Disqus - Latest Comments for chudson

Re: What is the Use Case for Google Wave?

chudson — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:20:35 -0000

Ivan,

Thanks so much for the detailed reply. I really enjoyed reading it. My real concern is that Wave might be overkill. Why create an entirely new product when adding more collaboration tools (particularly some asynchronous ones) to the existing suite of tools in GDocs might have delivered more immediate value to users?

Re: What is the Use Case for Google Wave?

chudson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:15:02 -0000

This is the first good use case I've heard. Perhaps they should have a use case gallery instead of an app store. I think the former would help more people than the latter.

Re: The new economy

chudson — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 07:33:37 -0000

Chris,

If you're interested in virtual goods (or have friends) who are, I'd encourage you to check out the Virtual Goods Summit (http://vgsummit2009.eventbrite.com) - we've been covering this space for 3 years and have a lot of the leading companies in the US and Asia presenting in late October.

Re: foursquare is a game, not a location app – and that’s why it works

chudson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:34:26 -0000

Ken,

I actually use the Yelp iPhone app for the use case you mention above, especially when I'm traveling. It does a good job of telling me what's nearby and what's highly rated. I think of Yelp on the iPhone as being low on entertainment value but high on utility.

Right now, foursquare is high on entertainment but low on utility for me - it doesn't help me find places to go or stuff to do. And my hunch is that the smart thing for foursquare to do is to focus on doing entertainment than utility. For example, they've recently started telling you how many other foursquare users are at a given place. I can see some fun challenges / badges / quests around getting 10 foursquare people in some bar at the same time, finding the coffee shop in SF where the most foursquare users check in, etc. That could surface some of the same information but in a less explicit way.

Re: foursquare is a game, not a location app – and that’s why it works

chudson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:31:52 -0000

Nathan,

I think you're right - games are limiting. But no more limiting than any other media genre like books, movies, or music. I think these guys are managing to achieve something that most other LBS applications have not - a use case that makes sense to me. Also, I'd argue that casual games can have a really long shelf life - look at things like Bejeweled, Tetris, Desktop Tower Defense, or any of the big hidden object games. Good games with simple mechanics can remain fun for a very long time, so long as there is something fun and evergreen about the experience.

I have a lot of friends, including some of the folks who've commented here, who don't play foursquare competitively (they're not trying to get to the top of any leaderboard) and really would like to use it more as a tracker / recorder of their own movements and places they go. The current version of foursquare doesn't really speak to that use case.

Right now, the audience is limited to the devices they support and the subset of people who use the application. I think foursquare has the potential to be the most popular application in its category - it's too early to say whether or not the category itself is large and interesting.

Re: What’s the Use Case for Facebook Payments Off Facebook?

chudson — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:46:29 -0000

Hi Joshua,

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I do think that PayPal is generally low-friction at the time of purchase. All you need to do is to type in your email address, password, and off you go. I use PayPal for my conference business and can agree that the post-purchase experience is not the greatest and that fraud can be an issue.

PayPal has lots of people working on keeping that service safe and usable. Facebook has lots of people working on payments, too, but I'm not sure that they'll have the resources or focus to make a great user experience and manage the back and fraud / chargebacks that will inevitably arise. A simple 1-click experience for users is a proven value proposition - I'd like to see what Facebook ends up implementing.

Re: What’s the Use Case for Facebook Payments Off Facebook?

chudson — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 03:09:13 -0000

John,

I agree - there was an opportunity for Facebook to have capitalized on the opportunity to provide a monetization solution for app developers. I kind of feel like that ship might have sailed - offer partners, PayPal, Zong, Boku, etc have that space pretty well covered at the moment. Many of the top apps are doing more revenue through virtual goods than ads - that's a great use case for direct payment systems.

Re: Announcing the Virtual Goods Summit University 2009 - Half Day Workshop Before the Virtual Goods Summit 2009

chudson — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 02:04:49 -0000

Thanks, Erin - I really appreciate it. How about a format where each topic had 1/2 time from someone in the solutions business and 1/2 time from a publisher who had addressed the issue? I want to make sure we have balance between people who have encountered and solved the problem and people who are offering solutions to publishers broadly.

Re: Thoughts on the Real-Time Web

chudson — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 22:34:08 -0000

Sachin,

Thanks for the comment, man - really appreciate it. Without better filters
and tools, I have a hard time getting maximum value from the real-time web.

2009/6/3 Disqus <>

Re: Solving the Twitter Business Model Problem - Your Guess is Probably Better than Mine

chudson — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:29:53 -0000

Thanks for the great comment, James. I'm thinking of doing a post along those lines at some point. There are so many other people speculating on Twitter's business model that I am having more fun reading their posts than I would drafting a post of my own.

Re: How do you do concrete interviews for non-technical people?

chudson — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:15:18 -0000

Just read your article and the feedback - good stuff!
________________________
Social Gaming Summit 2009 - http://bitly.com/fYJjq
(650) 249-0905

Re: How do you do concrete interviews for non-technical people?

chudson — Mon, 18 May 2009 13:57:06 -0000

Andrew,

Good post, as always. There's something worth noting that wasn't mentioned. It's not just about asking the right questions, it's also about having people who know how to interpret the responses. One of the challenges for startups is that while you might have 5-6 engineers who know what a good engineer looks like, you might have 1 or in some cases 0 people in the company who have a firm understanding of what a good BD, sales, marketing, or operations person looks like. Even having access to the right level of rigor won't necessarily help that company identify the right person and whether he / she is competent.

One thing I've seen work well is to have the Board or some trusted advisors / friends who are familiar with what skill and competence in the aforementioned fields looks like be an integral part of the skills portion of the interview. The core team has to make the call on culture, but there's simply no substitute for having a skilled marketer, biz dev person, or salesperson evaluate one of their own ilk and render judgment.

Re: Can Large Companies Help Small Companies Find Business Models (An Open M&A Question)

chudson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 12:26:46 -0000

Thanks for the comment. The only thing that gives me pause with the line of logic above is the experience of Facebook. There was a window of time when people thought the upside was virtually limitless and the revenue piece would become clear at scale. Most "hot" startups have a window of time when the market believes the growth story and is willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on the revenue side. When that window closes, you'd better have a real model on which to rely.

Re: I’m Finally Giving Up on MobileMe

chudson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:41:59 -0000

Oh, I bought the iPod Touch before I bought the iPhone. And I like using the
Touch around the house as a remote control and to stream music.

As for the laptops, I have two work laptops and a personal one. I know, it's
kind of crazy.

Re: I’m Finally Giving Up on MobileMe

chudson — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 12:41:51 -0000

That's a good workaround solution. It would be a more manageable way to browse my contacts. However, simply having all of them in my address book makes it very slow to simply browse through my contacts.

Re: http://www.charleshudson.net/thoughts-on-free-powered-business-models-and-why-time-beats-features

chudson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 22:35:37 -0000

Wow, thanks for the great comment!

Re: Can Large Companies Help Small Companies Find Business Models (An Open M&A Question)

chudson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:38:26 -0000

I think it's always easier to start with some sense of business model from day 1. And I remain skeptical that big companies can help small companies figure out business models in new areas. Each case is different, though.

Re: The bit.ly Investment Makes Sense to Me (the Feedburner of Twitter)

chudson — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:08:22 -0000

Yes, I agree - the road for any of the URL shortening services is a long one. There might be an interesting business here, but it's far from assured.

Re: Social Gaming Summit 2009 Agenda and Speaker Lineup (Zynga, Playdom, Playfish, Zong, MySpace, Facebook, Offerpal, Super Rewards, and many more)

chudson — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:04:47 -0000

Ah, thanks. If you can think of anyone else we can add, let me know. Hope you're doing well!

Re: Caltrain Rejecting Wi-Fi for Trains Makes Sense to Me

chudson — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 09:30:27 -0000

Thanks for the comment and thanks for catching the typo. It was an error on my part.

If you'll note the date on this post, I wrote it in September 2007. The state of net access was pretty different at that point in time.

I take Caltrain for work just about every day. I believe that there is more demand for Wi-Fi on Caltrain now than there was when I wrote this post. I don't believe that Caltrain or any most any other transit agency can afford to offer free Wi-Fi on an ongoing basis for all of its users (although some of the bus services do it now - I'm not sure that's financially sustainable). BART plans to offer Wi-Fi as well and it's likely to be on a paid basis. So if someone wants to outfit Caltrain cars with paid or free Wi-Fi for laptops / PDAs / etc, they have better odds of success today than they did a year ago.

A lot of the working folks I see on Caltrain (including me) often proudly sport corporate logowear as they type away on their laptops with their EVDO cards. You're right to say that I can't assume that people who aren't on the train today wouldn't be induced to do so if the train had free Wi-Fi. I don't believe that offering Wi-Fi would radically shift Caltrain usage patterns, though.

Overall, I think Caltrain has bigger problems than Wi-Fi. Keeping fares affordable for everyone and upgrading the fleet of trains to the new cars strike me as higher priorities.

Re: The bit.ly Investment Makes Sense to Me (the Feedburner of Twitter)

chudson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 12:39:45 -0000

Very good point - I do a fair amount of email marketing myself and think you've outlined a useful use case.

Re: The bit.ly Investment Makes Sense to Me (the Feedburner of Twitter)

chudson — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:58:50 -0000

Quick comment to those who mentioned that this post went out on twitter with a link in tinyurl. The Wordpress to Twitter plugin I use only offers TinyURL. Good catch.

Re: What I Learned at the iGames Summit

chudson — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 18:41:16 -0000

thanks, greg - it was great having you join us for the day!

Re: Why Didn’t the New York Times or the WSJ Sell Me My Kindle 2?

chudson — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:14:18 -0000

I understand what you're saying, but I'm still confused. The NYT sells me a subscription for $9.99 per month on the Kindle. If they're interested in paid distribution on the platform, why not sell me the device as well. I'm not suggesting they subsidize the device - I'm just suggesting they take advantage of the affiliate opportunity to sell the device and get paid. And, in a world where cash is king, give me a discount for paying for a full-year subscription in advance.

Re: Is Google Voice a Threat to SpinVox and Phonetag?

chudson — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 18:05:14 -0000

I suppose that would work as well. I hadn't thought of that. Good point.