Simplicity Matters - Starbucks for iPhone

I like coffee. I like Starbucks. My coffee doesn't have to come from Starbucks but it often does. Starbucks has successfully pushed out gift cards that could be added to a web-based account for quite some time. The ability to transfer balances to a single card is one of my favorite features. Now I don't need to worry about losing a gift card, I immediately transfer the balance on any new card to the one in my my wallet. 

Do we really need to use cards now that smart phones have been invented? twitter.com/JimLetourneau/…
— Jim Letourneau (@JimLetourneau) December 24, 2011

...while the Cardstar app has the right idea for eliminating the need for cards, it doesn't work at gas pumps (you need to swipe a card), it doesn't work at Shoppers Drug Mart (you need to swipe a card) and often it requires manual entry of the card number. Often the scanned card number has a few extra digits that screw up the manual entry. So in the absence of a perfect card elimination solution, it is encouraging to see that one company is getting it right.

The Starbucks for iPhone app has some great options but I use it regularly to pay for coffee. I need the app to do this one thing really well...and it does. It loads quickly. I can switch from showing my balance to a scanner code and instantly pay for my coffee in most stores. My balance updates in seconds. I like the giant green thumb sized button. 


For me this app works better than the alternatives; paying with cash or fumbling around in my wallet to find my Starbucks card. I can still pay with my card or cash if I don't have my phone with me. Let me reiterate, the reason this app is a winner is that it is better than the status quo. It is easy to use and fast. 


There's a long road ahead for consumer payment options but its nice to see something better than cash or AFWC.*

*Another F*cking Wallet Card

UPDATE

My Christmas stocking included 2 Starbucks gift cards. Adding them to my main card using the app was a breeze. Transferring balances from one card to another is a simple drag and drop exercise.

Social San Francisco

Twitter is growing at around 14.4 million users a month (Jeff Bullas estimate) and they could all use a little help. If you're wondering how Twylah might change your life or why anyone would want to use Buffer for tweets or Facebook posts, I'm happy to explain. 

  

I had a Twitter brand page before Coca-Cola did. My brand is me (such as it is). 

This is my Twylah page http://tweets.jimletourneau.com. 

My tweets are separated into topical buckets. Some buckets are more interesting than others but they provide a viewer with a longer term average of things I tweet about. I'd hate to be defined by  someone reading one of my anti-Calgary Flames tweets. 

My Twylah page is on my domain so the traffic goes to me. Coca-Cola's Twitter brand page traffic goes to Twitter - http://twitter.com/CocaCola, a significant difference. My Twylah page has a Facebook Like and Google+ button. Twitter doesn't provide that to Coca-Cola. 

Most importantly, any brand page makes more sense to a new Twitter user than either a stagnant stream from a few friends or a raging torrent of Tweets from a large friend list. As Twylah's founder, Eric Kim, likes to say "My mom can understand my Twylah page." 

I thought Twylah was pretty cool and Eric was gracious enough to meet me for breakfast after my talk at the San Francisco Hard Asset Conference. There is more value than meets the eye in a Twylah page and I managed to understand most of what Eric had to say. The conversation turned to Buffer and Scoop.it and a few other apps that help make social media more efficient.  It turned out that Eric was investing in Buffer and he graciously offered to put me in touch with Joel Gascoigne and Leo Widrich of Buffer.

Buffer lets you schedule your tweets "automagically." According to their research, scheduled tweets outperform random tweet intervals by 200%. Many people find cool stuff to share during the evening. Unfortunately, the half life of a tweet is measured in minutes. Your brilliant 2AM tweets are washed away during the morning rush hour of the time zone to the right of you. Also, tweeting in bursts (which is the natural workflow for people who send tweets) is less effective than spacing them out every half hour or so. 

Joel and Leo are often homeless, country-less in fact. Joel works out of coffee shops. Leo out of an apartment. At least they did before they got kicked out of the US because they couldn't get visas. Hong Kong has coffee shops and apartments so they are moving there for a while. They are having successes and the happy accidents that are supposed to happen when you trust the universe.

I met Joel and Leo for coffee at one of their favorite hangouts that afternoon. We shared a fondness of Louis CK's "Everything is amazing right now and nobody is happy." Their enthusiasm is infectious. 

I invested, along with 18 other awesome investors. 

If you tweet, you NEED Buffer (click here)

If you want a Twylah page (click here and request an invite)

Santa's Calling - Merry Christmas to Google

The good people at Google have come up with a couple of fun holiday apps. Impress your friends by having them Google "let it snow." You'll see some snowflakes and then your screen will appear to fog up. You can then write a nice note for your loved ones like  "I ❤ U" by dragging your cursor over the fog. The best part is there are no irritating digital fingerprints.


Even better is the http://www.sendacallfromsanta.com app. Simply answer a few form questions to personalize the call. All the politically correct variants are available so don't worry about offending anyone. I tried sending one to my daughter at ~10PM and it said she might be sleeping (my daughter is 17, actually) so it does have a few quirks. 


Apps like these are meant to be used. Fire up a few browser tabs, set up your calls and send one to each member of your office team. 

White Hot Startups - Part 2

This post originally appeared on www.jimletourneau.com but I felt they belonged on an app specific blog... so I made Appsaloosa and moved them here.


The right app can change your life. If you find yourself "not getting" an app, there's a good chance that someone is working on a similar one that you will get. 

TechCrunch has unveiled a list of "private Internet companies" that Goldman Sachs thinks may IPO in the next year. I thought it would be useful to check out what these companies actually do so I've added links and a brief description of each one.

• One Kings Lane - Elegant, curated online sales 

• Peixe Urbano - Exploring the city (Brazil - site is Portugese)

• Polyvore - The best place to discover or start fashion trends

• Quantcast - It's your audience, we just find it.

• Quora - A continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.

• Rent The Runway - Rent dresses for any occasion. 

• Rue la la - Coveted designer offerings. Private sale prices. Members only.

• Rovio - Angry Birds!

• Shopkick  - Gives you awesome deals and rewards simply for walking into your favorite stores.

• Specific Media - Innovative global interactive media company.

• Survey Monkey - Create and publish online surveys in minutes

• Square -  Start accepting credit cards today.

• TrialPay - The Leader in Transactional Advertising

• Trunk Club - Personalized clothing service for men.

• Tumblr - Feature rich and free blog hosting platform.

• Uber - Everyone's private driver

• Warby Parker - Vintage inspired eyewear. 

• WePay - The easiest way to accept payments online.

• Xoom - Send money online to friends and family.

• ZocDoc - Find a doctore and make your appointments online.

• Zoosk - World's largest social dating community.

White Hot Startups - Part 1

This post originally appeared on www.jimletourneau.com but I felt they belonged on an app specific blog... so I made Appsaloosa and moved them here.


The right app can change your life. If you find yourself "not getting" an app, there's a good chance that someone is working on a similar one that you will get. 

TechCrunch has unveiled a list of "private Internet companies" that Goldman Sachs thinks may IPO in the next year. I thought it would be useful to check out what these companies actually do so I've added links and a brief description of each one. 

• Airbnb - Find a Place to Stay

• Beachmint - A Next Generation Social Commerce Company (girly e-commerce)

• Beauchamp

• Birchbox - Discover Beauty Better

• Bluekai - Your Data Performing at Scale

• Badoo - Boost your social life. Chat, flirt, meet up and have fun!

• BOKU - Pay with your phone number

• Box.net - Simple, secure sharing.

• BranchOut - Career networking on Facebook

• Cloudflare - Give us five minutes and we'll supercharge your website

• Coupons.com - no explanation required

• DropBox - Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily.

• Eventbrite - Make your event a success

• Gogobot - The best travel advice

• Hipmunk - We make booking travel faster and easier

• Instagram - Fast beautiful photo sharing for your iPhone

• Jawbone - delivering innovative products that improve the mobile lifestyle through ever-changing software and wearability

• Klout - Measuring influence since 2008

• Narrative Science - We Turn Data Into Stories and Insights

• Ness computing - Personal search engine

• Pinterest - Online pinboard

App Updates Matter

While classic business applications of the Microsoft Office ilk don't change radically, many others change dramatically over the course of a year. I've experienced several recent examples where an app that I had previously tried surprised me with a radical increase in functionality.

When I first looked at Flipboard, it had a limited selection of news streams that could be added. While the design was impressive, I stopped using it because I wanted more news sources. It turns out that Flipboard added Google Reader functionality over a year ago. What was I thinking!

Path is another app that has been radically improved over the last year or so.

My takeaway is that I need to pay more attention to app developments. There's no point trying out an app early and then condemning it... which is what I've been doing.

The Right App Can Change Your Life

Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake in the Social Network) says that “Twitter is still trying to find a way to make money”.

While some see Twitter as a noisy place full of meaningless babble, there is a gold mine of information in the “Twitter stream”. Journalists and hedge funds are already using it to get an edge. Do you really want to read today’s news tomorrow?

While blogs could easily scoop mainstream news outlets on breaking stories. The real time nature of the Twitter stream is even faster. The challenge for the uninitiated is to make sense of the news fragments, shortened links that are mixed in with the flotsam and jetsam of people’s personal lives.