A week or so ago I got the opportunity to have a chat with echo echo’s Nick Bicanic. Looking to solve the problem of “where are you?” echoecho is a nifty tool that not only answers that question, but provides a platform to answer the inevitable follow up of “where should we go?” I asked Nick what he thought about the location based services industry, where its going and he had some interesting thoughts.  Below are just some excerpts from our chat.

 Matt McDonald: “Whats your take on location right now?”

Nick Bicanic: “I think the problem is not being solved properly. Smartphones are fairly smart about finding their own location - but communicating that location to your friends is still too complex - so it’s still too difficult for friends to connect.”

MM: “What are some of the challenges the space is facing?”

NB: “I think there are a lot of challenges. First, we look to derive the use case from wanting to find someone, not wanting to be found. That’s the problem with real-time tracking – privacy, permission and preference. At echoecho we define the problem first – “where are you” – and then look to build a solution to address the problem. Second, communication and asymmetric social networks are hard. The signal to noise ratios are very low. Close tie social network communications are hard to do in a feature rich way.  One of the problems to address is to solve a key component of close tie communication. Solve for things that people actually care about…so where are you and what are you doing versus what you watched last night.”

 MM: “And what about monetization? How will these solutions turn into a business model?

NB: “Good question and ultimately we’ll take the answer from users. Yes, you can find my friend, but now I want to meet. There are multiple options for geo-social utility solutions that can turn into a viable business model. We’re not 100% which one to choose, but they are certainly there. The trick is to determine which one will not disrupt the user experience.”

After Nick and I chatted, I gave echoecho a spin. The first problem the app had is common – I had to find someone to use it with. On probably the 10^th try, I was able to get my friend Oren here in New York to download the app. Locating each other was easy – echoecho does a great job at having a simplistic and clean interface that lets friends know where they are. Since each session is separate, it also prevents the feeling of being stalked – you only give away your location that one time, a smart way to tackle the question of privacy. Oren and I spotted our locations and then, with the meeting function, echoecho offered up suggestions for places to meet for coffee, drinks or food. Certainly a promising idea.

After using the app for a little while, I stopped and let it marinate. Will people use this? Do I see this going somewhere? Will this move LBS-based apps forward? After giving it some thought I definitely see the potential in echoecho as a utility tool. Nick certainly did one thing – echoecho clearly defines a problem (“where are you”) and looks to solve it. However – at least now – I’m not sure that solution is compelling enough to warrant the switching costs outside the LBS obsessed (and that might not be a bad thing). The majority of the time it just takes a few texts to get a satisfactory response for that question. Lets think of a few segments – you’re meeting a group of people, you’re meeting a close friend or loved one, you’re meeting a friend you see infrequently, you’re meeting an acquaintance or you’re meeting someone for the first time. Then lets look at the three situations that echoecho covers – coffee, drinks and food. Now we want to measure this against something – why would any of this information be necessary anyway? Well, for a few reasons. First – time. Its helpful to know if someone is running late or is far away, so that you can measure your own time effectively. This is particularly important for when you need to wait for the other person (or people) in order to do something – like getting a table at a restaurant for example. Second – choosing a location. One way I see a good use for echoecho is to actually have the app open during a phone call. You could see where each other are on a map and then find locations equidistant from each other, or at least provide a helpful visual to complement the inevitable back and forth of indecisiveness. Anytime where the location is in question, echoecho is certainly helpful. Third – centralized conversation. One annoying thing about meeting up is the fact that you have to text the person, go on yelp, find a place that looks good, text the person back, wait for a response, etc. etc. It’d be much easier to just do everything over one centralized platform. With echoecho you can do that. The chat feature is great and facilitates conversation while you’re looking at a map on where to go. While the meeting function needs some fleshing out and more filters (because frankly, there are 10 different coffee shops on the same block) it’s a great start.

A chart analyzing all that would give some direction as to the utility for all of those groups. And how do you fill that out? Well, the users will –which is precisely why the app as is works just fine. Its going to have the biggest appeal to LBS/early adopter types, which will funnel good nuggets of information on the utility at each of the above permutations. That, in turn, should give the echoecho team enough data to figure out how to best build out the app for the masses, which seems to be their plan, as the masses will ultimately drive monetization. As Nick said, communication and asymmetric social networks are hard to do in a feature rich way. Right now, echoecho is fairly basic, but it is sophisticated and different enough so that its initial users can drive what those “rich” features would then look like in the future.

Echoecho has a clear function and value add, which is certainly among the reasons it got attention from Google (echoecho is Google Ventures backed). As the app evolves and matures, it will certainly help usher in a new series of apps that have a real value to people, moving location based services along. Will be fun to see it play out.

And now a break from our regularly scheduled program:

1. Denial - “Nah, I won’t get a LOW. The principal has my back.”

2. Anger - “WTF?! How is it MY fault YOU didn’t sell any work?!”

3. Bargaining - “OK. Maybe I can get something on the government side. I’ll take the paycut. Whatever. I just need to ride this out for a few more months.”

4. Depression - “This sucks. What am I going to do now? I’m totes not getting into GSB. Great.”

5. Acceptance - “You know its fine. I was going to leave anyway. Woo funemployment!”

So I never really explained my principal interest, which is of course location. I also haven’t really written much on my favorite apps. Double fail. So what I want to do is take this opportunity to write about why I like location, where I see it going and how I think certain apps are going to get us there. Sweet. 

I first became interested in location around six years ago. Then, I was a freshman at Dartmouth,  and like many other first year students I would roam around campus aimlessly trying to figure out which party to go to. In Hanover, where the winter was long and the cold was brisk, I had a vested interest in finding places to go to quickly. While the houses definitely had their crowds and reputations, they were still relatively spread out and most everyone had 2 or 3 favorite places that were of course at opposite ends of campus. At the time - armed with my LG flip phone with flurry enabled mail (I wasn’t cool enough to have a BlackBerry…my how times have changed) - I would have to rely on texts, phone calls and the occasional webmail to get some current information I could actually use. It sucked.

Fast forward to 2011 and we have…not much else. While that is definitely starting to change, answering the central question of “where should I go?” and “where are you?” over our GPS enabled smartphones is still a challenge. Consequently, I think this is a tremendous opportunity as those two questions - “where are you” and “where should we go” are so fundamental to our lives. There is no reason we shouldn’t have great apps to make answering them that much easier. 

Over the next few posts, I want to take the opportunity to go through some apps that do just that. Going to try to talk to some people on the inside and get some of their thoughts as well. Should be fun. Stay tuned.

I totally set myself up there with a delayed follow-up…

In thinking about the question I posed on the fate of Qwikster last week, ultimately there were several things that came to mind. The first and foremost though is that - in my mind - the number one priority a company should have is the trust, confidence and satisfaction of its customers. And, in making any changes or alterations to any of its product lines, it should not disrupt any of these three critical sentiments. Its been said many times before and it proved true in Netflix’s case - it is very difficult and takes a long time to build consumer trust, yet one can lose it in an instant.

So when thinking about Netflix, I honestly was a little surprised in their execution. In particular, why is it that they didn’t simply make changes on the backend operationally and on their P&L? Why did they choose to create an entirely different site and force customers to maintain separate accounts? Were they trying to induce change and hasten the demise of DVD sales and encourage adoption of streaming? If so, based on the metrics that they surely have on customer use of them as a combo (and the backlash from the price hikes that came earlier this summer) how did they not anticipate the huge amount of disruption that such a move would bring?

In strategy development, its so important to think very carefully about what can go wrong. Is the potential residual damage worth the risk? Usually, there is an alternative solution that might not have the full benefit of the original strategy, but carries significantly less risk. When comparing strategies, a slightly lower return but with a lower risk is usually better than a higher return  with greater risk. For Netflix, it seems to me that they could have undergone an organizational re-design that would have separated the businesses on the backend, but from a customer facing perspective kept the user experience virtually the same. Over time, the customer facing site would gradually change as adoption of DVDs decreased on their own. Netflix could also then add in incentives and offers (say deals for streaming? loyalty rewards?) to try to get people to use streaming more (and DVDs less). I would hope they would also analyze the reasons why people kept going to DVDs over streaming (perhaps selection choice?) and start to whittle at the competitive advantage between the platforms over time. However, they must also have realized that DVDs could have been a way to provide content to users where streaming deals were lacking. I don’t use Netflix, so I don’t know their interface terribly well, but I would think a way to approach the problem from a product management perspective is to encourage people to stream content when its available and then offer the DVD as a back-up solution for when its not. From a pricing perspective this could be a pain, but users would definitely like it and over time you could really get a sense of what people were welling to wait for (and consequently which studios are worth negotiating with for streaming content). It’d also be a good way to try to transition everyone to streaming once those gaps in offerings close.

I think theres a lot we can learn from the recent demise of Qwikster, Netflix’s futile attempt of a separate DVD business.

Netflix was wise to think of how it could prepare for the inevitable shift away from DVDs toward streaming. Not only were the cost structures different for the two businesses, but they also had divergent operational and strategy needs that were difficult to reconcile under one single platform. On the one hand, you had a business that would be on its way out in under 5 years, but with a relatively simple supplier stream (DVDs by law can be purchased in bulk and then re-rented or sold at a different price point, a great but antiquated business model) and on the other hand you had an emerging streaming business, but with a complicated licensing model that has yet to be perfected (Netflix is constantly trying to negotiate contracts with distributors and recently lost a major one in Starz!). With these two platforms, it was only natural that CEO Reed Hastings would try to come up with a way to squeeze what was left out of the mature DVD business while it still lasted, yet set the company up for the future which is most definitely in streaming video.

That logic is perfectly fine, but there is one variable missing - the customers. From a strategy perspective, its absolutely critical to understand your customer first, above all, and ensure that they’re kept happy. Netflix badly misjudged this need as they were identifying a way to evolve their business model. With a completely separate website, login credentials and price structures, Qwikster would have been an incredible nuisance to the customer and disrupt the user experience. On top of that, Qwikster is an awful name (unless they were thinking of sinking in quicksand, which the product ultimately did). 

Its easy to criticize in hindsight. But the question is what should Netflix have done and what lessons can be learned?

Stay tuned for post 2 breaking down some options and chime in with your own.

Yesterday the world lost a true talent in Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple and tech visionary. While people die every day - and every death should be mourned - Steve’s passing is all the more tragic as he had an impact on the world that is truly rare and a message that is not nearly prolific enough - to follow your passions, pursue your dreams and work tirelessly to see that they come to fruition.

As tragic as Steve’s untimely death may be - he was only 56 - we should take the time to reflect on the major themes of his life and all be inspired by his work. Steve Jobs was special because he had extraordinary vision, a tenacity to change the world and the work ethic and resolve to turn his vision into reality. For those of us who remain, we must do the same. While everyone might not have the vision or depth of talent of Steve, we can all do our best, we can all dream and we can all work hard enough to see our dreams come true. Whether your dream is to be an entrepreneur, an athlete, a teacher, a stay-at-home parent or president of the United States, you should resolve to do your best every day to make your dream come true. If you work hard enough and do your best, you just might make it.

For myself, this is a somber reminder. First that life is short, it does have an end - and the end can come far sooner than you think. In addition to Steve’s passing, a good friend of mine had a stroke at only 25…and he is in probably the best physical condition of anyone I know; life is full of uncertainty. Second, that you must pursue your passions relentlessly, you must stay focused and that you must do your best to improve yourself everyday to see to it that you are constantly moving forward. And third - above all - believe in yourself. When you believe, work hard, and are fearless, amazing things can happen.

Rest in peace Mr. Jobs, you were and will continue to be a true inspiration.

Today was awesome. Met with pictour’s CEO Alejandro Corpeño about doing some go-to-market strategy for them and also talking with Sonar tomorrow about writing a piece on how Sonar and similar apps are going to take social interaction into mobile. Really excited about these things…and investment banking training starts in 2 weeks! Part of me thinks its all too much, part of me thinks its not enough, but really I just want to do the best I can and all this stuff is interesting…so why not?

Exactly.

Going to keep up with this blog poor. Also want to give my thoughts on Amazon, Facebook (i know, i know…i’m late) and other stuff in tech right now. There is just too much going on.

And thats why its all so exciting.

When I went to General Assembly for the Foursquare Hackathon, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I was really excited about seeing the new applications that would be developed, and as a non-developer, my utility would be pretty much non-existent and I had never been to either GA or a hackathon before.  Not only was I pleasantly surprised, but the event fundamentally altered my perception of foursquare. 

Fresh off releasing their User Push, Venue Push and Lists APIs, foursquare was in the midst of their second global hackathon, an event that brought together developers all over the world to test out the new API and create applications that would leverage the new capabilities…all in 48 hours. The hackers would get a chance to not only win bragging rights, but meetings with the leadership of foursquare, their venture capitalists and the international press that would surely set them up for the future should they decide to start a viable business.

As I walked in, I immediately thought of college. The GA loft exuded casualness, intellectualism and drive. People were perky (once they had their coffee at least), full of ideas and incredibly excited to be there. A sea of laptops covered the tables, anchored by young 20-somethings furiously typing away at their chrome Macbooks trying to build something special. At the heart of it, the thing about this event that is truly amazing is that in the room I was a witness to what inevitably will be a chapter in a promising young company. Which one, I don’t know. Will it be Homefield Advantage – the app that pulls data from baseball games and runs analysis on where they’re from, how loyal to their team they are and their interests? (A potentially huge idea for advertisers who are constantly looking for ROI on their sponsorship dollars.)  Will it be Yourcheckin Deal – an app that integrates YipIt and foursquare to notify you of deals at places to check-in? (An app that could converge the seemingly endless number of deals into an easy to use platform that would synch with your regular foursquare usage.)

Whatever it may be, the biggest take away from the hackathon is that there is such a wide diversity of applicable uses for foursquare. From analyzing census data to see how ___ you are (how blank are you), to hooking you up with fellow singles in those wee hours in the morning (matchsquare) to letting everybody know that things are cool in the event of a disaster (everything is cool) – foursquare is undoubtedly providing rich data streams that more and more developers are learning to utilize for innovative products. 30 hacks were made in total, levering the New York Times (Ven-news), public school data (School Rating), Hunch (hunchsquare) and other APIs. People were truly creative, even coming up with an app to help you find the cleanest toilets (Loo Review).

 The hackathon was only 48 hours of coding so the apps could only be so sophisticated. But as time goes on and more and more users sign onto foursquare, more ideas will surface that will be based off its API. All in all, the hackathon gave a glimpse into the future of location. And foursquare will be at the heart of that future.

So the event has gotten started and people are busy cranking away. Caffine is really a wonderful thing. Have been chatting a bit with a couple of people at my table, but it looks like people are going to start getting hands down pretty soon.

…and before I could even finish that post got looped into several more conversations.

I didn’t present my idea mainly because I just want to observe at this point.  Theres so much to learn and I feel that I’m such a n00b. But I’m eager to start learning.

More than anything though…gosh, I work in the wrong environment. This is so different than the rigid confines of consulting that its not even funny.

So I just got to the Foursquare hackathon here at General Assembly and the energy is truly palpable. I wish I weren’t working on 2 hours of sleep (oops) but I’m so so glad I came.  Even if I don’t get to pitch my idea (gym app anyone?) and just sit here and observe for a few hours, it truly is worth it.

What interests me most is that one of these guys or gals walking around - eating their bagels and working away at their macs - will undoubtedly create something great. Its fascinating to be in an environment where there is not only so much promise, but where the realization of that promise comes to light in real-time. And that is really great.