Content Sharing Services
I have been thinking a lot lately about content sharing services…
I have a picture I want to post with a short quip…
I pop out my iPhone, because it’s an awesome way to get engagement fast.
I open up Path 2.0, upload pic and add text. I click the “Share via Facebook” and “Share via Twitter” to ensure it broadcasts to my favorite content sharing services.
Now that’s all fine and dandy, it works for almost any content sharing app. Twitter and Facebook are large platforms with millions of integrations.
The problem is the picture. I get content sharing fatigue, because I also want Instagram, Flickr, and
Maybe, it’s up to Flickr and Instagram to open up for integration. Clearly it works for Path -> Twitter + Facebook … but why not the others? Instagram is huge, Flickr is huge.
The point: I think that there’s a careful balance between walled gardens and open APIs that allow for engagement with your service. For example, I can post to Facebook from Path, but Path obviously wants to keep users engaged with itself, instead of going to Facebook. And Path doesn’t want to be just an interface… or maybe it does?
I would wager that there will be a solution to this soon. Maybe in the form of a content aggregation spec… so that you can place content wherever and your services just show it like it’s part of the platform. We see this in one direction with Facebook… we see this in 1.5* directions with Twitter… we’ll see this become even larger eventually. Otherwise we’ll get “Content Sharing Fatigue”…
* Twitter hosts most content inline within it’s apps (web and mobile) and let’s it’s content out via clients, but doesn’t allow posting to other services within itself.
TurtleBot and Entrepreneurial Ideas
While at drop.io, I acquired an iRobot Create and a netbook to put together a simple telepresence robot. Here’s the original post (with bad links, just for reference). It was a fun experiment and I actually published the code out on github (here). You could use any OSC, hardware or software controller, or a regular telnet prompt to control movement.
At any rate, when drop.io was acquired, I was searching for the next thing to do. With the advice of some of my techy friends, they said I should try to build up and sell an “SDK” and kit for building a small telepresence robot, consisting of an iRobot Create and a netbook. At the time I thought it would be interesting, but would require capital up front to purchase inventory and I didn’t think it would eventually make much profit. But it would be fun.
Sometimes life gets in the way and you make up your own excuses on why you shouldn’t do things. It’s silly, but it’s a part of being human. As an entrepreneur, you have to ignore those excuses and push forward fast. Iterate, push, and go for the glory.
In this case, I caved to my pressures and silly excuses and decided to pursue other interests…
Fast foward to today and I saw a press release how an amazing company, Willow Garage, is going to sell kits for small robot platforms. And guess what, it has an iRobot Create and a netbook. With an addition of a Kinect device, you have TurtleBot, an incredibly powerful and affordable robotics system.
I missed the boat.
That’s part of being an entrepreneur. You have to quickly pick up on your good ideas and move forward. Of course I could still pursue the same route, but I actually was going to bundle ROS and a Kinect anyway, which is exactly the TurtleBot.
Good luck to those guys, as it’s a great idea and I’m glad that someone else was thinking in the same direction at the same time, which is also a part of being an entrepreneur; validation.
UPDATE
Found another company doing the same thing: bilibot
Cool stuff!
So they let me push the green button on foursquare 3.0 for iOS, and the earth moved a little. (by finitor)
I’m psyched that I work here.
Source: Flickr / finitor
Strange feeling, not having a scrum…
Facebook Acquires drop.io
So in case you didn’t read it on my Facebook or Twitter feed, the startup that I was working with drop.io, has been acquired by Facebook.
It’s both exciting and nerve racking… I’m going to take some time off and figure out what my next move is, but I’m also entertaining all kinds of ideas and opportunities…
Let’s start something!
When people are placed in positions slightly above what they expect, they are apt to excel.
- Richard Branson
Source: startupquote
Favorite Startups at the Moment
I know I haven’t been posting lately… because I’ve been busy with work and such… You know the drill :)
So I thought I’d post a few of my favorite hot startups at the moment…
- indaba - Find People. Make Music.
- simplegeo - cloud based location infrastructure
- github - social distributed source control
- twilio - voice and SMS in the cloud
- crowdflower - crowd sourcing jobs/activities
- kickstarter - crowd sourced project funding
- eat.ly - a service to post and share food!
- foursquare - my beloved foursquare. location based check in service!
- tech wildcatters - startup incubator in Dallas
- flexvite - email based meeting helper
- dailybooth - daily picture stream!
- stickybits - physical augmentation using bar codes
- hunch - recommendation engine
- hot potato - social stream of content for events/happenings
- boxee - a media platform
- makerbot - a low cost 3d printer! let the revolution begin!
- etacts - it’s an analytics platform for your email. data pr0n!
launchDFW is a new site that’s being put together to help showcase the startup community in the Dallas Fort Worth Area!
We all (in this particular community) feel like there’s a lot going on here, but we’re not as known for it as NYC or the Bay Area… We’re going to change that!
Speaking of, here’s a list of things going on in the DFW startup community in March:
Monday March 1st – Dallas Startup Happy Hour 5pm at the High Tech Bar at the INFOMART in Dallas.
Wednesday March 3rd – Ignite Dallas 6pm at the Granada Theater
Friday March 5th – Find a Founder Dallas-based microseed fund and business accelerator, Tech Wildcatters, is hosting a Find a Founder night. 5pm-7pm, at 2211 Commerce St, 2nd floor, Dallas, TX.
thesixtyone
fantastic new music site that allows you to say what’s hot or not in music… features independent musicians… there’s an award system, achievements, that you can collect and challenges to complete… you also gain reputation and can wager that reputation on music selection…
(side note: it’s named after the famous Highway 61 that runs along the Mississippi, which I happen to grow up along in Burlington, IA)
view140
To ring in the new year, John Robinson Jr. and I are launching a super simple side project that we’ve been putting together…
view140 is a image search for Twitter, with a nice interface…
Want to see what other people posted about the New Year?
What about their favorite pizza?
Or just browse through most of the pictures…
The code is incredibly simple and it’s part of my recovery on my addiction to brain crack!
I'm a Ruby developer that loves to play with science, math, and gadgets. Previously, I was part of a startup called drop.io, acquired by Facebook. I live in Fort Worth, TX with my wife, 2 dogs, and baby boy. I'm a foodie, a gamer, and a self proclaimed scientist.
