My main reason for switching away from my previous brick and mortar bank was ATM fees.  With Ally you can withdraw money from ANY ATM, regardless of the fee, for free.  This includes fees from a different bank, large chain bank, small boutique bank, and shady deli ATM machine.  They simply credit you back at the end of each month.  Interest rates were another factor, but the convenience of having no fees made up a large difference.  Let me be clear here – I actually went through the switch to be able to pull cash from anywhere and get the ATM charges back at the end of the month.

I now understand the idea of “switching costs” much more.  Switching costs are the incalculable costs associated with changing providers, brands, or your current choice with a new option.  It took me a while to decouple all my automatic bill payments, direct deposits, and bill payees into a new bank – but it was worth the switch.

So how do I bank now without a bank?

Deposits

I deposit checks INSTANTLY with payapl on my android phone.  This is much like the Chase iPhone app, but does not require you to have a Chase account.  I now understand that Charles Schwab does something similar.  Check reading and depositing into Paypal happens as quickly as you can take two photos of your check and enter the amount.  Its not so instant if you need the money quickly as it takes a few business days to show up in my paypal account.  I then have to transfer the money (withdraw) from paypal to my checking account.  This was my biggest apprehension thinking it would be a pain and too slow.  After doing this process a few times I cannot imagine going back.

I fire up the app via my phone – snap photos of the checks and wait for the deposits.

I also sometimes, but rarely, can mail in a check in a prepaid envelope.  The option above is faster for me and much safer as I have all the old checks.  Once deposited I shred the old checks.

Withdrawals

As described above I can take out money from any ATM, and not pay the fee.  I have been in airports, restaurants, and other areas where there is a $2.00-$4.00 ATM fee and never blinked as I know I will get the money back from Ally.  The savings add up as you can see the monthly amount every 30 days – last month I saved about $30.00 in fees.  This also saves time as you can pull money from anywhere making life a little easier on a busy day.

Service

I don’t miss a branch at all.  I never really used a branch for anything – and am not sure I would ever go back.  I understand the apprehension people have, but 12 months later I don’t feel that I am missing out.  I have been following the payments space for awhile and there have been some great innovations in the past few years.  Its clear there is much room for disruption in the banking space.  Companies like Square and BankSimple are doing very interesting things.

I don’t mind operating on the bleeding edge of banking as I know in the future everyone will be transacting via their phone, depositing via photos, and transacting via mobile.

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Bankless

Google+ apps users are automatically having all their photos and videos taken with a mobile phone uploaded. They are private by default but I was amazed to find my phone in full tilt after a bunch of photos taken today July 4th 2011, uploading ALL the photos to Google+.

Google calls it instant upload and that is exactly what is happening. My phone immediately began uploading content to a private Google+ album called Photos from your phone.

You can change the default settings to only upload media when your device is plugged in (which I did) but I was amazed at the fact that they were being uploaded by default.

Its a bold move that just might work as uploading and managing photos is a pain.

I take probably 90% of my photos now on my Android camera which is as good or better than my point and shoot (mainly because I have my phone with me 100% of the time – making it better) and uploading and dealing with the content is not fun.

As far as privacy is concerned I am sure some folks may not be ok with this.  As a paying Picasa user this is actually a behavior that I wish I had – automatically uploading to a Picasa album that is non public.

Google+ makes the process of managing photos and uploading them suck less than the other guys.  In a world where startups try to court users by creating a process that “sucks less” this is certainly a +1 for google.

Related articles

• Picasa’s storage limits thanks to Google+ (9to5google.com)

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Google+ photos and automatic uploading

I have been thinking for awhile that Google is in fact a social network that is essentially hidden.

Google+ is the common thread between all the services.  Its a final connection point between networks and services that have been existing in a void for a long time.  This common weave provides a place for this content to be shared, exist with a purpose, and hopefully be consumed.  It remains to be seen as to whether or not this will usurp other social networks for time and attention, but it is well positioned to garner a ton of usage right out of the gate.

I am excited by the prospect of Google Webmaster Tools incorporating +1 data and other services.  I think this will provide some much needed analytics and insight into whether or not all this activity has impact on sites and attention.

On the Web

• Its very clean – empty without content is a tough state, but the facebook analogy is so strong its easy to see what goes where
• Adding all contacts to a new social graph is proving difficult
• Circles are tricky, sometimes great, but definitely a positive way to organize people
• The analogies to both Gmail and FB are strong – placement of chat and newsfeed
• Now theres a reason to +1 something – I assume my +1′s will filter back into my feed
• Using the site and sharing between circles, extended circles, and public makes sense but won’t to most
• I didn’t mind having it hidden in the header bar
• Hangout is amazing – works flawlessly and group chat now has a new bar set

Mobile

• Android app is very slick
• Its actually two apps Google+ and Huddle which is like a version of GroupMe, Beluga, and WhatsApp
• Currently not running automatically in the background – opening Google+ Mobile brings up notifications upon each open (would prefer if it ran in the background)
• Slick UI and well poised for immediate International use (found this throughout the app and web)
• Its fast – most of the features work quickly and make sense
• Notifications are on the bottom which is opposed to the native Android notifications bar

The missing link for me is the disparate network problem being experienced by Google+.

Facebook started with small, tightly knit clustered networks (Colleges) that had an immediate network effect.  Once these small nodes joined together they became super nodes.  As these nodes joined, they eventually connected the farthest points of the network.  As a friend put it, the scale of facebook is now capped at the population.

Google+ is rolling out to geeks across the globe.  There is no central group or smaller node.  I am inviting those that have asked, and watching as I am populated to circles and seeing more activity happen.

The one common element here that does not exist for Facebook is that the Google+ bar exists at the top of Google.com and Gmail for me now – where I spend the bulk of my web time.  Notifications will play a key role here.  As I described before, I continue to think of Google as a social network that is there when you need it and not when you don’t.

Update: video for reference

Related articles

• Google+: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly (searchengineland.com)
• First Night With Google Plus: This is Very Cool (readwriteweb.com)

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Google+ Weaving the common thread

The link I clicked from Amazon.com can be seen above – obviously throwing a ton of promotion into the Amazon App Store.  Its a smart play and got me using their app store daily as I have downloaded apps that are $.99, $1.99, and $1.99 respectively each day since I started using it.  At first glance this seems unsustainable – but like many things its all about the details.

I wonder how long it would take before they ran out of app developers that would want to increase their userbase by giving away their app free for one whole day to Amazon App Store users?  With 365 days in a year I would say they could continue this promotion for awhile.

Overall, I love having more choices.  The Amazon App store is smartly tied to my Amazon credentials so my credit card info is already on file.  I have seen the layout, update structure, and device switching abilities of this new flavor of an App Store and its been great.

I think consumers win when there are more choices, and app developers should have multiple conduits of distribution.  It would not surprise me if there were paid components of the Amazon App store coming soon, integrated with the typical commerce portal of Amazon.com.

App developers care about downloads, purchases, and usage.  Anything that allows them to distribute the same binary to get more of any of those three is a win.

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The Amazon App Store

Google understands this well and introduced their office suite to the next generation of email users (gmail) to their offering with a very simple, yet effective way by including a “view” link next to the dreaded “download” link in any viewable document.

This was no small feat as they had to acquire and of course build an office suite capable of rivaling the desktop competitors out there (read: Microsoft) but the elegance and simplicity of this link make the shortcomings of the online office suite seem acceptable.

Google took an already established behavior (reading email) and took away some pain (downloading and opening attachments) by including a “view” link along with “download”.

By including a “view” link next to documents, worksheets, PDFs, images, and almost every other office file they invited you to start using their version of desktop document editing software in the cloud.  This nuance is what will in my opinion force all other competitors to do the same.  They didn’t name it “cloud based office” or “online document editing” or even pitch it overtly – its just a simple link.

This is the power of solving or easing someones pain – doing so without them realizing you are dis intermediating an arguably better equipped opponent.  By saving someone time and energy while reading email attachments they have cracked the code on getting people to switch the very fabric of office software they use.

Sure there are a few drawbacks – some that I am keenly aware of as a power Excel user.  It is virtually impossible to use Excel for certain tasks on anything but a Windows machine running Excel with a full keyboard.  But for the general population an online worksheet system will work just fine.

By introducing this system they have also inherently brought people into the next generation of document management as well – sharing.

Pulling people into a simpler and less complex way of editing documents and introducing mass editing and sharing without version control problems is what makes it stick.

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Cloud based documents

In these examples, Companies are essentially lowering the barriers to entry to zero, even less than free in the case of Twilio who gives you a $30.00 credit, to get you started.  This make using an API appealing to developers who may spend the time building an application.  Once up and running, the idea is that if the app is getting usage and traction it should pay for access.  If its getting serious traction then it could be making money, hence charging for the access to the underlying services.

By having developers build on their services, these Companies and others make switching costs a little bit higher (mainly time and ramping up to a new service) but a compelling way to attract people to use their tools.  It is in some cases a freemium model at its best.  Without having an “unlimited” plan at the top tier, these Companies can scale up their pricing to as large as the enterprise using their product.  I am sure most have special plans available, but the initial possibility of infinite cost is there.

With CPU cycle costs dropping, and overall hosting costs getting lower – value add algorithmic products or just plain products hosted in the cloud can serve a big need.  They solve problems faster than rolling your own solution, and have initial costs so low it doesn’t make sense to go elsewhere.

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Rate Limiting as a business model

I of course immediately unboxed it, pictures are below, and started using it.  I told the kind folks at Google in my application that I would be a solid beta tester giving them reproducible bugs and I have been diligent to my claim.  So far, after a few weeks of usage its a very stable laptop and I hope to get a ton of use out of it.

A few takeaways

This is a true NetBook in the way Larry Ellison described way back when.

This is truly a net native machine

Hardware is relatively unimportant anymore (in the case of low end netbooks)

The browser is the OS and vice versa

It is not a MacBook Pro

Hardware

So far I have no complaints about the hardware.  Its a smooth finish that is a matte black surface and very nondescript  - which seems to be on purpose.  Google wants you to concentrate on whats inside, which is an Intel processor, but more importantly the notebook is running Chrome OS (but more on that later)

I have gotten accustomed to the keyboard and screen – which are decent.  This is not a machine that should be looked at for any overclocking records or performance but that is fine.  The trackpad leaves a bit to be desired, but that is only because I am comparing it to a MacBook Pro which is slightly unfair.  The keyboard and trackpad combo are responsive and nice to type on.  I have been using this machine (and typing on it now!) as my primary home machine and for what it was built for I have no major complaints.

It seems light and strong and the battery life is pretty great.  It has one built in USB port, one VGA monitor port, and a built in wireless modem with Verizon.

You can probably read elsewhere the ram, HDD, and processor as countless others have taken the time to strip the machines down and know the exact costs.

Below are some of the unboxing photos which show more about the machine.

The OS itself is really the main event.  This is, in my opinion, why Google has left the body so nondescript.  This machine is all browser all the time.  With the launch of the Chrome App Store its clear that the future of software is in the cloud according the Google.  My only initial complaint is that most of the “apps” are just glorified shortcuts to the sites themselves.  Some have specially designed landing pages, but most just take you to the applications homepage or login area for Chrome.

Other apps are tightly integrated into the OS (browser).  An example would be chat or todo list apps.  If you are a gmail user and you have used chat that is basically built in on and around the email experience, that is a integrated Chrome OS application.

The more native apps are fast and responsive, and transcend your Chrome installations.  I was pleased\surprised to find that apps I had installed on my Cr-48 were now also on my Macbook Pro which I use as a primary work machine.

Chrome has become my default browser almost since it came out, and this just reinforces that choice.  Its fast, and has everything synchronized across machines which is great.

With the advent of the Mac App store, and the plethora of other app stores out there its clear that everyone wants to be the platform for your apps.  Amazon has their upcoming Android app store, there is the iOS or iPhone app store, the Android Marketplace, the Chrome Web store, and obviously many others.

By becoming your preferred marketplace the platform behind it will begin to build your taste graph which can then follow you between devices.  I think this is important.  In the future you will never really be “getting a new computer” so much as getting a new shell that is connected to your App Store of Choice.

Moving to this model makes sense for Google and for consumers.

Conclusion:  The future of computing is definitely tied to a login and predefined preferences.  Even first time users benefit from setting up their machine in such a way.  I do not envision having a “empty” machine or terminal in the future but rather tie it to my identity early on in the process.

The low end market is going to explode with these types of devices.

Hardware doesn’t matter only the software and features.

High speed connectivity has finally made the net book idea possible.

More to come as I continue to use this machine!

Related articles

• Here’s The Cr-48, The First Chrome OS Laptop You Can Never BUy [Cr48] (gizmodo.com)
• The ChromeOS CR-48 Experience: Fast, Promising, Early (louisgray.com)

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Chrome OS notebook CR-48

I am extremely proud of this sandbox project created by my co-founders and friends Mike Singleton, Sam Huleatt, and Sam Brown

Below is the final goodbye page we posted on Eat.ly notifying our users on 12/17/2010

We began working on Eat.ly in the fall of 2009 as a labor of love, and it quickly turned into a interesting web service that got some traction.  Although it was a side project, we dedicated our time and energy into creating something special.

Not long after it began myself, Mike, and Sam B. found ourselves working together again at a slightly larger project that was our sole focus and taking up 100% of our time – Foursquare.  We then asked the community what we should do with our project that was too small to fail, and with limited resources soon went after a different outcome.

I learned an enormous amount of things during the course of this project and am thankful for the experience.

I wish the Foodspotting team the best of luck with continuing our mission of tracking meals and our original thesis “data + pictures = change”

Related articles

• Foodspotting Swallows Food Sharing Community Eat.ly (techcrunch.com)

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Foodspotting has acquired Eat.ly

Over a great lunch Danny Meyer, author of Setting The Table and owner of many fine restaurants around NYC gave a talk.

After a few minutes of speaking it was clear why it made sense to have a restaurant owner in to speak to 25+ web services CEO’s – hospitality.

There are so many strong ties between the two businesses, its amazing Danny hasn’t written a book entirely devoted to the subject.  The common thread is that the goal of any web service or restaurant is to get new people to come in and try things out, and hopefully come back again for repeat business. Since joining Foursquare in the spring, this has been even more apparent as I speak to many many Merchants who deal with this problem in the real world too.

When a user first comes to a site, your goal is to get them to hang around and of course come back later. If they do come back later, you have a repeat customer and hopefully they are coming back to get more of the great service you offer. This could be for purchase behavior, content consumption, community participation, or a stepping stone to another place (search engine).

Whether its comparing visits to patrons or pageviews to loyal customers startups are clearly in the hospitality business.

The job of a restaurant owner is to make the best impression possible. How many times have you seen a storefront change? Better yet, a layout adjustment in a dining room at a restaurant or people bringing in a new chef to an established place. Menu changes happen often and inserts are sometimes used to highlight Specials.

The same is true for startups in the technology space. Websites change their homepage design – A/B test their landing pages. Startups serve customer surveys and other interstitials hoping to give people all the information they need and more.  The goal of course is repeat business, word of mouth conversations with friends, and building a relationship.

I try to keep this in mind when thinking about building products for Businesses whether they have a web presence or not.  Thinking about being in the hospitality business means making people happy both online and offline.

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All web services are in the hospitality business

When we first conceived this idea, it was setup to accomplish three major things

1. Encourage civic participation through the distribution of the I Voted foursquare badge for all foursquare users who “shout” that they voted (variations count: vote, voting, voted) while at a designated polling location
2. Increase transparency at polling locations by visualizing the time of day, checkin volume and gender of those checking in
3. Develop a replicatable & scalable system to use for the 2012 Presidential Election based on learnings from the data that is produced for the 2010 Midterm Elections

I think we accomplished all these things, and more.  We also created a foursquare I Voted badge for 2010 which was a huge success

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Watch America Vote on foursquare