Oh my Nexus gone away!

Last Thursday was the last time my Nexus 7 worked. It was fine on Wednesday night. When I went to use it the next morning though it was super slow. I restarted it to see if that would improve the situation. It didn’t. In fact, it made things worse. The device wouldn’t turn on at all. I searched high and low for details on the problem and potential solutions but nothing worked. Not holding the power button for >30 seconds. Not holding the power plus volume. Not plugging it in to the wall or into a computer. No dice.

I got in touch with Asus for help. They walked me through the things I’d already done. They told me I would need to send it in. They told me I should back it up first. (I pointed out that were I able to turn it on I would . . .) The timing is a drag. On Sunday morning I’m flying to London and had been thinking how handy it would be to have my Nexus with me. Instead it will be flying to Texas, hopefully to be repaired and returned to me as quickly as possible.

It’s funny how quickly something can become integral. I managed to survive 558 months without a tablet and now that it’s missing I’m bummed out. I guess I can make it a few weeks until it’s back. 

Hey Spotify, let us help make Spotify even better

I listen to Spotify every day. I signed up for a premium account as soon as it was available in the US. I totally love it. It’s great to be able to think of a song and listen to it right away. And not only the version I had in mind but often dozens of versions from different artists. I’ve found so much new music.

The ability to build playlists and listen to specific songs makes Spotify my number one music source. Sometimes I’m lazy though and just want the music to take care of itself. Pandora is great for that. Their music genome does a fantastic job of stringing together songs based on whatever I’ve seeded. The only problem is that songs start to repeat really quickly. I guess it’s bound to happen if the catalog is only around a million songs. Meh.

You’d think Spotify Radio would be the solution. They’ve got around 20,000,000 songs so the risk of repeat is low. The problem is that Spotify Radio just isn’t that good. It doesn’t do a very good job of finding similar music. This morning I seeded a station with Edith Piaf. Quickly I found myself listening to Simon and Garfunkel, Nancy Sinatra and The Supremes. Hello? I don’t know if I can figure out what connection exists between those four artists.

(OMG, now it’s playing “I Got You Babe” by Sonny and Cher. How does that have ANY connection to Edith Piaf?)

Spotify has an awesome catalog but there’s no intelligence behind it. Pandora has awesome intelligence but its catalog is tiny. Obviously the two are never going to come together; and there’s not much I can do to help increase the number of songs Pandora can provide . . .

But listen, Spotify, there are a ton of people who’d be happy to help improve your musical tagging and taxonomy. Why not let us help make Spotify even more awesome by giving us the tools and ability to identify the attributes of songs? Like any crowd-sourced model, errors would be caught and corrected and the user experience would be a million times better.

I’d be happy to talk all about it. Seriously.

Here are five songs from my day. None in English. (It makes it too hard to work.)

 

WebInno37 Preview

Some people mark the passage of time by an annual rite of award ceremonies, others by the coming and going of sports or television seasons. Me? I measure by WebInno events and it’s hard to believe that it’s already time for another one! Hard to believe but true nevertheless. Tonight is WebInno37 and if you’re in Kendall Square you might want to stop by. You can register here.

As always, the event will feature a mix of ‘main dish’ companies, which will have five or seven minutes to present to the gathered masses and ‘side dish’ companies that will join the ‘main dish’ presenters in demoing before and after the presentations.

One of the things that stands out for me about WebInno37 is the inclusion of Timbre as a main dish company. They were a side dish back in September for WebInno35/Rocket and are the first company (that I can think of at least) that has appeared as both so quickly. Given how awesome they are, it makes sense. But here I am getting ahead of myself! Let’s get a little more organized, shall we?

Here’s my take on the companies that will be participating in WebInno37, starting with the main.

Timbre – The Band Discovery App That Lets Music Find You – Like I said above, these guys were at WebInno a few months ago. I thought they were the coolest company at the event. There’s no reason to think they’re any less cool now. What do they do and what makes them cool, you ask? They let you know what’s happening in terms of music around you. It’s an app (iOS only at the moment) that uses geolocation and a content feed (from SeatGeek) to let you know what shows are happening around you.

You can specify a radius (from one to fifty miles) and it shows you band names in a really clean interface. If you touch a band name it brings up a new screen with album art if available (or a grey weave if not). This screen tells you where the band is playing. Touching it allows you to purchase tickets, share the show with friends and listen to/download a track from iTunes. It’s all very clean, clear and intuitive.

When I spoke to these guys at WebInno Rocket I asked about the ability to filter by venue and they explained it wasn’t something they were doing. Their rationale is that people should start with the music and go from there. I totally agree. If you’re into going out and finding new bands close by Timbre is for you. It’s awesome.

ThriveHive – Small Business Marketing Made Simple – A really good friend of mine recently started a kitchen design business, Discount Cabinets in Framingham. It’s been almost two years and things are really starting to pick up. He and I have talked about marketing a few times and it’s a big challenge. The most effective approach for him is to establish relationships with builders and contractors. This can lead to more sales but also has a longer sales cycle. Working directly with homeowners is faster but it’s hard to generate leads. Almost all his business is word-of-mouth at this point and it’s not something that can scale very easily.

ThriveHive looks pretty good. It looks like it’s designed for someone just like my friend. He works day and night and doesn’t know where to start when it comes to marketing. Taking this aspect out of the small businessperson’s set of responsibilities seems like a great idea.

I can only base my opinion on what I saw on the site but to me it all makes sense. I’m sending my friend a link to ThriveHive and will see what he thinks.

Ditto – Here’s everything I know about Ditto:

• Ditto is a Facebook app
• Ditto joined Facebook on February 6^th
• 40 people Like Ditto
• I initiated the app on Facebook
• I was unable to figure out how to engage with the app
• It seems to have something to do with associating actions with images

They did get a nice (and very informative) write up by Scott Kirsner on Boston.com. His article makes what they’re doing sound very cool. I haven’t seen that coolness in action just yet but am hoping I will soon and that I’ll get a much better sense of what they’re up to when they present.

Aside from the main dish companies, there are a whole bunch of side dishes:

ChatterMob – Want Free Stuff? Join the Mob – Survey Monkey moves to Facebook. At least it kinda looks that way to me. What I found confusing about ChatterMob is that when you go to the homepage you see messaging about getting free stuff AND the service’s ability to “ask your target demographic anything.” I get it but it feels kind of muddled to me. It also requires connecting with Facebook and maybe it’s that I’m getting older but I’m just less interested in connecting everything through Facebook than I used to be.

JunkDrawer – Where your stuff goes – Finally, a new use for barcode scanning. I use them to add books to Goodreads but that’s about it. With JunkDrawer I can use them to collect info about all the junk I have. Sitting here in my office I was able to scan the bar codes from a small pack of Chips Ahoy cookies and a Mead 3 Subject College Ruled Notebook. Great.

So.

Yeah, I was able to scan the bar codes of those cookies. And some Cape Cod Kettle Cooked Potato Chips.

The things I used it for are silly since I don’t have that much with bar codes right on my desk, but I can see utility here. As they suggest, you can get alerts related to the products you’ve scanned. I can imagine that having utility for recalls. You can connect this with Facebook if you want but I just signed up with the app itself. While I recognize the benefit it also feels like something else to remember to do and I don’t foresee myself scanning the codes for everything I own or buy.

Good Benefits – Workplace Giving is Now a Perk – This is a site that allows you to make corporate giving a more engaging program. I am all for it. I signed up but was only given the option to share it with my employer. Apparently, if I successfully refer Good Benefits to my company’s giving program administrator I will get $50 I can give to my favorite charity.

Within seconds of signing up I did get a nice email from Ryan Selkis, the founder of Good Benefits, with additional details. Basically, Good Benefits is a charitable savings account that can increase the amount contributed to a cause or charity by allowing small recurring contributions to be made – with employers matching dollar for dollar. I’m looking forward to talking to them because I am curious. It would be good to know what size organizations they’re targeting, for example.

Kuratur – Easily curate, customized, automated content magazines. In minutes. For free. – That is one confusing run of words. I think it’s the part “automated content” that makes me stumble. Or maybe it’s “content magazines.” Aren’t magazines content by their very nature? Why use both terms? Or are these magazines that feature automated content? It’s all very unclear based on that set of words.

Things didn’t get much clearer when I signed up. When you do (which can be done using Facebook, Twitter or email) you’re presented with a screen that gives you the option of adding a title and selecting an update frequency. You can also paste in Google Analytics or Chartbeat tracking codes. There’s a video to help “get up to speed fast.”

I watched the three-minute video that was pretty helpful. Of course it was a little more confusing since it refers to the output as Web pages. Which is it? Web pages, content or magazines?

Having played with it for a little while I like Kuratur. It’s pretty cool. The way it is being described needs to be improved a bit, as does the performance. I tried setting up a page/content/magazine and found it took several minutes to process and then populate the Web page/content/magazine. I’m going to chalk that up to it being early days. Here’s the one I made, based on my 1000faces project and on the hashtag 1000faces. It’s totally rudimentary but I can imagine all different ways Kuratur could be used. Very cool.

Nyopoly – Every time there’s a fashion/style-related company at WebInno I joke about being a pretty style-neutral person. That’s true to a degree; but I do actually really like shopping. I also like trying to get deals. Whenever I shop I ask for a discount. Never a big one, but offering $120 for a pair of shoes they want $130 for, things like that. Shockingly, no one ever agrees to my suggested pricing. Nyopoly seems to offer its members the opportunity to negotiate a “personal price on the most fabulous finds in fashion.” Alas, it looks like most of these finds are not for me. Such is life.

Splitzee – Splitzee is the fastest and most secure way to collect money online – When I heard the name I thought Splitzee was a way to split up a bill and get your friends to pay their portion. It turns out it’s more for collecting money for a cause or project. Say your kid’s third grade teacher did a really awesome job and when May rolls around everyone wants to pitch in to buy him tickets to a Red Sox game. Splitzee replaces emails, phone calls and those awkward knocks on the door. It’s all pretty simple and a solid idea.

TradeGrouper – Trade with People you Trust – First there was eBay, which allowed anyone to sell anything to anybody. eBay is awesome for a lot of people in a lot of situations. But for many people it seemed rife with scams and rip-offs. So people started turning to Craigslist, which replaced the mercantilism of eBay with a kinder, gentler, community-based approach to buying and selling. Now, for those among us for whom even Craigslist is too large a pool we have TradeGrouper. It limits buying and selling to specific groups or communities. Just friends for example, or colleagues. You have to be willing to accept a much smaller pool of potential purchasers. If you’re cool with that then TradeGrouper might make sense for you.

Well, there you have it, my preview of WebInno37. I’ll be there to see what I got right and what I got wrong. Hope you’ll be there too.

WebInnoMobile – the Day After

WebInnoMobile is one for the books and it sure was fun. I think my preview was pretty spot on.

Of the Main Dish companies, Mobee was my favorite. It’s a cool idea and I can see it making money. Basically, it allows businesses (quick serve restaurants to begin) in Boston (expanding to other cities in 2013) to have their customers report on very specific elements of their in-store experience. Things like speed of service, friendliness of greeting, general upkeep of the store, etc.

Responding to the questions takes just a minute and is done from an iPhone app. You do need to photograph your receipt in some cases (some of the “missions” require a purchase – others do not). As points are earned and saved they can be used to purchase giftcards, tickets and other items. It’s solid.

Directr was great too. It was my choice going in. The quality of the videos they allow people to make is high and the process that guides people to make them is brilliant. Some of the things I wondered about (audio, control) will be addressed in future versions.

Their demo was the best of the night. They created a quick video of themselves prepping – even including the start of their onstage demo – and had a turkey wheeled out on stage as they explained how the app works. It was well done and earned them the audience choice for the night. The business model is a little less clear but one can imagine how they’ll make money.

I can’t say the same for FanCred. I was a little unclear on the concept before the demo. Afterward I was really unclear. Maybe it’s because I’m not a super sports fan but the ability to judge the credibility of other fans isn’t that important to me. There are just so many sources for sports news and opinion that I kinda feel like I can get by on my own. Likewise it’s not that important to my identity to be viewed as really credible about the teams I follow. Again, it may be that this is important for more rabid fans but not for me.

All-in-all, it was a good evening. I wasn’t in as awesome a mood as I wish I’d been in but such is life. I had a beer, chatted with some friends, checked out some cool technology and took some photos. Can’t really complain.

WebInnoMobile

Astaire and Rogers, chocolate and peanut butter, Pebbles and Bam Bam. Sometimes things come together in ways that are awesome – and that’s certainly the case for tonight’s combination of WebInno and MobileMonday, which will go under the moniker WebInnoMobile. It’s happening at the Royal Sonnesta in Kendall. You can still register here and if you’re at all interested in innovation, mobile and what’s happening in the Boston tech scene you probably should sign up right away!

To help prepare you for the awesomeness that will be WebInnoMobile, I’ve put together my preview of the participating companies. There are some very cool ones this time around and I’m really looking forward to checking them out in person.

Main Dish Presentations

directr – Your Life. The Movie – Not sure why there’s a period after “Your Life” but not after “The Movie.” It’s probably a design thing and it’s probably neither here nor there. Either way, directr is cool. It’s an iPhone app (I didn’t come across any evidence of an Android version) that makes creating and sharing clean little movies from your phone a breeze. I fiddled with it a bit and checked out plenty of movies other people posted. I love the idea. A lot. It really does encourage people to think about what they’re shooting and it provides a framework for organizing and presenting ideas through video. So far, so good.

At the beginning of a project, directr presents you either with a blank project or a pre-created storyboard. The storyboards offer video ideas (party, six things, public places check ins, etc.) and then suggest shots to create it. I selected “Six Things on My Desk” and got a storyboard outlining six shots that would run 24 seconds. The suggested shots included “reading anything good,” “personal effects” and “anything pretty.”

Here’s a link to my movie. It took just a couple of minutes to make.

There are a couple of areas that were less than fantastic. The apparent lack of audio is a biggie. There is audio, but it’s not the audio from what you’ve shot. It’s generally pleasant, well produced and innocuous but that’s it. I couldn’t figure out if there was any way to control transitions or select the music. It would be nice if there were.

The bottom line is directr is a fun little app that has promise but that could be a whole lot cooler.

Fancred – Your life as a sports fan. – This is a site designed to make the sports experience all it can be. It isn’t publically available yet (though if you follow the company on Twitter you may get an early invite). The fact that it’s still tucked away means I don’t have much to say. I like sports but I’m not sure I want or need another social destination focused on sports. I already follow teams and athletes I like on Twitter and use TeamStream, Eurosport and team apps as well.

Maybe when I see it in action I’ll feel differently but right now this is a big, “meh” for me.

Mobee – Rewarding You for Reviewing Businesses – Mobee confuses me. It seems to be trying to fit a lot into a single app. There are “missions” that encourage you to visit certain business: the “ask” is that you check in and write reviews and the promise is that you’ll get points and prizes as a result. Is this the merging of Yelp, Foursquare and deal sites? Is it an opportunity for businesses to employ the masses as secret shoppers? It could be any of these things – and probably more to boot.

I played with it a bit and some of the missions are pretty interesting. For example, if I visit the Dunkin’ Donuts up the street from my office and report on the speed of service I’ll get 100 points. The points can be collected and then spent on rewards. Here are a few examples of the point totals and rewards: 200 points gets a $2 Dunkin’ Donuts gift card, 5000 points gets a $50 iTunes gift card and 100,000 points gets two Green Monster seats.

It’s an interesting idea and they seem to have some solid partnerships in place. At the moment they’re limited to Boston but have plans to expand. I think the biggest issue here is how clearly Mobee is able to explain their value to both brands and consumers. It doesn’t really come across at the moment.

Side Dish Presenters

Bare Tree Media – Engaging fan-based communities through branded interactive entertainment – Bare Tree offers a publishing platform that allows the creation of branded games, apps, etc. This doesn’t seem like a new or novel idea at this point and the site is pretty bare bones. It didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence in me, that’s for sure.

iJukebox – What’s your request? – This is kind of a cool idea. iJukebox allows customers to select the music playing at a bar or restaurant. The pitch is to businesses, encouraging them to sign up for the service and then offer it to their customers. It does seem like a lot of places have jukeboxes now that stream millions of songs so clearly there’s proof that the concept works. This seems to make it easier for people to select a song without having to walk all the way to the jukebox to put on music. It does depend on their having the app – but that’s not a big deal. It seems like a novel way to get patrons to engage around music. We’ll see.

Spogo – Don’t just watch. – For me, the name is a big turn off. I don’t know why but it is. The idea is simple (and, at the moment, very narrow): predict plays in football games and get rewards. According to a handy video on the site, some of the things you might predict could include “How many times will Gronk spike the ball today?” (Unfortunately, at the moment I say zero). The more you get right, the more points you get; points can then be used for food and drinks at places like the Pour House, Remy’s, Game On, etc. It seems OK, like gambling but for food and stuff. The guys on the site sure look like they’re having fun.

Thumbs Up – Social TV Platform. – Get more live viewers. Thumbs Up is a platform for polling viewers during live television programs. It can be integrated into an existing app to provide new, real-time insights into audience interest and attitudes. Seems cool and looks good.

PhysicalApps – Active fun with mobile apps. – This appears to be associated with TheO, a soft foam ball that holds a smartphone. PhyscialApps is a platform for building apps that encourage physical fun. The ball might be one element but there could also be others. I need to see it to understand.

Well, that’s the wrap. I’m looking forward to seeing all the companies tonight – as well as my WebInno pals one last time before the end of the world. I mean year, the end of the year.

WebInno 35/WebInno Rocket

We are hours away from ignition for the latest WebInno event – WebInno Rocket. I’m not sure if this counts as WebInno35 or if it should be seen as a completely separate and distinct event. Either way, I’m writing about it! While WebInno has always been focused on startups, Rocket is taking things in a slightly different direction. The event is going to feature three founders talking about their companies – and the companies in question are among the fastest growing here in the Boston area.

Bill Simmons of DataXu, Matt Lauzon of Gemvara and Dharmesh Shah of HubSpot will take to the stage to talk about their companies, their technologies and their experiences in creating successful and growing companies. Since this isn’t about which technology is the most gee-whiz, I’m not going to handicap them the way I usually do with the main dish companies. I have done a little cheat sheet though in case you’re (somehow) not familiar with them.

DataXu is all about making marketing more effective through the application of data. Working on the demand side, DataXu helps marketers improve advertising-driven customer acquisition program around the world. I’ve seen Bill at ad tech events in the past and am looking forward to hearing him at WebInno.

I’ll be honest: Gemvara isn’t a company I was familiar with. Maybe that’s because I don’t often find myself looking for custom jewelry. Clearly a lot of people are or Gemvara wouldn’t be doing as great as they are.

Now, while I’m not often in the market doesn’t mean I don’t deal with jewelers – and let me tell you they can be a frustrating lot to deal with. A while ago I bought my wonderful wife a ring from a company that I won’t name but whose color is iconic. The ring was a beauty – rubies and diamonds in a channel setting. When one of the diamonds became loose, the repair was going to cost essentially as much as the ring did in the first place. Maybe I should have checked with Gemvara before I bought . . .

Who doesn’t know HubSpot? These guys have written the book on inbound marketing – and they keep editing it to meet the needs of a changing market. They’ve also managed to attract some of the top, top talent in social marketing and are a real resource for the industry. Like Bill, I’ve seen Dharmesh here, there and everywhere and am looking forward to what he’ll show and tell this time.

So those are the three main stage companies and if that were all that was planned for the event it would be awesome; as late night announcers are fond of saying – but wait, there’s more!

In keeping with the tradition of bringing some of the newest companies and technologies to light, WebInno Rocket will feature six startups for our collective enjoyment. Here’s my take on each.

BRIGHTdriver – Just this morning I was thinking of my commute. Sitting in traffic sucks. It’s one of the biggest wastes of time ever. Ever. Thankfully I’m easily amused and have (thanks to Spotify) as much music as I want. BRIGHTdriver is hoping to help as well. They’re goal is to make “driving fun again!” through competitions and interactive games. I don’t know how much more competitive we need to make Boston-area drivers but I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I’ve signed up for early access (the company is still in beta) so can’t say much more than that I’m looking forward to seeing their stuff.

Go Pro Workouts – Professional Strength & Fitness Training Programs – This is a cool idea. It offers aspiring athletes the ability to train for their sport using a program created by a top athlete in that sport. It’s not just a list of exercises though; there’s a tracker, advice and tips. It sounds really great. Unfortunately, when I looked through the list of sports and athletes I didn’t see any that fit my easy-like-Sunday-morning lifestyle. Come on Go Pro, I want some tips on improving my LZ (lazy quotient), there’s gotta be someone who can help!

Handybook – This is all about finding and booking handy and helpful people to deal with all those things that need to get done but that you’re too lazy to do (see above). Do I try to do all these things myself? About 60 percent of the time. Am I successful in completing the tasks I set out to do? About 40 percent of the time. Do I enjoy these kinds of household tasks? About 10 percent of the time. I think you can see why something like Handybook would appeal to someone like me. It’s not that I can’t do these things, or even that I don’t want to do them. I just get overwhelmed sometimes and having someone tackle the ones I can’t deal with would be a real treat.

MarketMeSuite – Inbox for Social – MarketMeSuite (the name is way too long and two internal caps – yikes!) dreams of being an “end-to-end social marketing solution.” The target is small businesses, likely the ones currently using Constant Contact. Unlike Constant Contact though, they don’t have millions of customers (yet). It’s possible that people will want either an alternative to Constant Contact or will like the fact that MarketMeSuite was created from the ground up with social in mind. It’s going to be a tough path.

Saverr – Grocery Price Comparison – Showrooming comes to Stop & Shop! The site content for Saverr is pretty light, but it suggests consumers “scan a receipt, compare its price, save money . . . do good!” That’s pretty much it. I wondered, how does scanning a receipt after I’ve made a purchase help me save money? How does it help me do good? It would have been great to see answers on the site. Maybe they’ll be able to shed some light on things tonight.

Timbre – As someone who totally loves music, I’m constantly wondering who’s playing around and whether I’ll like the show. The fact is I have kids and don’t live in Allston or Somerville anymore so going out takes planning. My wife or I end up going to club sites to see what’s going on but it’s not ideal. Timbre looks like it solves the problem. I already downloaded the app and love that I can see what’s happening around me for the next few days, listen to the bands to find ones I like and buy music or tickets. How cool is that? Of the companies exhibiting tonight they’re the one I can see myself using on an ongoing basis. Color me happy.

So that’s the scoop from my perspective for WebInno Rocket. To help you get in the mood yourself, here’s a playlist of rocket-inspired songs.

Rock out, have fun and I’ll see you there!

Daily Dozen – Back to School

August is a tough month. It certainly is as far as posting photos goes. Every year I see a big dip in my photographic productivity in August. Part of it is that I’m on vacation and even though I take pictures I don’t do a great job of processing and posting them. That trend continued in 2012. But summer is over and it’s time for everyone to buckle down and get serious again. That’s why today’s theme is back to school.

As a rule, I don’t photograph kids (I do, but I don’t post them any where) so it’s harder to say who’s a student. Thankfully, since I talk a bit with everyone whose picture I take, I know that all the faces in today’s set are students (or at least were when I took their photograph). Obviously none of them are on their way to middle school – over even high school. These students are mostly in grad school but it still counts!