When I have a need, and go to find a web application to meet that need, why does it seem like I have to do VC style due diligence on all the companies in that space to make my final decision.
Simple answers:
1) I’m super obsessive compulsive about web apps
2) There are too many web apps
3) Theres no central useful review of all of them
To decide on what social book/reading site I wanted to use, I went through dozens of sites, analyzed different metrics, and wrote two posts (1, 2 ) to find the one I wanted. The worst part, is that I ended up doing all that work to decide on a webapp, only to get invited to GoodReads a few days later, which hadn’t even shown up on my radar. I am now using Good Reads because all my friends are, and it has most of the features i want. Continue Reading →
VC style due diligence on web apps
Revisiting Cataloging your media
warning: this post is a mess, and mostly an example of how much of a pain it can be to find the right application
I don’t even know what to call this category of application!! How am I ever going to find the “Last.fm” or “del.icio.us” of reading applications?
I really focused on 3 things
1) how do they let you tag the books (tagging, categorizing, bookshelves)
2) how many people were using it
3) how easy it was for me to add my friends
New sites to review
http://www.goodreads.com/
- traffic? (couldnt tell fight club because of tagging)
- funky taggin
- offers rss feed subscription updates
http://www.bookjetty.com/
- wanted, reading, read
- doesn’t look like too many people on it (5 for fight club)
Continue Reading →
GPD 2008 el Nate
So, I got inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk’s (@garvee) message, and Good People Day 2008.
I gotta write about Mr. @innonate himself, Nate Westheimer. This is long over-due, and he seems to be the guy to hype right now, despite how much fun it is for me to give him shit.
So, where to start? We got to know each other through a rather insane year of studying abroad in Madrid ’04-’ brand05-ish. Nate was coming from Brandeis and I was coming from good ole Rice University. We were there to learn Spanish, and not talk with all the other Americans, which were everywhere and honestly, quite a bit of fun. We braved the somewhat awkward “Madrileno” social scene, conquered the night life, and even did some work together on a luxury indoor advertising startup I was doing out of Barcelona.
Needless to say, we kept in touch post Madrid. Almost a year later we met up for an epic weekend of film festing in Austin (was this SXSW?), and then we kept in touch with constant brainstorming sessions, which became more and more web focused. At this point, ole @innonate was still a web newbie, but definitely already a Mac fanboy. He was more into sociology (maybe communism?), politics, and the stock market. He’d found his way to New York city, started doing investor relations on Wall St, but definitely was being drawn to the web. I, on the other hand, was working for web based GIS startup with some guys from school in Houston, and I was looking for an out. As I started looking for a job more seriously, we started brainstorming more and more, till one day he threw out the idea for a platform where people could vent. He wanted people to be able to type in topics for these vents, and for them to be channeled together for collaborative venting about companies, products, etc. Actually, the first designs were for a service very much like what Get Satisfaction became (cool site by the way). Ventbox was eventually born from this, I started looking for jobs in New York and San Francisco, and eventually Nate found me a job posting on Craigslist for an interesting new startup in NYC called Angelsoft.
So Nate got me a job, yes. Thank you Nate! You rock, my job rocks, and I’m a happy guy for this. Continue Reading →
My Fav Travel Sites
I first wrote about travel sites here, but I’ve been traveling even more lately (couple weeks a month) and I’ve been putting some travel sites through the ringer. Here’s my favorite sites, they have to be fast, functional, and provide clear value right from the start (unlike this blog, but im working on getting to the point faster!!):
Tripit
Makes killer itineraries simply by having you forward your reservation emails to plans@tripit.com. Dead simple, and dead useful!!
Kayak
Search hard and search fast, search through everything (a ton of other travel sites). Great for flights, decent for hotels, not so hot for car rentals.
TripAdvisor
Best reviews for hotel. User generated reviews that are some how much better and much more useful than other plays. Made several decisions based on their advice and everything was spot on.
Here are some more I haven’t had a chance to use:
http://www.igougo.com/
http://www.travature.com/
http://www.triptouch.com/
http://www.driftr.com/
http://www.flightstats.com/go/Home/home.do
http://www.dopplr.com/
And here’s an uber big daddy list:
http://www.luggageonline.com/50-travel-sites.cfm
Politico Twitter
Just read an interesting article in the Sunday NY Times (which is a new part of my sunday routine, to get me spending a little less time reading stuff on the computer), and I thought the Txtmob application used while protesting the Republican national convention sounded like it was being used a lot like twitter.
Its interesting to see that a group of non-web2.0 people understand its practical applications and apply it to a real world situation (in 2004). Twitter style communication gets really interesting if it can make the leap to the rest of the world, not just the web20 crowd.
Don’t think its a ground breaking thought, but it was new to me, and worth a look. Here’s a handful of people that have already discussed the idea:
http://www.tacticaltech.org/oaqneorganizetools
http://crashtheconventions.com/2008/03/19/using-twitter-to-organize-protests/
http://www.associatedknowledge.com/2007/08/28/evidence-that-text-messaging-has-reached-a-tipping-point/
http://blogs.asaecenter.org/Acronym/2007/04/cybermobbing_just_got_easier.html
About This Site
My name is Evan Bartlett, and I'm all about connecting people and finding better ways to do things. Every day life should be approached with the eye of an entreprenuer, so here's where I'll hash out my ideas on the intersection of sales, community, and product!
By day I'm working on a betaworks project called Allify, making tools for mobile app developers.
On the side I've just launched an iphone app called Matchbook with my buddy Jason. Its a new easy way to remember the restaurants, bars, and shops people recommend to you.
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