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March 7, 2006
Etech06 day 2 Paul Bragiel, Vincent Lauria, Sean Savage
Paul Bragiel, Sean Savage
Meetro
Using Meetro to borrow a vacuum in Palo Alto – beyond finding dates and business
Age/Sex/Location: a/s/l – meeting people at a more comfortable level
Meetro – now meeting people through IM comes with a face and a profile
Traditional services based on handle – no face, no profile – “we are facial creatures”
Launched 6-7 months ago, growth – human beings are very lazy
“we had never designed user interface software like this” [it’s so often that way…developers designing software, and then relearning old lessons]
Location: the farther away someone is, the harder it is to meet up (ie, ¼ mile to 2 miles can enable meetups)
Don’t give away absolute location – that feels odd – they abstract information into a radius, aura, or presence
“You have some time, so you could start talking to each other”
Their designer is from Chile – talked to newspapers there and no lots of growth
Like Orkut – Brazilian population “they infiltrated the network. They’ve overweighed the community from one locale” – while Meetro keeps it local “not going to take over another market” [wow – that really betrays the assumptions of the creators!]
Good experiences in Chicago and San Francisco because they talked to the media
Trying to let it grow by word of mouth in New York
[Again, the big problem] trying to get people excited when there aren’t a lot of people logged on around you – there must be a sense of community around the service
Need core connector types
User adoption: been able to hire people through the application
Sean Savage: PlaceSite
Unlike Meetro, tied to place, rather than person
In cafes – open up browser and shows you how many people online at the place
Take advantage of social boundaries people already use
Thinking about kinds of encounters – from cozy in tavern to globally exposed on TV
Wifi and public places where people gather to use it.
Router plus free firmware that talks to PlaceSite’s servers
Online for just over a month in 3 cafes, but more than a year of R and D
Releasing router code under GPL
Partnership with two wifi infrastructure companies – Sputnik and wavestorm
They provide infrastructure for places – launching PlaceSite with these companies customers
What about beyond cafes?
Plugin framework and open API -> mashups, maybe?
PlaceSite as platform and network
Revenue: ultralocal advertising – customizing placesite for venues – user-approved location feed licensing
PlaceSite – trying not to kill the conviviality of cafes
Posted by egoodman at March 7, 2006 6:12 PM
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