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Archive for category Internet Technology

Mint.com – Where the Hell is my Money Going?

Oct 20

Posted by Brad in Computing, Finance, Internet Technology, Web 2.x | 2 Comments

I have a less-than-simple financial package. At the moment of this writing, I have two checking and savings accounts with two banks (in mid-transition). I have three credit cards for various rewards programs, a mortgage and an equity line. And a paypal account.

With all this in tow, it is extremely difficult to get a unified vision of what exactly I’m spending my money on, and how to build towards a specific target (say, paying off my equity line by 2013).

Enter mint.com – a powerful online financial tool that integrates with banks, credit cards, even investment accounts, and puts it all in one place. It is read-only, so you can’t truly manage your accounts from it, but that’s just fine by me. I like being able to see all my accounts in one place. I like having a master ledger that spans 5 systems. It is bad ass. I like seeing where my expenses go. I like setting a budget and getting a text message when it is coming up. I like getting an email saying “Your credit card bill is due in 5 days” since the credit card company doesn’t seem to want to send those emails.

One feature I’m sure will improve over time, but that I don’t get a lot of use out of now, is the “savings” section. Since this is their main (probably only) source of revenue, I imagine as the service gains popularity there will many more useful “ways to save”. Right now, I get told that if I switched my United Visa card to a no-rewards Discover I could save $600 on interest, except that I don’t ever carry a balance or pay interest. I want something to look at my mortgage, value of my house, and assorted investments, and say “yakno, you could save some cash if you consolidated your line of equity with a 5yr fixed, low-APR loan from these guys”. That’s something I could get behind.

In the mean time, it is still extremely useful. Seeing how I spend my money is very handy. Everything being in one place is awesome. And oh yeah, did I mention? It’s FREE.

Check it out. They probably have your bank in their system, so it is really easy.

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And Now, Amazon Has Everything

Oct 20

Posted by Brad in Internet Technology, Web 2.x | No Comments

I am a big fan of Amazon. Be it free two-day shipping, solving my girlfriend’s shoe shopping needs, or selling DRM-free music cheaper than iTunes’ locked-down stuff.

About a week ago, I was discussing with my roommates one of the things I really enjoy with Amazon – wish lists. I realize I am notoriously hard to shop for, and so having a place where I can list things I like as I come across them, as well as little descriptions like “any olive oil sprayer will do” is fantastic. I can share the list with friends and family, and remove things as I receive them or buy them for myself. It also helps give people an idea of price, since on many things where you get it can be a huge difference. I mentioned recently how cool it would be to be able to add products from anywhere to my Amazon wish list.

Well, welcome to the future people. Amazon recently launched just such a feature: universal wishlists. I recall seeing sites that did ONLY this in the past. With Christmas coming fast upon us, the ability to send family to a single, non-threatening location like Amazon and say “Here’s some ideas” is great. Also, since I’m a little distance from my family these days (between 500 and 10,000 miles away) they don’t really know what I’ve got, and this helps with the awkward “this is wonderful, but I already have it” problem.

Anyhow, the thing is stupid-easy. It isn’t even a browser plugin, just a bookmark. You add a shortcut up along the top of your browser and whenever you’re on a site, just click “Add to wishlist”. Stores price, image, description, and some notes. Fan-freakin-tastic.

Here, check it out:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/wishlist/get-button/ref=cm_wl_uwl

That’s all for now.

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Bad Business Idea: Your Ads and Google Searches

Aug 12

Posted by Brad in Bad Business Ideas, Internet Technology | No Comments

So I seem to have a terrible problem with eaves-dropping. It isn’t so much that I particularly care about what other people are saying as I have an incredibly low bullshit threshold. So we’re sitting at this restaurant attached to a golf course, and the table next to us contains the three archetypal members of any .COM startup:

  1. Young, enthusiastic technology guy
  2. Mid-thirties manager / finance guy
  3. Older “dreamer” (I think sometimes called a Grey Hair) – lends legitimacy

So these three guys sit down after we do, so I’m privy to this intro: The young guy (probably 21 or 22) walks up and says “Check it out” and proceeds to whip out his new iPhone.

Anyone who starts a conversation with an iPhone should not be trusted to make decisions, recommendations, or give advice of any kind on technology. Note this is not all iPhone owners, but simply those that begin conversations with a device they purchased. They are clearly a “style over substance” user, which is fine unless they’re recommending what YOU do with YOUR time / money, or explaining why they know the direction things are going. These people are followers, not leaders.

So they proceed to discuss their business venture. Here it is: They’re going to release a search engine that pays you. Well, not really pays you, but uses the money they would have paid you to make donations to a charity. And keeps some themselves. Anyhow, they’re going to take Google search results (probably by doing the Google API licensing thing the way Yahoo and others do), and “wrap” them in their own ads, and offer premium placement to their partners. Problem 1: Entering any market with the assumption “If we can even get 1%, that’s billions!”. They then begin to discuss implementation, because clearly this idea is so solid it bears no furhter discussion.

Their basic strategy is to offer advertisers a “tiered” structure. You want bold lettering? That’s extra. You want a green background? That’s extra. Think eBay listings. But cluttering up a search engine. All in the name of “donating to charity”.

They talk about user accounts. Apparently in order to use their search engine, you’ll have to log in. Then they can track your payments and donations and stuff. They’ll also sell your information.

So these guys seem to have completely missed the whole “user experience” angle. They’ve designed their product with their corporate goals in mind first, followed by the needs of their advertisers. No one stopped to think what logging in to a page full of ads and a Google search result would do to a user.

They’d be gone. I predict they’ll be lucky to break a thousand users. Most of those will be gaming the system in one way or another, or will be the advertisers.

So I want to call this a complete failure of an idea. If you want to break into the search market, you need to do one of three things.

  1. Deliver “addative content” in a way that has never been done before. Ask.com is trying with their whole “enhanced search” – even Google is letting me pick products, services, maps, local businesses, etc as my possible search results. I don’t know what it is, but eBay listing-style ads where the more they pay the more annoying they get? That’s sure not it.
  2. Define a positive user experience. Make sure that when I’m hitting your site I know exacty what I’m going to get. Don’t trick me into clicking ads. Don’t make some half-hearted appeal to “charity”, and don’t pepper me with ads. I’m just going to block them anyways.
  3. Deliver better / more accurate results. I put this one last because it actually matters the least. If you can best Google at search results (hell, I have to say I find what I’m looking for faster on live.com than google.com sometimes), you’ll have a leg up. But almost no one will care.

So there you have it. All the ways in which this idea will fail, and the few things they could do to keep that from happening.

That’s all for now. I’ll update you when I hear another terrible, poorly thought-out idea.

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NBC Offers Online-only Television Show

Aug 12

Posted by Brad in Internet Technology, Television and Movies | No Comments

NBC is dipping its toes in the Direct Content business for the first time in my memory. They’re offering Coastal Dreams, which their site describes as “[the story of] two young women living, working and playing in the scenic seaside town of Pacific Shores,” exclusively online. Imagine a Baywatch Soap Opera.

What’s most fascinating to me is the breadth of extra content available. They’re not just showing episodes online, there’s a tremendous amount of additional content. The inbox of one of the characters on the show, interviews with the cast.

But what does NBC get out of it? Well, they get the exclusive advertising rights. No longer are mid-show commercials shared (or overwritten) by local broadcasters. They show me ads, and install four cookies on my computer to track (presumably) which shows I visit, which ads I click on, which shows I learn more about. It looks like they’re getting ready to build a passive profile of “me” on their site, with page ads and commercials all targeted at me, rather than hoping I fit the largest demographic for whatever time period the show is on. As it happens, I saw commercials for tampons. Go figure.

The other big advantage? The adoption cost is incredibly low. Suppose a friend told me that Coastal Dreams was her favorite new show. The season started in October, so the chances that I’d be seeing all the old episodes in the right order are virtually zero. I can’t exactly join in midway through, or else I wouldn’t know if April overreacted by firing Christian. Well, now NBC doesn’t have to waste airtime with reruns to attract new viewers. If I want to watch the story from the beginning to catch up, I can simply log on and view all the past episodes. No waiting for the Season 1 DVD, no reading episode synopsis on Wikipedia or Torrenting the first half of the season. It’s all right there, and that way NBC still gets their advertising buck for me watching.

I think this is a very interesting experiment. The cost of launching a show this way is dramatically lower, the fans feel more “invested” because they get more than a passive interaction with the storyline, and best of all, all the Ad revenue is pointing right back at NBC. No middlemen, no cable company taking their cut, nothing.

I haven’t had the time or desire to actually watch an episode of Coastal Dreams yet, but I’d bet you can’t fast forward through the commercials, either. Take that, Tivo!

I’ll be watching this one closely. Not the show, the experiment. The show seems aimed at pre-teen girls.

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