @ FourSquare.

FourSquare Must Cut A Deal With Yahoo
Digital Dumbo: Here I Come
FourSquare Office, Dropio Technology

The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century...

What Are You Doing Monday? Come Meet Al Wenger

Reshma Saujani: Innovation, Ethnic Pride, Thought Leadership

Start-Up NY: Innovation and Technology Startups in New York

Reshma Saujani's Innovation Advisory Board is hosting an event on the evening of May 3rd called "Start-up NY: Innovation and Technology Startups in New York".

Moderated by prominent tech blogger Meghan Asha, Saujani has gathered six panelists with backgrounds in venture capital, education, politics, entrepreneurship and social networking to discuss technology and innovation in New York City.

Panelists include:

Albert Wenger, Managing Partner, Union Square Ventures (The event is near Union Square)
Dina Kaplan, Co-founder, Blip.tv
Evan Korth, Clinical Associate Professor, NYU; Organizer, NY Hackathon
Franklin Madison,Technology Program Director, ITAC (Industrial and Technology Assistance Corporation)
Nate Westheimer, Executive Director, NY Tech Meetup; Co-founder, AnyClip
Reshma Saujani, Community Activist and Democratic Congressional Candidate, NY District 14

A question and answer session will follow.   The event will be broadcast live at Livestream.com and recorded for a broader audience.

Reinforcing Saujani’s commitment to entrepreneurship, economic diversity and innovation in New York, the “Startup” summit is the first in a series of ideation panels. In the coming months, additional summits will focus on cleantech, biotech and public-private partnerships.

We hope you can join us for the event.

WHEN
May 03, 2010 at 6:00 PM
WHERE
833 Broadway
3rd Floor
New York, NY 10003
Google map and directions

Reshma Saujani: Innovation, Ethnic Pride, Thought Leadership

FourSquare Must Cut A Deal With Yahoo

Carol Bartz wanting to buy Yahoo is no longer a rumor, this TechCrunch post makes it more than official.

TechCrunch: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz On Foursquare: It Depends On How Much Money They Want The topic on everyone’s lips was Yahoo’s rumored talks with Foursquare ..... Bartz’s response: “It depends how much money they want.”

Selling FourSquare would be a mistake, a huge mistake, a fatal mistake, taking $10 million at a $80 million valuation from a VC firm would be a good move, but the best move at this point would be to take $10 million from Yahoo upfront and then $10 million annually thereafter to be reevaluated in two years to add location to as many Yahoo properties as possible. Just like Twitter took $25 million each from Google and Microsoft to let them offer tweets as search results so as to be able to claim they also now do real time search, FourSquare should also make money by letting Yahoo be able to say Yahoo now does location in a big way.

Take $10 million right away, and then another $10 million for the first year, and turn the various Yahoo properties into a major project. Expand the team. Get a new office space. I recommend Dumbo. (Digital Dumbo: Here I Come) If not Dumbo, then Williamsburg. Actually, Williamsburg would be far better. Cooper Union is too cooper.

If FourSquare can cut a deal like this with Yahoo, it can cut a deal like this with many other major web properties. It could fund its growth with all that money. You go to VCs, you get diluted. You make money like this, you don't get diluted.

Hire me to work through some of these deals: 4:16 PM @ FourSquare.

Yahoo would be a great first customer for FourSquare. You have to understand, Yahoo used to be Google, it was hot. It was so hot, selling to Yahoo was the first exit strategy the two Google founders thought of. It was Yahoo that refused. We already have a search engine, they said. Over the past decade Yahoo has tried to regain some of that lost glory. In FourSquare they see a chance of that happening. Yahoo mistakenly thinks buying FourSquare will do it for them. It won't. Instead if they cut a deal with FourSquare, that will cost them much less money, as less as one fifth, and could actually do the trick of making Yahoo a hip company all over again.

Yahoo is going through an identity crisis of sorts, and cutting a sound deal with FourSquare might just be that thing it needs.

FourSquare needs the money to grow. Yahoo needs location. Cut the deal. How will FourSquare add location to the Yahoo properties? That is a whole another blog post, or preferably a job.

TechCrunch: Don't Sell Out FourSquare. Not Now. Not To Yahoo
Business Insider: Yahoo Considers Buying FourSquare For $100 Million
The Fabulous Life Of Dennis Crowley, The Most Wanted Man In Silicon Valley

Related articles by Zemanta

• Selling FourSquare Would Be A Mistake, Partnering Would Be Genius (technbiz.blogspot.com)
• Samsung Will Pre-Load Yahoo Onto Millions Of Phones (lockergnome.com)
• Yahoo posts first revenue growth in 18 months (domainmacher.com)
• Silicon Alley Insider: Normal People Tell Us What They Still Use Yahoo For (YHOO) (businessinsider.com)
• Yahoo Profit Soars (online.wsj.com)
• Yahoo's Interest In Foursquare Is Real, Says CEO At Rival Startup (YHOO) (businessinsider.com)
• Is Yahoo! Really Buying FourSqaure? (techie-buzz.com)
• Yahoo profits up while revenue stagnates (media.venturebeat.com)
• Yahoo set for Facebook and Twitter integration (v3.co.uk)
• What To Expect When Yahoo And Microsoft Report Their Results (paidcontent.org)

Manhattan?

"Where do you live?"

What do you do? Where do you live? When you go to an event, those are some of the first questions people who don't know you ask you. They can be nice ice breaker questions. They open up the conversation.

Where do you live? That can also be a question asked by someone who really prides himself/herself in knowing the names of many different neighborhoods in the city. When I was new in the city, I did not realize that. I'd say I live in the city. Then I started saying I live in Brooklyn. People would say, where in Brooklyn? I'd say near Prospect Park. And people would get impressed. Wow, we have a Park Slope dude over here. I did not live west of the park, but south.

Cultural diversity is my favorite thing about this city. People from every little town on earth live here. How do I know that? People from every little town in Nepal live here. I know that. And Nepal is the poorest country on earth outside of Africa. So I am extrapolating that. People from every little town from every country must live here. I think that is true.

I had a whole bunch of audio cassettes of Hindi music with me  when I came to America late in 1996. My next door neighbor in college - Luke Payne - once asked me, "Can I ask you something? Why do you listen to the same song again and again?" And the dude was a music major.

Do all Chinese faces look the same to you? Then you must not be Chinese.

You have to have my global perspectives to see the texture of Queens. Black might be a race, but brown is not a race. It is not even a race.

When I was living in Brooklyn, I was living in Little Bangladesh. When I went grocery shopping, people would start talking to me in Bengali, which I understand a big chunk of, but can't speak back. They just assumed I was Bengali.

"Are you from India?" I have never replied to that question with a no anywhere in the US. I am half Indian, I was born in India. Wtf! It is just that I grew up in Nepal.

But in the "heartland," when you get asked that question, there is usually a follow up question.

"Are you a Patel?'

"No, I'm not."

"Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm not, but I am very smart."

No, thank you. There is no town in America that does not have at least one Indian doctor. And Patels own motels all over the place. I once saw a huge billboard by the interstate highway in Tennessee: "Motel, run by Americans!" That does not happen all that often. My people pretty much have the motel business covered.

Where do you live?

That is sometimes a class question. Are you rich enough to live in Manhattan? Or do you live in the outer boroughs?

I have a healthy feeling about money, but money does not even begin to grasp the cultural diversity of New York City, and there Queens rules. New York City is the Amazon forest of humanity, and Queens is a big part of it.

The Dying Languages, In New York New York Times The chances of overhearing a conversation in Vlashki, a variant of Istro-Romanian, are greater in Queens than in the remote mountain villages in Croatia that immigrants now living in New York left years ago....... the languages that make New York the most linguistically diverse city in the world. ..... languages born in every corner of the globe and now more commonly heard in various corners of New York than anywhere else. ...... New York is home to as many as 800 languages — far more than the 176 spoken by students in the city’s public schools or the 138 that residents of Queens, New York’s most diverse borough, listed on their 2000 census forms.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Week in Review: Brooklyn Heights Townhouse a Decoy; The New Governor's Island (ny.curbed.com)
• Walmart Scouts Brooklyn, New York Locations (huffingtonpost.com)
• Park Slope Goes International: A Park Slope writer defends his... (ny.curbed.com)
• War of the Worlds: Park Slope Scientifically Proven to be New York's Best Neighborhood (ny.curbed.com)
• Digging Into the New Report on New York City Cycling (streetsblog.org)
• The Best Neighborhoods in NYC New York Magazine (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Brooklyn 'Hood Happy To Be #55: Residents of Ditmas Park—especially those occupying... (ny.curbed.com)
• The Appraisal: Naming a Co-op Building in Manhattan (nytimes.com)
• Dozens Walk Past Dying Hero Hugo Alfredo Tale-Yax On New York Sidewalk (VIDEO) (huffingtonpost.com)
• Letter from America: Best Place to Live? It's All Relative (nytimes.com)