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Author Archives: Pat Mccarthy

Great Startup Postmortem: MyFavorites

July 16, 2011 10:19 pm / 4 Comments / Pat McCarthy

MyFavorites LogoThe tech media is filled with articles gushing over startups that have attracted millions of users, raised millions of dollars, been acquired, or are on their way to surefire success.

However, the reality is still that the majority of startups fail. These failures are usually not written about unless it’s a high profile flameout from a company that was well known. It’s too bad, because it seems like there’s a lot more to learn from why a startup failed than just hearing about the latest success story.

It’s also not that common for the founders of failed startups to be public and forthcoming about what went wrong.

The latest postmortem of a failed startup comes from Steve Poland and his startup MyFavorites.

Steve goes over the big vision for MyFavorites while also being very forthcoming by sharing spreadsheets, mockups, and other artifacts from his startup journey.

As an entrepreneur, it’s the kind of blog post you never want to write, but I’d like to thank Steve for sharing it with the world.

Posted in: Startups

Tech Entrepreneur Blog Directory/Rankings (2011)

July 6, 2011 11:17 pm / 19 Comments / Pat McCarthy

Kevin Rosephoto © 2009 Eric Susch | more info (via: Wylio)As part of my mission to build a successful technology company (GuideMe), I have turned to learning from others who are also doing it or have done it before.

To help others along this path, while also being inspired by Larry Chang’s VC Blog Directory, I compiled all the entrepreneur blogs I’ve been following and used Compete traffic data to sort them by average unique visitors in 2011. While imperfect, it’s a quick way to determine that other people also find them to be great resources.

Rankings
You can also subscribe to all the blogs listed here in the Google Reader Tech Entrepreneur RSS Bundle or follow a Twitter list of all of them called Blogging Entrepreneurs.

(Name, Twitter, Company, Blog, Avg Monthly Uniques)

  1. Seth Godin (@thisissethsblog), Squidoo/Author – Seth Godin’s Blog (143,103)
  2. Jeremy Schoemaker (@shoemoney), AuctionAds – Shoemoney (74,136)
  3. John Chow (@johnchow), The TechZone/TTZ Media – JohnChow.com (53,174)
  4. Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh), Hubspot – OnStartups (48,918)
  5. Joel Spolsky (@spolsky), StackOverflow – Joel On Software (43,762)
  6. Neil Patel (@neilpatel), KissMetrics/CrazyEgg – Quicksprout (41,488)
  7. Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki), Alltop – How To Change The World (29,057)
  8. Erica Douglass (@ericabiz), Whoosh Traffic – Erica.biz (24,342)
  9. Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), WordPress – Matt (22,737)
  10. Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee), WineLibrary – GaryVaynerchuk.com (19,249)
  11. John Battelle (@johnbattelle), Federated Media – Battelle Media (16,944)
  12. Kevin Rose (@kevinrose), Digg/Milk – KevinRose.com (16,144)
  13. Jason Cohen (@asmartbear), WPEngine/Smart Bear – A Smart Bear (15,217)
  14. Chris Dixon (@cdixon), Hunch/SiteAdvisor – CDixon (13,282)
  15. Ben Yoskovitz (@byosko), StandoutJobs – Instigator Blog (11,154)
  16. Patrick McKenzie (@patio11), Bingo Card Creator – Kalzumeus (10,742)
  17. Markus Frind (@plentyoffish), PlentyOfFish – Plenty of Fish Blog (10,344)
  18. Gabriel Weinberg (@yegg), DuckDuckGo – Gabriel Weinberg’s Blog (9,179)
  19. Eric Ries (@ericries), IMVU – Startup Lessons Learned (8,081)
  20. Jason Calacanis (@jason), Mahalo/WebLogs – Jason Calacanis (7,279)
  21. Tim Berry (@timberry), Palo Alto Software – Planning Startups Stories (6,573)
  22. Marc Cenedella (@cenedella), TheLadders – Cenedella.com (5,506)
  23. Rob Walling (@robwalling), DotNetInvoice – Software By Rob (5,137)
  24. Vinicius Vacanti (@vacanti), Yipit – ViniciusVacanti.com (4,781)
  25. Noah Kagan (@noahkagan), AppSumo – OKDork.com (4,606)
  26. Ash Maurya (@ashmaurya), UserCycle – Ash Maurya.com (4,363)
  27. Jason Baptiste (@jasonlbaptiste), OnSwipe – JasonLBaptiste.com (3,834)
  28. Ben Pieratt (@pieratt), Svpply – Varsity Bookmarking (3,568)
  29. Sean Ellis (@seanellis), CatchFree – Startup-Marketing.com (2,952)
  30. Joshua Porter (@bokardo), Performable – Bokardo.com (2,879)
  31. David Cancel (@dcancel), Performable – DavidCancel.com (2,800)
  32. Alexis Ohanian (@kn0thing), Reddit/Hipmunk – Soaring on a Pig with Bread Wings (2,715)
  33. Wayne Chang (@wayne), i2Hub – Wayne Chang (2,621)
  34. Mike Nolet (@mikeonads), AppNexus – Mike on Ads (2,621)
  35. Erin Blaskie (@erinblaskie), BSETC – ErinBlaskie.com (2,399)
  36. Tara Hunt (@missrogue), Buyosphere – Horse Pig Cow (2,287)
  37. Jonathan Mendez (@jonathanmendez), YieldBot – Optimize and Prophesize (2,275)
  38. Pat McCarthy (@patmccarthy), GuideMe – ConversionRater (2,195)
  39. Rand Fishkin (@randfishkin), SEOMoz – RandFishkin.com (2,094)
  40. Jordan Cooper (@jordancooper), Hyperpublic – Jordan Cooper’s Blog (2,080)
  41. Mike Rundle (@flyosity), 9Rules – Flyosity (1,399)
  42. Philip Kaplan (Pud) (@pud), Blippy/Adbrite – Pud’s Blog (1,038)
  43. Steve Poland (@popo), MyFavorites– StevePoland.com (1,038)
  44. Matt Mireles (@mattmireles), SpeakerText – The Metamorphosis (1,021)
  45. Joel Gascoigne (@joelgascoigne), Buffer – Joel.is (978)
  46. Steve Sammartino (@sammartino), Rentoid.com – StartupBlog (924)
  47. Dan Martell (@danmartell), Flowtown – Dan Martell (923)
  48. Jessica Mah (@jessicamah), Indinero – JessicaMah.com (922)
  49. Lisa Bruckner (@wasabinights), Hendricks Park – WasabiNights.com (674)
  50. Giff Constable (@giffconstable), Aprizi – GiffConstable.com (614)
  51. Hiten Shah (@hnshah), KissMetrics/CrazyEgg – Hiten Shah’s Tumblr (585)
  52. Tristan Kromer (@trikro), MonkeyMake.it – GrassHopperHerder.com (351)
  53. Nat Turner (@natsturner), Invite Media – NatsTurner.com (216)

Rules for Inclusion
In order to put the rankings on an even playing field I created some rules for inclusion in this list:

  1. Current or recent founder of a technology startup.
  2. Not purely a personal blog.
  3. Nobody included who is primarily an angel or VC investor.
  4. Must be written by a single author with only occasional guest posts.
  5. There had to be at least one post so far in 2011.
  6. Must have data registering at Compete for most months.
  7. No company blogs are included, even if the founder is the primary writer.
  8. I did include authors who also founded tech startups (Godin/Kawasaki/Vaynerchuk). (Although there is a clear advantage for them in blog popularity)

I know I’m probably missing hundreds of entrepreneurs who blog who may fit this criteria, so please let me know in the comments below and I will add them.

Who’s Left Off

  • Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) – Extremely successful author, but he hasn’t actually founded a “tech startup”. Although he did start and sell a supplement company and is a tech angel investor now. He’d be #1 on this list if included.
  • Mark Suster (@msuster) – Two time tech entrepreneur who’s blog is a great resource, but he’s a full-fledged VC investor at this point. There are other VCs who were former entrepreneurs who have good blogs as well.

Why is Compete the data source?
Compete definitely has it’s faults with traffic accuracy, but it is the only service that allowed me to see traffic data by month during 2011. Some of the other services didn’t have enough data to quantify the blogs. Exact numbers are less important than the trend.

Additional Thoughts:

  1. Being a book author helps tremendously for growing a blog audience. Bloggers like Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, and Gary Vaynerchuk have a lot of popularity that was driven by being published authors. Of course, the reason they are writing books is because they are also intelligent people and great writers in the first place.
  2. The majority of blogs were on a downward slide of traffic, especially in the month of April. It’s unclear whether this is just something specific to Compete’s data, or if there is some macro trend that caused it. My bet is that it’s specific to Compete’s data, but almost every blog experienced it so it’s still fair to compare them.
  3. Consistency in posting appears to have a positive effect on traffic. (Duh).
  4. The types of posts on the blogs also seem to have a positive effect. The most popular tend to have more evergreen educational posts that are likely to get shared quite a bit. The entrepreneurs who also post polarizing opinions get more traffic.
  5. The number of years they’ve been blogging is another clear and obvious positive indicator. Although some of the newer bloggers have rose to a lot of traffic quickly due to great content.
  6. A successful exit or running a well known company adds quite a bit to their blog popularity.
  7. Additionally, last year I created a private email discussion list for technology founders called FounderList. It’s a great intimate way for tech founders to network and learn from each other. Go sign up if you are a technology startup founder.

Posted in: Startups

Cool New GuideMe Feature We Just Launched

June 29, 2011 12:42 am / 2 Comments / Pat McCarthy

One of the features I’ve been most excited about with GuideMe just came out yesterday.

Simply put, we’re monitoring hundreds of daily deal sites and then notifying people of daily deals that exactly match the places that they’ve saved on their GuideList as a To-Do or a Love.

This solves the problem of not wanting to subscribe to a ton of deal services and get a bunch of emails every day for deals that don’t interest you. You just see deals for places you want. Simple.

Personally, I’m not a frequent deal buyer. Although, when a deal is available for a place that I have been meaning to try or a place that I’ve loved in the past, why would I not want to know about it?

Unfortunately this isn’t available in all cities yet, just most of the big high tech cities at the moment. We’ll roll out to more cities over time based on what cities grow in popularity on GuideMe.

Posted in: Random

GuideMe Is Open For Business!

June 23, 2011 1:45 am / Leave a Comment / Pat McCarthy
GuideMe Social Connections

GuideMe MapAfter months of hard work, it felt great to open up the startup I cofounded (GuideMe) to the public last week. Feedback and usage has been pretty good so far, although we have high expectations and know we need to keep building, listening to users, and improving the product to make their local lives better.

GuideMe is your local To-Do List. It’s super easy to build your list of places you’d like to go, where you’ve been, and what you’ve loved.

Despite all the online tools that exist, we still primarily rely on friends and people we know to get great recommendations for restaurants, bars, shops, hotels, landmarks, and everything else. We’re working on scaling those recommendations from friends, making it easier to get them, save them, and share your own.

We’re striving to make it easy to build and manage your local To-Do list, and to provide people with a ton of value that will make it seem worthwhile to use GuideMe.

I’d love for the long-time readers of this blog to sign up, kick some tires, and pass along any feedback whether it’s good or bad.

GuideMe Social Connections

Posted in: Random

Does Multiple Messaging Systems Solve Email Overload?

June 12, 2011 10:32 pm / Leave a Comment / Pat McCarthy

Weird...11111 messages in my inboxphoto © 2009 Chad Swaney | more info (via: Wylio)
If you’ve spent much time working in a heavy tech related job, you’ll quickly learn how annoying email can be. No matter who you are, it’s rare that you don’t at some point feel overwhelmed by the number of emails staring at you in your inbox.

Numerous tech luminaries have written about email overload, including going as far as declaring email bankruptcy. The concept of “inbox zero” is often tweeted about as a fantasy land where you actually have replied to, deleted, or processed every email in your inbox.

There are even multiple investor-backed startups such as Unsubcribe.com or ccLoop who are working at solving the “email problem”.

This was brought up again recently in an article on Techcrunch by MG Siegler about Tumblr’s new messaging system. While it looks like a pretty standard application messaging system, MG is excited about it as another place he can get messages that isn’t his email inbox. MG writes:

Yes, all of this stuff is rudimentary for a messaging system. But again, it does offer a small email relief in that it’s a new system with a slightly higher barrier to entry (you need to have a Tumblr account, unless you choose to allow anonymous messages). Mixed with Facebook Messages, Twitter, Twitter DMs, group messaging apps (Beluga, GroupMe, etc), and soon iMessage, I have a bunch of small work-arounds to avoid the nightmare that is my email inbox.

MG’s solution actually seems like the opposite of a solution to me. I have a personal Tumblr site like MG does, a Twitter account, Facebook account, the blog you’re reading, a LinkedIn account, a Quora account, and other various applications where I can get messages. I actually feel more overwhelmed by all the different places I have to go to gather the messages meant for me, then I do from the number of emails in my inbox.

When all the messages meant for me are coming to my inbox, I can handle them without switching to different systems, I can use filters, I can use labels/folders, and can do it all on one device without switching from mobile to PC. How does breaking up my messages across all these different applications actually lessen the burden? Does it lower the quantity or increase the quantity?

If anything maybe there is mental value of getting some variety by getting out of email, but I actually think the fragmentation of messaging takes up more time and makes me more likely to miss something.

Maybe I’m wrong, or maybe I just don’t get as much email as some of those who have complained publicly about it. I’ve led numerous teams of 30 people or less, and while I was at Yahoo! there were definitely some times in which a lot of email was coming my way.

I’ve tended to be able to handle the email load through effective filtering, keeping my subscriptions to lists and commercial newsletters to a minimum, and realizing the more email I send the more likely I am to get email in return.

But, I’m also not a tech journalist or notable venture capitalist so it’s quite possible I just haven’t felt the pain as badly where breaking up messages across multiple applications seems like a welcome thing. Someday…

Posted in: Random

Looks Like the iAd Hasn’t Cracked Mobile Advertising

June 7, 2011 1:27 pm / 6 Comments / Pat McCarthy

Apple's iAd Hasn't Cracked Mobile Advertising

Over a year after Apple announced the iAd advertising format that was supposed to revolutionize mobile advertising, we heard absolutely nothing about it at yesterday’s developer conference in San Francisco.

Apple trotted out impressive stats about all kinds of things, but there was no mention about iAd penetration, revenue driven, or new capabilities.

Apple doesn’t really miss opportunities to talk about their success, so it’s probably safe to say that the iAd has been a bit of a disappointment so far.

The Hope

When Apple launched the iAd, people had high hopes for what they might be able to do for the mobile advertising industry. A lot of the common thinking was that Apple had revolutionized so many other industries, that perhaps they could do something new and amazing with these high quality mobile ads.

While Apple wasn’t in the advertising business like other companies, people thought their creativity and successful ad campaigns of their own might allow them to take mobile advertising to a new level.

Not so fast my friend.

The Results

Dan Frommer from AlleyInsider did an article about the iAd progress in March. Some notable things in it were that the price of iAds was cut in half, there was a mixed reaction from agencies, and that the iAd sales team had lost a bunch of people.

Outside of the advertising industry, I don’t feel like the iAd has had much impact either. As a user of many iPhone apps, I can’t ever recall even seeing an iAd. Perhaps I have, but if so it definitely wasn’t memorable. And I’m somebody who actually cares about advertising!

The Future

Apple can obviously choose to do what they want and experiment wherever they want. However, I’m not sure advertising is in their core DNA. After all, at the developer conference yesterday Steve Jobs himself said in reference to their mail product:

“No ads,” he boasted. “We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don’t want ads.”

That doesn’t sound like the CEO of a company that really is 100% behind mobile advertising.

Has Jobs learned that “mobile display ads” don’t work? Has Apple just struggled to gain traction?

Or perhaps, is mobile advertising just going to really take off when it’s entirely different and more of the form of location-based deals? But doesn’t that only work for local businesses? How do national brands get in front of people on their mobile device?

The answers still aren’t there, but as more of people’s computing time AND entertainment time shifts to their mobile devices, you can bet there will be a lot of companies trying to figure out how to get in front of people. Just don’t expect Apple to solve it.

Posted in: Advertising

Sitting All Day Is Killing Us: How To Fight It

May 27, 2011 11:48 pm / 3 Comments / Pat McCarthy

There’s been a lot of recent discussion in the tech blog world about how sitting all day working at a computer is really bad for us. This fact is something I’ve known for a long time as the son of an ergonomic office furniture business owner, so I’ve watched these discussions with interest.

The following is an infographic created that provides some interesting and startling facts:

Sitting is Killing You
Via: Medical Billing And Coding

 
If you’ve got a computer-based job like me, what do you do about this? There are two main things I’d recommend:

Swopper Stool
1. Swopper Stool
I’ve used a Swopper Stool on and off over the years, and we currently have two of these being used in my house now. They are a fantastic way to stay active while you’re sitting. You can bounce on the chair, move forward and back, side to side, and keep your body moving and more active. It also promotes good posture.

Many people use one of the inflatable ball chairs for the same purpose. While they provide some of the same benefits, they are definitely not as sturdy, well-made, as comfortable, or as stylish as the Swopper.

The Swopper isn’t cheap, but it’s a really high quality made chair/stool that has a great warranty and I’ve never had any problems with ours. There are lots of colors available and the price is different depending on what type of fabric (or leather) you get on the seat.

ErgoTron WorkFit2. Standing Desk Option
If we can’t sit all day, why not stand most or part of the time? A company called ErgoTron makes a bunch of different devices in their WorkFit line that securely clamp to normal desks that allow to easily move from sitting to standing. You simply raise and lower your keyboard/mouse and monitor(s) when you want to stand. One of our GuideMe team members has one, and I’m planning on ordering one now as well. He reports that his back feels so much better at the end of each day than it did when he sat all day.

The Swopper combined with a standing desk option like the ErgoTron WorkFit should really fight against the problems associated with sitting all day. While some people may balk at the money involved in creating a setup like this, how much is your health worth to you?

Besides your actual work setup, here are some other tips:

  • When talking on the phone, get a wireless headset so you can walk around.
  • Take breaks every 15 or so minutes to stand up and move your body a little bit.
  • Take the stairs, bike/walk to work, or eliminate sitting time in any other way.
  • Get regular exercise
  • As the infographic points out, extra TV time is really dangerous.

Good luck, get off your butt!

Posted in: Personal

Is It College Football Season Yet?

May 17, 2011 11:12 pm / 1 Comment / Pat McCarthy

This video gets me fired up for the huge Oregon vs. LSU game coming up to kick off the 2011 season. Can the Ducks make another great run? Or lose two in a row to SEC teams? (please no)

Either way, it’s exciting that we’ve got such a huge national matchup to get the season going. Just a whole summer to wait…

Posted in: Oregon Ducks

Don’t Be A Statistic: Internet Entrepreneurs Peak at 25?

May 3, 2011 12:55 am / 4 Comments / Pat McCarthy
Don't be a statistic!

Don't be a statistic!Mike Arrington at Techcrunch wrote a recent post based on a conversation with a venture capitalist in which that investor said:

“Consumer Internet entrepreneurs are like pro basketball players, they peak at 25, by 30 they’re usually done.”

Quite a provocative statement! While I don’t have access to lots of conclusive data about this, I’ve started companies in my early 20s and have just started one at 34 (GuideMe). I can definitely see how age, life situation, and experience has changed me when comparing and thought it would be worthwhile to discuss.

First, I think it should be noted that the original article seems to be focused at the peak age of success for consumer internet companies. My guess based on comprehensive data would be that this is probably a “more true” statement than it woud be about other types of startups such as B2B/enterprise or non-internet.

Second, everyone should be aware that even if it were true, it doesn’t mean that every 20-25 year old will have success and everyone older will fail. That’s obviously not the case.

That being said, speaking from experience and observation I think that there are some general advantages and disadvantages around the age differences.

Let’s start with the advantages of being in your early 20s:

Energy Level
While we can all point to that person in their 40s in great shape with a ton of energy, it’s safe to say that most people in their early 20s have a higher energy level then they do in their 30s, 40s, or 50s. Generally you can work longer and later at night.

Family Situation
Most people in their early 20s are not married and don’t have a child or multiple children. Having a spouse and family can do a lot for support, work/life balance, and make people happier. However, it can also cut into time spent working, add additional stress, limit travel, etc.

Facts of LifeThe Facts of Life
Whether you have a family or not, generally as we get older we start to accrue a more bills, larger bills, and we get more financially conservative. We get a mortgage, car(s), a family to support, parents or other family to potentially help support, save more for retirement, etc. When you’re 22 it’s much easier to share an apartment, eat ramen, and have no other burdens so that you can roll the dice and risk it all. It doesn’t mean it’s not possible to do that at 35, but it’s usually harder.

The “It Won’t Work” Factor
This could be also construed as being more creative or imaginative, but I think part of the benefit a 22 year old has is that they haven’t gotten jaded yet by hearing about all the reasons something can’t work. Said another way, they haven’t yet gotten used to the way things currently work so it’s easier for them to challenge the status quo.

Could someone in their 30s have created Facebook? Probably not, as that person would have been always stuck on the notion that “people want privacy and don’t want to share all this information”.

They have an easier time taking on large incumbent companies because they simply aren’t as used to them being in control of that industry.

So is all hope lost for those like me in their 30s? No. Besides the fact that there are tons of examples of people who have done it, there are some advantages to being a bit older and wiser as well:

Working Smarter Instead of Longer
While I may have been working until 2 am at the office of one of the first startups I was involved in, I was most definitely wasting time shooting the breeze with coworkers, playing games, and wasting time in other ways. My experience over the years taught me how to get more done in a shorter period of time by learning how to prioritize, focus, and eliminate distractions.

Fool Me Once…
Learning from past mistakes and getting valuable experience in lots of different aspects of business can help quite a bit. When I was 22 I knew far less about how to manage people, how to do marketing, how to do accounting, how to let people go, etc. This experience saves time and money.

It Can Be Who You Know
One of the benefits of being around longer is that you’ve made more personal connections. You’ve met more people, had more jobs, been to more conferences, worked in different areas, met more investors, etc. In this day and age this advantage has been reduced a little bit as the web has made it much easier to network and connect with people. There are also incubators like Ycombinator and Techstars, services like AngelList, and other tools that have made it easier to get in front of investors. I do know more people today than I did 10 years ago though.

Being Conservative Isn’t Always Bad
While there can be advantages to being extremely risky, knowing how and when to be conservative can keep a company from cratering and flaming out badly. I’d bet there are less crash and burn situations for entrepreneurs in their 30s and 40s then there are for companies started by people under 25. However, VCs are looking for the huge wins, so they care less about soft landings for companies.

Conclusion
I think this is probably a bigger issue for investors who are trying to find an edge and make decisions about what who and what they invest in. I don’t think that those who are contemplating starting a company think too deeply about an age label and actually just look directly at their own situation. Are they in a situation where they can work extremely hard? Are they in a situation to take financial risks? Is there idea disruptive and they aren’t afraid to take big chances? The answers to these questions matter more than if you’re 23 or 33 years old.

One last point is that I think this situation can and will change. 5-10 years ago the entrepreneurs in their 30s and 40s had already worked in the “non-internet” business world for a decent amount of time before the web took over. They had to adapt to the web instead of having it in their DNA of their whole working life. Now the people hitting their mid-30s such as myself are part of that “pure web DNA” generation.

Since the end of high school I’ve been on the web for all my real work. That’s probably only the case for a people a year or two older than me. Which means I think it’s quite possible that we’ll see more cases like Andrew Mason at Groupon, Dennis Crowley at Foursquare, Mark Pincus at Zynga, Ev/Biz/Jack at Twitter, and others who did numerous other smaller internet related companies before they created the huge consumer companies they are building now. I think they’d all say their past successes/failures have helped them in their current companies. (Yes, I know Crowley did Dodgeball and Ev did Blogger but they also weren’t 22 and right out of college for those companies).

Personally, I’m planning on not being a statistic.

Posted in: Startups

A Portable Social Contact Platform Is Needed

April 30, 2011 12:24 am / 4 Comments / Pat McCarthy
Invite Friends Contact Platform

Invite Friends Contact PlatformAs the number of different social web services I use continues to grow, I find myself repeatedly having to choose who to friend or follow on them. These services generally follow a similar process of allowing me to see if my Facebook friends and people I follow on Twitter are using the service, and then I can check my email accounts for friends.

While this process is okay, it’s far from ideal. There are some issues with this such as:

  • The time it takes to manually select people every time on each service.
  • The fact that I often want a different social graph on a particular service. I may want to follow different people in a music application than in a sports application. However, there are some people who I like to connect with on any service no matter what it’s about.
  • The differences in how you friend or invite people between services can lead to mistakes or cause me to do things I didn’t mean to like posting an invite to someone’s Facebook wall when I didn’t intend it.
  • Some services make it so easy to friend others that I find myself following too many people which can lead to a negative experience in the application. Others have spoke of this problem, and I think I’m currently experiencing this on Quora. The quality of my feed has gone down as I’ve followed people that I don’t really know and can’t remember why I followed them in the first place.

Anytime something like connecting to others is occurring on every service it is an opportunity to improve and streamline that process.

It seems as if there is an opportunity for a company to create a portable social contact platform. This would basically be a place where I could store contacts that I connect with on various social services. I’d like to specify a core group that I want to automatically connect to regardless of the service. This also would make it easier on startups who have to build this following process themselves. If there was a nice plugin or API that allowed people to follow and invite others easily it would save time.

There’s also some new ideas such as Color which try and connect you to others implicitly based on your activity opposed to who you specify. This is a really cool approach, but I already have seen flaws in the model thus far with Color although it’s still really early in that area.

Some will probably say that Facebook or Twitter already serves as this central repository of contacts that they like to connect with on social services. This is partially true for me, but there are people I follow on Twitter who I’m not friends with on Facebook, and people on Facebook who aren’t on Twitter.

Another way to approach this would to use people’s mobile phone contact list as that core group of people. While this is likely to include people’s true tightest social circle, I know in my case that this circle would be too tight.

These issues are why I concluded that I don’t think this should be leveraging something that already exists like my Facebook social graph or my phone contact list. Those things were built for specific purposes, and none of those purposes were “these are the people I want to connect with on social web and mobile applications”.

Is anyone working on such a thing?

Posted in: Social Networks

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