If you’re interested, you can follow me on Google+ here.

EDIT:  I’ve also done some magic so you can go to my Google+ profile by going to http://jedchristiansen.com/+

Awesome video on startups, entrepreneurship, business

This has absolutely nothing to do with Google+, but if you’ve got an hour, I highly recommend watching the video below.  It’s Kevin Rose (founder of Digg) interviewing Chris Sacca, one of the most interesting investors in Silicon Valley today.  (He was one of the first investors in Twitter, for example.)

Chris has long had a great reputation amongst entrepreneurs, and from this video I can completely understand why.

I’ve long been interested in the seed accelerator model, as started by Y Combinator.  I wrote my master’s thesis on it, and wrote a follow-up post this spring.  Recently, two things have happened that I wanted to write about.  First, I restructured the spreadsheet where I maintained a list of all companies to come out of seed accelerators.  And second, NESTA (National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, a UK investment and research body) recently undertook a significant piece of research into seed accelerators.

Update to Seed Accelerator company list spreadsheet

As a part of my original paper on seed accelerators, I compiled a list of all the companies that have come out of seed accelerators like Y Combinator, TechStars, Seedcamp, et cetera.  Each accelerator had its own tab, with the details of all their companies.  I kept edit rights, mainly so that I could be sure of the details for my paper and follow-up work.

As seed accelerators have exploded in number world-wide, it’s become nearly impossible to keep this working.  There were too many tabs for different accelerators to be found properly, and it really is best if the people that run the different programs can edit the details for their companies.

So there are now individual documents for each seed accelerator program, and the original document now has links to each individual program sheet.  If you run a seed accelerator, please e-mail me and I’ll be sure that 1) I have a separate spreadsheet for your accelerator and 2) you get full edit rights for your program’s spreadsheet.  (jed.christiansen@gmail.com)

Please check the new seed accelerator company directory here.

NESTA research

Kirsten Bound and Paul Miller recently undertook a significant piece of work to define, describe, and analyze seed accelerators on a global basis.  The result of which can be found on the NESTA page: “The Startup Factories“.  [Direct link to their PDF paper.]  I spoke to Kirsten a couple of times prior to and during their research, and they developed a real sense of the opportunities and challenges of startup accelerators.

While I didn’t have time to make NESETA’s half-day conference on seed accelerators last week, a friend of mine (Mark Littlewood of the BLN) did and wrote about it here: “Do we need startup factories?“.  The key element can be found at the bottom of his post, where Mark echo’s something I’ve been saying since my very first paper.  Only the best, top-tier seed accelerators will truly be of value to entrepreneurs. And the followers, the “me-too” seed accelerators that are starting to pop up everywhere, will be of little to negative value.  While in the long run it will be easy to tell between the two, in the short term I am afraid that startup founders may get fleeced.  Startup accelerators need to clearly understand their unique advantages that can allow them to recruit some of the best startups away from the Y Combinators and TechStars of the world.  If they can’t offer that level of value, it might not be worth it for them to exist.

The NESTA report is quite well written and clear.  Some of the data is a little dodgy; in particular I’m not a fan of the Tech cocktail rankings at all, since they have yet to mention what data they’re using to create the rankings.  (I personally believe that it overly weights the accelerators that more freely share data.)  But overall, it’s a great resource.

If you do have comments, please share them with the writers.  The discussion paper is currently in draft form, but they hope to finalize it soon.

To be clear, my viewpoint is looking at what it takes to make a seed accelerator successful.  Think of the VC business model: not every VC fund is successful.  (In fact, the median net return to VC fund investors has not been positive since 1998.)  To be a continued successful seed accelerator program, you need to have a financial model that works, provide value to the companies that you invest in, and invest in the best possible companies.  That means the best possible companies need to prefer your program to any other.  There are tiers involved, and I’m interested in what makes top-tier results possible.

What has changed:

Y Combinator provides the most money to their funded companies

The deal with The Start Fund was huge news.  There is now an investor that is willing to put $150k into every Y Combinator startup, sight un-seen.  Many commenters have suggested that this will open up YC to older applicants, who will have enough income security to risk quitting a more senior job to do the program.  Though most YC, TechStars and Seedcamp companies raise external funding anyway, having this publicly committed before you even start makes it a nice security blanket.

Perhaps more importantly on a tactical level is that it gives YC startups more breathing room in the fundraising race.  Tommy at CarWoo wrote a great post about this.  As he wrote:

[Fundraising] was a huge issue on the minds of all the YC companies and I know for a fact that it was a distraction. I know it was for us.

Finally, this is a deal for Y Combinator startups alone, and puts them at a significant advantage compared to other seed accelerators in attracting the best companies to the program.  (The highest-ranked factor startups think about when it comes to seed accelerators, per my original post.)  The existance of The Start Fund signals that YC acceptance is a high bar, and it’s worth having an option on every company that comes out of it.

Y Combinator has the largest alumni network

According to my spreadsheet tracker, Y Combinator has funded just about 250 startups.  Combined with an ethos of helping each other out, this is a huge advantage to potential applicants.  I’ve spoken to a number of YC startups, and all of them mention this as a significant benefit.  (This is the second-highest-ranked factor startups think about.)

The secondary effect of all this is that Y Combinator has seen 4x-20x the number of startups that other accelerators have seen.  That means 4x-20x the applications, 4x-20x the founder problems, 4x-20x the customer acquisition problems, etc.  They have more experience with pretty much everything.  That extra experience is valuable for entrepreneurs.

TechStars has developed into a world-wide network

TechStars has recently announced a world-wide network of 17 seed accelerators, the TechStars Network.  What’s interesting with this is that it spreads the business model of seed accelerators more widely, and starts to standardize on best practices.  When I spoke with David Cohen nearly two years ago, helping other entrepreneurs and accelerators get started was clearly something he felt strongly about.  (Which is different to the go-it-alone approach of YC.)  While I believe my original thesis is correct, making each and every one of the accelerators that are popping up better is a great thing for entrepreneurs and startups.

What hasn’t changed:

Y Combinator is still the only seed accelerator in the Silicon Valley area.

There are new seed accelerators opening in what feels like every city, state, and university campus… except Silicon Valley.  (More about this below.)  I find this really strange, to be honest.  The Bay Area is pretty much the richest source of technology startup resources, and most of the programs dedicated to the most fledgling companies don’t exist here?  I can think of two reasons for it.

One, the people interested in starting seed accelerators want to do them in their own hometowns, no matter how suitable those cities are for these programs.  This would explain why so many are started in other cities, but wouldn’t necessarily explain why no additional accelerators have been founded in Silicon Valley.

Two, Y Combinator is seen as an 800-pound gorilla in the seed accelerator world, and no one wants to get in a pissing match with them.  This seems plausible, but I think there are so many resources in SV that any new program wouldn’t intersect with YC.  Perhaps this is more reflective of an ego issue; that no one wants to start a separate program and then be compared to YC?

Y Combinator, particularly through Hacker News, is more directly engaged with startup culture

I’ve grown to think that Hacker News is a key differentiator between the different accelerators.  It provides a strong conduit between the YC partners, the YC alumni, YC applicants, and general entrepreneurial people.  These communities always have existed before (ie, Slashdot), but Hacker News has centralized the audience around internet startups, and more importantly around the Y Combinator experience, philosophy, and brand.

Hacker News helps feed the virtuous circle that makes Y Combinator a top-tier seed accelerator.

Most seed accelerators are just local copies of Y Combinator

I’m disappointed when I see a program that’s simply a clone of Y Combinator in a different city.  Differentiate yourself! Though there are some notable exceptions:

TechStars has definitely taken a different tack with their program, developing into a network of international programs.  Their core programs in Boulder, Boston and Seattle together have a higher level of experience and engagement, with more startups funded and close coordination between the different locations.  TechStars has a mentorship process where each of their startups is matched with 1-2 mentors, and the mentors don’t work with any other TechStars company in that batch.  (They also provide centralized office space for the startups.)  All in all, it’s one of the most developed programs outside YC.

Fundamentally, results are what matter.  TechStars actually publishes their results online, and they’re solid.

Seedcamp has a radically different approach, but probably befitting their non-US location.  (Which means they can easily attract non-US startups that wouldn’t easily be able to live/work in the US.)  They host numerous mini-Seedcamp events across Europe, and then cap it off with their final decision around the handful of startups they put more resources into.  So while they’ve seen a lot of European startups, they’ve only invested in a fairly limited number, about 40.

The Brandery looked very interested when it got started.  They’re located in Cincinnati, Ohio, which seems like it’s off the beaten track for startups… until you remember that it’s the world headquarters for Proctor & Gamble, a company that is incredibly focused on consumer brands.  There’s a huge resource of talent for companies that need strong consumer brands.

I was hoping that this would open The Brandery up to startups that weren’t just consumer internet startups, but it looks like the list of their 2010 companies were just that.  I’ve now become more dubious; at the early stage of these startups they need a product more than they need a brand, so the accelerator won’t be able to offer as much value.  Perhaps there’s a place for a slightly later-stage startup: one that has a solid product but needs a brand finishing school to take them to the next level?

Credit

Andrew Parker (formerly of Union Square Ventures, now at Spark Capital) made an interesting comment on my original post:

If you’re going to copy YCombinator, then you should really give credit where credit is due: thank YCombinator. I went to the demo days for LaunchBox, TechStars, SeedCamp, fbFund REV and YCombinator in the past year. The only YC clone that even acknowledged that they were a YC clone and, furthermore, thanked YCombinator for their pioneering efforts was Dave McClure at fbFund REV. All the other programs never even mentioned YCombinator at the demo day.

Now I’m not convinced that every other accelerator should genuflect upon Y Combinator at each of their Demo Days, but what Andrew pointed out was interesting.

Y Combinator appears to be the least structured of all accelerators

TechStars was the second major seed accelerator out of the gate after Y Combinator, and they’ve started the trend of what appears to be much more structure in the TechStars program, and the programs TechStars has influenced.  In addition to periodic meetings for everyone, they have all the startups work in the same physical office, and have a structured mentorship system.  (As I understand it, each startup in a batch is matched with a small number of mentors, and those mentors work only with that specific startup.)  This is quite a bit different from the YC model, where the major structure is a weekly dinner and then open office hours with the YC staff which you can take or leave.

What this means for seed accelerators:

You need to be unique, where unique is not just a seed accelerator in a different city

I am still absolutely convinced that if you’re a Y Combinator clone, just located in a different city, you will never be a top-tier program.  Why?  Because if you’re just doing exactly what YC does, but you provide less money and less expertise, you’ll never have the top startups wanting to work with you.

What I’m waiting to see is a program that does something else entirely.  For example, what about an accelerator that works with companies building actual, physical products?  Companies like Wakemate (from YC) have struggled as they work out production issues, find and develop relationships with factories, etc.  If there was an accelerator that had a group of mentors that could help guide startups through this journey, with contacts a low- and higher-rate production facilities, and in a financial structure that made sense, I think it could be tremendously successful.  (Again, defining success as being the top-choice of any startup working in that field.)

This is simply one example; you could do a dramatically different approach any number of ways.  (After reading Roger Ehrenberg’s blog, couldn’t NYC start one around a theme of big data, data visualization and finance?)  But so far, everyone just wants to have an accelerator for internet software startups, generally consumer focused, with the same model as YC.  There’s more potential out there, people!

There’s room for another seed accelerator in Silicon Valley

Who’s going to start it?

(Dave McClure seems to have made a stab at this with the 500 Startups Accelerator; the main difference from others being that there’s no open application, startups have to be referred in.)

You need to be a program that everyone you’re focused on badly wants to attend

As one famous Google executive says, “Repetition doesn’t spoil the prayer,” and thus I want to keep repeating myself here.  To be a truly successful seed accelerator, you need to be highly desired by the best companies you want to help.  There needs to be a strong match between what you offer, and what the startup wants and needs to be successful.  There will always be companies looking for investors, and if your pool isn’t that big some of them will certainly look good, if only by comparison.  But your accelerator needs to be the preferred program for the best startups.  Those best startups have the best chance of being successful and generating the results and returns that enable the program to continue sustainably.

Summary

I still feel like we’re in the very early days of seeing the successes and failures of seed accelerators.  The startup world, and specifically the funding world, appears to have a number of discontinuities.  (Particularly once you start getting away from consumer internet startups.)  Seed accelerators have a great opportunity to start filling in the existing gaps, and helping companies go from idea to polished execution much more cleanly.

Going back to a link I shared near the top, Bryce Roberts has some great comments about VC funds that I believe also apply to seed accelerators:

a handful of them have been delivering outsized returns for decades now. They don’t call Sequoia, Accel, Benchmark, KP, Matrix, Greylock “top tier” for nothing. They’ve figured out a few things related to building enduring companies and consistently delivering returns for their investors.

If you’re going to start a new fund, be different. Proprietary dealflow, investment stage, operating experience or deep network of industry contacts are meaningless buzzwords that aren’t going to set you apart from the pack. As SuperLP says “to do something outstanding takes audacity.  And indeed, private equity should be all about audacity”. Being the 10th seed fund, or 5th “opportunity” fund isn’t going to set you apart from the pack. Be different.

To create a top-tier seed accelerator, you need to be a top-tier choice for startups the world over in your niche.  Just like a VC firm, seed accelerators need to have the best possible startups (deal flow), in order to fund the best teams and ideas.  If your seed accelerator can achieve this, you will have a sustainable program.

Appendix – Data

If you haven’t seen it already, I’ve maintained a list of companies that have been funded through these seed accelerators.  Click here for the Google Docs link, or check out the embedded doc below:

That’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make today.

How much time and effort should be spent on intake, on inbound messages, on absorbing data…

and how much time and effort should be invested in output, in creating something new.

There used to be a significant limit on available intake. Once you read all the books in the college library on your topic, it was time to start writing.

Now that the availability of opinions, expertise and email is infinite, I think the last part of that sentence is the most important:

Time to start writing.

Or whatever it is you’re not doing, merely planning on doing.

I grew up loving reading, loving learning and this has transformed me into someone that constantly juggles half a dozen books, a couple magazines, a never-ending Twitter feed and a truly never-ending Google Reader.  But as much as I enjoy it, when I step back I realize that I really love doing something about what I’ve learned.

The problem is saying “enough is enough”, stepping back, and taking action.

It feels like I’ll never get the balance right, but I try to get better every day.

Aside: I got my degree in aerospace engineering because I love the technology and the aspiration; I avoided working in the field because it’s too cyclical, corporate and dependent on government help.

But onwards and upwards…

Earlier this summer SpaceX made a few presentations outlining some of their future plans. And those plans are AWESOME. Here’s what they’ll be up to in the near term as they develop the Falcon X line of rockets:

The current Falcon 9 rocket can get 10.5k kg into Low Earth Orbit. More tangibly, the Falcon 9 puts the equivalent to three and a half Hummer H2′s into orbit. Doing this requires nine first-stage engines and one second-stage engine.

SpaceX currently has the Falcon 9 Heavy rocket in development. This essentially straps on two additional first-stage sections for a total of 27 first-stage rocket engines! This is a healthy additional boost, and gets 32k kg into orbit. So if you ever wanted to compact eleven Hummer H2s and send them into orbit, this rocket can do it for you.

The Falcon 9 Heavy will also be able to lift more into orbit than Atlas V, Delta IV, or Ariane 5. There are only two systems on the drawing board that are potentially larger than this rocket, and they’re both Russian vehicles that don’t look likely to actually be built. (Of course it will cost you; $56million for a Falcon 9 and $95million for the Falcon 9 Heavy.)

But Space X is looking at developing a large new version of it’s first stage engine, Merlin. (These are speculative right now because it would take $1billion to develop the engine, but clearly thought out.) Powered by this engine, the rocket could put 38k kg into orbit.

Suddenly, this image gets very interesting:

This outlines how SpaceX could operate a Super-Heavy-Lift Launch System. The Falcon X Heavy could lift 125k kg into orbit, and the Falcon XX could lift 140k kg into orbit.

Within six months as the Space Shuttle program shuts down, there will be NO operational Super-Heavy-Lift system operational. And the largest consistently successful Super-Heavy-Lift system was the Saturn V rocket that sent the Apollo missions to the moon.

Where the Saturn V could lift 119k kg to orbit, the Falcon XX could potentially lift 140k kg to orbit. If successful, this would be the heaviest payload sent by man into space. (To complete the metaphor, it’s the same as lifting forty-seven Hummer H2s into orbit.)

Summary

I love the ambition of SpaceX, and that they’ve gone from nothing to multiple successful launches in less than a decade without any public funding. (Though they have had key public contracts to resupply the Space Station.) That they’ve designed it from a blank sheet, not being required to refit existing infrastructure or deal with an existing bloated bureaucracy is brilliant, and probably part of the reason they’ve been successful. Lean and mean…

Hopefully this gives you a sense of the future of the space part of the aerospace industry in the USA.

But I would never have known about all of these shows or gotten tickets without Songkick. If you are interested in live music AT ALL, you need to do yourself a favor and register with Songkick TODAY. It takes a minute to register, and another couple of minutes to hook Songkick up to your iTunes library, last.fm profile or Pandora profile. Three minutes after starting, you’ll start seeing e-mails from Songkick when the bands that you like are coming to your city… before tickets go on sale.

There are very few sites on the internet I’m truly passionate about, and Songkick is one of them. Otherwise, I would have never been able to see this kick-ass final encore song from The National last night… done completely unplugged in a crowd of 5000 people. Amazing…

Links to specific shows, etc.:
The National last night
Arcade Fire tomorrow night
The New Pornographers next week
Kings of Leon just before Christmas
My profile (you can “track” me to see what concerts I’m going to)
My “gigography”: all the shows I’ve been to since my very first concert in 1994 (Pink Floyd!)

PS - Songkick is a London-based startup, and a Y Combinator startup, so they’ve got a very bright future ahead of them.

White Bear Yard is a great little entrepreneurial home in North London, just off Clerkenwell Road in Camden. (It’s close to Farringdon and Chancery Lane Tube stations.) There are about 10 startups who have a home there, and they even have a Twitter account: @whitebearyard.

I’m lucky enough to have friends in two of those startups: Timetric and Smarkets. I got to know the Timetric guys back in early 2009 when Andrew, Dan and Toby had just started getting some really great press about their company. The three founders are all PhD’s, so not only are they wicked smart but they’re also really great people. I got to know Jason Trost of Smarkets back when he and his friend Hunter were just setting up the company and getting their gaming license approved. Again, another great guy (and great company.)

Timetric is a data treasure trove and analysis platform. They have over 1 million data series; everything from consumer price indices to FX rates to sports records that you can combine with your own data to mix and mash up.

Smarkets is an online betting platform, going up against Betfair. While they’re not as big as Betfair, they’re much more social. You can communicate directly with other people on the site, and you won’t get overrun with the other games Betfair tries to push on you (poker, etc.) Smarkets is WAY better than going to a bookie, because you’ll nearly always get better odds.

It was invigorating for me to hang out with them at the end of a long week. Both Timetric and Smarkets are at that really interesting stage of a company where they’ve clearly built a great product, they’ve gotten some good early traction, and they’re working hard on ramping up. Timetric is more of a B2B company, so is really matching their product to the needs of their existing/potential customers. Smarkets is a B2C company, so is very hard at work at customer acquisition. Speaking of which…

Give Smarkets a try!

If you click here and make your first deposit you’ll get a £5 bonus! (I get a £5 bonus, too, which is nice.)

It’s great to see a real ecosystem developing there, and it’s a fantastic space with a ton of smart people all on just a couple of floors. Where I failed is not visiting earlier; the building has a fantastic roof garden that you can see in this article. I think there’s some great success yet to come from these guys.

The Rural Alberta Advantage

I first heard of them on Fred Wilson’s blog: AVC.com. (If you haven’t heard of him, Fred is a famous venture capitalist who blogs on startups, venture capital and music.) The band ended up hearing about making his top records of 2008 list, and ended up inviting him to a show in New York, which sounded awesome. Links to his posts here:
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/12/top-10-records.html
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/the-joys-of-mus.html
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/01/the-avc-music-meetup.html
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/06/kickstarting-a-7.html

So when I heard they were going to be in town, I bought tickets, and put their album into heavy rotation the week or so beforehand to really get a sense of what they were about. The album was really good, but that doesn’t mean they were great live.

Well, it was a tiny club where I saw them, and the band is only three people, but they completely filled up the room with their sound and energy. Each song was different and distinctive, partly because the singer (Nils) explained briefly some of the more obscure Canadian stories and landmarks that are behind the songs. (ie, a tragic landslide that buried Frank, AB; the lyrics then make more sense and the song has a lot more soul.)

I find it tough to explain how awesome it is to see a great band in a small venue. But I did find a few videos on YouTube that have decent sound, so I posted them here so you can check them out.

Frank, AB

Edmonton

Eye of the Tiger

Please, go and buy The Rural Alberta Advantage’s album “Hometowns” NOW. (Click here for Amazon MP3 link.)

Songkick

I’d be remiss in this story if I didn’t tell you about Songkick. I’ve been a member since they were just coming out of beta. If you love seeing live music, don’t walk but RUN to register on Songkick.

Seriously… do it now.

It’s simple, but brutally awesome. You tell it what music you like and listen to (either through connecting it to iTunes or selecting manually), and then Songkick lets you know when those bands are going to be in your city. Most importantly, they only tell you about the bands you’re interested, and they tell you before tickets go on sale.

Before Songkick I had to subscribe to a bunch of mailing lists just so I had a *chance* of hearing about when bands I like were coming to town, let alone getting tickets. Now I just check my e-mail, figure out what I’m going to and when tickets go on sale, and GO.

Plus, for live music nerds like me there’s stuff like setlist archives, photos, videos and a whole bunch of other stuff for each concert that people can upload. You can also learn more about specific venues, specific bands, festivals and more.

If you want to see what I uploaded and wrote about The Rural Alberta Advantage concert above, just check out this link and explore Songkick:

http://www.songkick.com/concerts/4417566-rural-alberta-advantage-at-lexington

The week of 25-29 January 2010 is going to be absolutely awesome in Cambridge. There are three great events that you need to attend.

Of these, it’s most important that you come to the Cambridge Tech Meetup. We’ll be kicking the year off with a bang and six “wicked awesome” technology demos, from people/companies based in Cambridge.

Tuesday – January 26th – Enterprise Tuesday

Time: 6:30-7:30pm lecture (registration from 6pm, networking afterward)
Location: Lecture Theatre 0, Engineering Department, Trumpington Street
Speakers: Neil Davidson, Co-Founder and joint CEO, Red Gate Software; Steve Barlow, Co-Founder, Alphamosaic; Alex Mehta, Communications Director, Judicium

Enterprise Tuesday is a great event, and the topic for next week is “Building a Dream Team.” I recommend this specifically because I think incredibly highly of Neil Davidson, who co-founded Red Gate software and continues to serve as co-CEO. (In addition to founding the Business of Software conference, serving as Chairman of the Cambridge Network, and starting the Springboard programme at Red Gate.)

Link: http://www.cfel.jbs.cam.ac.uk/programmes/enterprise/timetable.html

*** Wednesday – January 27th – Cambridge Tech Meetup ***

Time: 6:30pm doors for 7pm start of demos (additional Q&A and discussion afterward)
Location: Lecture Theatre 1, Judge Business School, Trumpington Street

If you have to pick one event, come to the Cambridge Tech Meetup! (Yes, I started it with the help of many, many others.)

Six products will have has seven minutes to demo their technology/product; all of them developed in Cambridge! Everything from new display technology to cool video search technology to audio analysis and 3d model building via webcam will be demo’ed.

Demo companies/technologies are:

• Light Blue Optics – http://lightblueoptics.com
• Taptu – http://taptu.com/
• Cambridge IPTV – http://www.cambridge-iptv.com/
• AudioAnalytic – http://audioanalytic.com/
• ProFORMA – http://mi.eng.cam.ac.uk/~qp202/my_papers/BMVC09/
• Prismastar – http://www.prismastar.com/

Link for info and to RSVP: http://www.meetup.com/Cambridge-Tech-Meetup/calendar/12221063/

(The sharp-eyed among you will notice that this takes place shortly after the big Apple announcement on the 27th. I’ll be sure to have the screen tuned to a live-blog or tweet-stream until the demo’s kick off.)

Thursday – January 28th – Cambridge Business Lecture: Dan Pink

Time: 6pm start (networking afterward)
Location: Robinson College, Grange Road
Speaker: Dan Pink, best-selling author, writer, speaker

This event is a Cambridge Business Lecture, hosted by the Cambridge Network. Dan Pink is a great author/writer, and I think it’s just fantastic he’ll be speaking in Cambridge. If you’re in town, go.

Link: http://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/events/article/default.aspx?objid=65628

Flook

Flook is the least-known of these three apps, but potentially the most interesting. Users take photos (which are automatically geo-tagged) and then add captions and information about the photo. What’s cool is that if you go somewhere new, you can quickly pull up the interesting places nearest to you. That might be a pub, a cool shop, or virtually anything else. And of course there’s a comments section around each card, too.

For me, the current downfall of Flook is that it’s iPhone-only, and I’ve recently moved to an Android phone. It’s also difficult to find and follow people you know, unless they’re in the same area and you see their cards normally.

Fundamentally, Flook is a hugely rich source of interesting information, with a *fantastic* user interface. I highly recommend that you download it for your iPhone and try it out. (Disclosure: I know the founders/investors of Flook, and think highly of them.)

PS- They’re currently running a competition to win a MacBook Air by just making cool Flook cards… check it out by clicking here.

Gowalla

Gowalla competes directly with Foursquare, and I have to definitely give the edge to Gowalla. It’s a beautifully made application, and what I love about it is the metaphor that Gowalla uses: a passport. Users are encouraged to get “stamps” in their “passport” for visiting new places. You earn and collect cool items from commissioning/founding new places, and can drop them off and pick up other cool items anywhere you visit. It’s definitely helped me think about new and interesting pubs, restaurants, etc. near me. (And of course see where your friends are checking in, too.)

While Gowalla has an iPhone app, their Android interface is through a web application. (http://m.gowalla.com) It has 80% of the functionality; the only major thing it’s missing is the ability to see and drop off your “items”.

[UPDATE]: I forgot this in my original post, but Gowalla lets you add locations anywhere in the world, and not just in particular cities like Foursquare. For example, I was at a conference at a huge convention center in southwest Ireland recently and added that to Gowalla, no problem. (Unlike Foursquare.) Foursquare may be rolling out to new cities all the time, but Gowalla can be used anywhere in the world right now.

Foursquare

Foursquare is bigger (in number of users) than Gowalla and has top-flight investors (Union Square Ventures), but I just don’t care for it. Its design is good, but not beautiful like Gowalla’s. But the biggest thing is the metaphor of points & mayorships that Foursquare uses. Each week a user’s points gets reset, and you have to keep checking into places to get and keep your “mayorship.”

To me, the metaphor of “mayorship” is a recipe for stagnation. It encourages users to go back to the same places over and over, and the mayorship will likely only rotate amongst a small number of regulars. For me, I quickly became the mayor of places where few other people checked in, and was out of the running for mayor-ships where I went regularly but where others checked in far more frequently. In both cases, my incentives were to stop using it.

Now, Foursquare does have a native application for both iPhone and Android, and it has excellent advisors. The founders previously started Dodgeball, a similar application which was bought by Google (where it stagnated) a couple years ago. It will need some better execution to get over its current problems. While Foursquare might be popular now with early adopters, I think it will have serious problems if/when it goes mainstream.

Summary

So I’m a Flook user when I have my iPhone handy, and I’m definitely a Gowalla user. Gowalla is great to track cool places I’ve been and where my friends go, and Flook is great to find interesting stuff that I might otherwise miss. Definitely give both a try.