Disqus - Latest Comments for bmagierski

Re: To our customers using Lion

Brian Magierski — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:17:23 -0000

Thank you ... just applied under bmagierski_at_gmail_dot-com

Re: To our customers using Lion

Brian Magierski — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 12:06:53 -0000

Thanks for the clarification on the dates, correct. The link in the post above does a good job of describing the back and forth, and the underlying issue. Also, they acknowledge they should have notified users earlier ... unfortunately I ended up upgrading before seeing the notice. Will try to get a beta release and see if that works.

Re: To our customers using Lion

Brian Magierski — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 11:59:11 -0000

Sonos - this was a known problem raised by your users as far back as November 2010. http://bit.ly/rcJAYY

Re: Grouped{in} Gives Up, Citing Google+ Competition

Brian Magierski — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:59:28 -0000

Thanks Liz for the additional info. The post was a personal post by a consultant to Appconomy. The post is from his point of view of interest in Grouped{in} solely as an end-user app and the value proposition of being social in private, which G+ is beginning to address, and his excitement about our now active shift to a platform company.

Nowhere in the post do he say we are giving up or ceasing development. This is what is incorrect in your post, and has led to another post that has taken it one step further from the truth.

I quote below from Shel's post that you referenced:

"Grouped{in} will not be actively marketed into the end-user social networking space, but will indeed live on, and if things go according to plan, it may end up being enjoyed by many million users."

We have big plans for the Grouped{in} functionality as part of our Appconomy platform play, which is what the company has always been about. The platform capability will still be available in the Grouped{in} app. It will be available for others to tap into. We will be saying much more about this in the coming months, more than what we can share now.

The 'story' about Appconomy here is the planned shift from Grouped{in} as an app to the functionality of it plus a whole lot more being available as a global apps development platform.

Re: Grouped{in} Gives Up, Citing Google+ Competition

Brian Magierski — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 22:49:53 -0000

Hi Liz. Thank you for your post and coverage regarding Grouped{in}. I'm writing here as Co-CEO, President & co-founder of Appconomy. While directionally correct, the post is not entirely accurate. We will have a lot more to say about this soon, and during the remainder of the year as we roll-out our global platform strategy of Appconomy. We are definitely not giving up on Grouped{in} as it relates to our founding mission. However, right now the points of clarification I would like to make here include the following.
- It is correct that Grouped{in} will not compete directly with Group-based apps going forward on a standalone basis, and yes, we believe Google+ has very credibly begun to address the generic 'be social in private' group communication problem better than others had in the past that led us and others to build this type of app- That said, Grouped{in} was always intended to be a first move toward building a global platform of powerful services to enable global app developers to build better apps; the cross platform group messaging problem was the most interesting first problem to solve in this pursuit- Grouped{in} will continue to be available as an app in its current state, and will include additional features and capabilities later this year - including multi-platform support and an improved user experience (more on why below)- Appconomy continues to pursue its founding vision to become the leading global platform provider to build and power apps for work, life and play. Our corporate name strongly suggests a vision far beyond group messaging- We've been actively at work advancing our platform through product development, acquisitions, partnerships, and business development since the founding of the company and prior to any news about Google+- Grouped{in} will continue as an app to demonstrate powerful parts of the Appconomy platform, which will be available for app developers worldwide to build apps leveraging powerful services such as cross platform group messaging, location-based services, commerce and deal based services and much more. Even with the introduction of Google+ which we applaud, the "cross-platform group messaging problem has not been solved"- Appconomy will have other apps in the market other than Grouped{in} that demonstrate the potential of its platform for global app developers- We are indeed pursuing a global strategy, which includes the two biggest markets in the world, US and China, in full-forceI am always available to discuss these points of clarification further as Appconomy begins to roll forward with its global platform vision. Feel free to reach me at bkm[at]appconomy[dot]com or @Brian Magierski on twitter or by my name on Google+.

Re: Why Exception Handling Should be the Rule

Brian Magierski — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 11:48:02 -0000

Great post Sameer!

Esteban - totally agree with your comment here ... "kick it to the human". Of course this implies a collaborative organization that empowers their humans to make decisions and get things done of course, and equipped with the proper tools.

On the latter point, mobile technology and apps seem to be a great potential enabler here for both employee and customer empowerment.

Re: Facebook Acquires Group Messaging Startup Beluga

Brian Magierski — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:24:01 -0000

Good thing Appconomy is releasing Group{in} very soon, it's multi-channel (including Facebook, but also phone, email, texting, Twitter and soon many more), allows true private groups, and enables ad hoc group formation for work, life and play groups.

Facebook is a channel, not the only channel for people who communicate with others and groups. Concerned Beluga users & everyone else can find us here - http://appconomy.com/groupin

Re: RIM’s BBM – The iPhones Achilles’ Heel?

Brian Magierski — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 14:17:23 -0000

Excellent post Sammer ... and even more timely over 9 months later with the likes of Beluga, GroupMe and others. We have announced an iPhone app soon called Group{in} (http://www.appconomy.com/gr... that aims to solve this problem of multi-channel Group messaging, and carry it across any screen - whether smartphone (iPhone and others), tablet or desktop

Re: Judges bring out their knives for Appconomy’s group app

Brian Magierski — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 01:26:44 -0000

Thanks Anthony. I think your write up was a fair coverage of events and the news for sure. We will prove the app in the market. I appreciated your balanced view. If McClure was more interested in our app and company, and less on his persona, maybe it would have been a more substantive discussion and still included some fireworks.

The reality is we are funded, have paying customers, and are introducing an app that solves a huge, complex problem that many people have today.

Re: Aggregate Social Networks Into Groups with Group(in)

Brian Magierski — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 20:37:25 -0000

Thanks for the great write-up Kelly! Funny, I just caught that movie again last week while testing our alpha release of Group{in}. You nailed the value of Group{in}.

We are putting our application for the app into the Apple App store within the next week, and version 1.0 should be available in the iTunes App Store within two weeks. People interested in the app, can sign up for an email when the app is available here - http://www.appconomy.com/apps/

Re: Judges bring out their knives for Appconomy’s group app

Brian Magierski — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 18:08:06 -0000

Thanks for the write up Anthony. Contrary to Dave McClure's opinion, we are very excited about this app, and did design it for everybody. I have personally used most group apps that are out there, and we feel that we have a much more comprehensive product and a better overall business plan for the company as a whole. In fact, users of competitor apps have referred to Group{in} as our competition on steroids. The groups space is crowded, but the challenge is big and difficult, so it's a long battle.

We are attacking the multi-channel nature of group communications, and single channels like Yammer or even Facebook, while important, can not solve that problem alone. Group communication is a multi channel problem.

We are looking forward to having our app out there, and continuously improving it for our users and customers.

Re: Mobile Economics Will Trend Toward Web Economics

Brian Magierski — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:52:10 -0000

I see it as AppCommerce rather than freemium. The difference being that in some cases the user never has to pay anything directly to the developer, but rather the developer gets paid by the opt-in usage of the user through a member of the apps' ecosystem. The simplest example of this is advertising. Another one would be an app ecosystem partner providing points to the user for behavior which ultimately leads to a transaction by the user where the developer gets a cut.

The components of AppCommerce can include advertising, premium features, in-app purchases (data, virtual goods, upgrades), commerce transactions, incentive offers / discounts / coupons / points, etc. The model will depend on the app, but ultimately the app is accessible to the user and the user ends up "paying" the developer through their usage of the app - whether directly for premium features or in-app items, or indirectly because the app ecosystem has partners that are willing to pay for access to the user if the user opts-in.

Re: The Smartphone Explosion

Brian Magierski — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:52:47 -0000

Microsoft will do better than RIM for sure. Their advantages are (1) their checkbook, (2) their access to the enterprise, (3) their developer community, and (4) they have not ceded the OS to the carriers like Android has (i.e. less fragmentation and more developer support potential). Android will own the long tail of the smartphone market. Microsoft can still do well along with Apple and Android.

Re: The Smartphone Explosion

Brian Magierski — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 21:49:41 -0000

Fred - we have a view that this is all trending toward something called AppCommerce. My company, Appconomy, will be blogging about this soon. The short is that app developers will make money through in-app commerce that is embedded in the app. You download the app, and pay on a value basis - some of the payments will be for premium services or functionality that the user wants, and some of payments will be made by third parties that are paying for sponsored or premium spaces within the app.

The user ultimately makes the choice within the app based on what they want or are willing to do, and the economics flow from that to the app developer and the ecosystem built around the app.

The nice thing about this is it is value-driven and all done in-app. iTunes is less relevant in that respect.

Re: Help Map the Austin Mobile Scene

Brian Magierski — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 23:17:24 -0000

Steve - Great post and an important initiative for Austin. Mobility can be fuel for another job and economic boom in Austin for at least the next 10 years. I know Appconomy will be contributing.

Re: The iPhone app is the Flash homepage of 2010

Brian Magierski — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 08:21:19 -0000

Peter, I think you make some fair points, but it will depend on the functionality. For doing the basics of replacing the commerce of a website, like the example of booking an airfare you provided, you are likely right.

However, I think mobile is a new platform, offering capabilities that the prior PC/Web platform does not provide. It has the power to transform business processes. For example, while you may book a hotel room just fine on an html5 mobile site, what about managing your experience during your stay?

A native app allows you to do much more - order room service, valet and claim your car, get local restaurant reservations, find local running trails, etc. Moreover, what about shaking an app when you need help walking through the hotel, and have the nearest customer experience agent find you on their iPad and/or engage you in a chat session?

Mobile has the power to transform business processes, and the power of native apps will be required for employees that are part of that processes as well as the consumers that use them.

Your point is a very good one though and I think enterprises need a roadmap for their mobile strategy - lay out the apps and the business cases for each app, prioritize them, and decide the right development and deployment model. Where html5 does the job of filling use cases and business cases, then it should be used. Where native provides the advantage to deliver the use and business cases, then use native and decide which platforms you need to support to reach your audience (top 2 or top 3 at most)

Re: Why Apple can’t beat Android

Brian Magierski — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 10:09:13 -0000

Sorry Paul but Disqus will not allow me to reply in line with iPad. Here is a comment related to others above.

Your argument for market share on Android may be right, but for developers, I would argue that they are better off on Apple's iOS and probably Windows Phone. Android's success will make it hard to develop for - the carriers have their crap ware on these devices, and with device proliferation and vendor ware on top of it, it is difficult for a developer to develop apps for all of these device variations. One flavor of Android is fragmented by carrier, device, and vendor. Now multiply that by multiple versions of Andorid and you have a mess for anyone supporting an app.

Apple and Microsoft get this and will do a better job creating a developer ecosystem and supporting apps sales.

Android will be a success for carriers, google, and potentially companies like Facebook which have large web services that can use these devices to deliver additional ads. But this highly fragmented low end of the market will not likely attract developers. At the high end, I suspect that Apple going multi-carrier with the iPhone in the US and the entry of Windows with a viable OS finally is likely to take away Android's high end opportunity.

Re: Prototyping with Briefs

Brian Magierski — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 10:37:39 -0000

Hi Alex - I connected with the developer Rob Rhyne (http://blog.robrhyne.com/) who was very helpful. It turns out there is a small bug that appeared since he is working on a new evolution of the app. What I needed to do was to select and hold the Briefs Icon in my simulator until it started shaking, then click to remove the app. Shut down the simulator and then do a Build & Run of briefs ... worked well and I have my new prototype up and running.

Re: Prototyping with Briefs

Brian Magierski — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 13:34:11 -0000

Awesome post and commentary. I have followed this and successfully got to the point of getting my brieflist into Xcode. When I Build & Run though, my brief does not appear in the simulator. I don't see any steps that I have missed and I have not had any errors along the way. Any advice for what could be wrong?

The only thing I saw was some code modification to the app delegate in the Shared-UI package (http://github.com/capttaco/... for auto-launching a brief. But this is not mentioned here or in the Briefs documentation.

Any help would be greatly appreciated

Re: Some Thoughts On Convertible Debt

Brian Magierski — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 11:51:30 -0000

Just like poker, bankroll matters big time in angel/seed/VC investing ... investing in general. Gordon Gekko called it capital reserves. Probably worth a blog series if it does not exist already.

Re: Taste Neighbors (continued)

Brian Magierski — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 11:04:04 -0000

Curious Fred - I would think a service like Wesabe that gets all of your transaction data would be able to solve this too ... why did that not happen?

I'm asking b/c I've been noodling on an idea that is similar in that it allows a consumer to aggregate their purchase history and take control over their purchasing power for (1) rewards & incentives from companies, (2) better service treatment, and [what you are referring to in this post .... ](3) recommendations & influence in common interest communities. All is demonstrated by purchase behavior (what I did, not what I say).

I'm an enterprise apps entrepreneur by background and the inspiration for thinking about this comes from the perpetual multi-decade discussion about providing companies with the ultimate customer database so they get one view of their customer. For a lot of reasons this is never going to happen in and it occurred to me the consumer can solve this problem for themselves now with a clever web service + mobile app and then use the data to assert their own influence when needed AND get great recommendations.

Blippy and Swipely are doing some of this in aggregating purchase data, but not in the value prop of leveraging purchase power for incentives, service and referrals/recommendations. Do you see any candidates in this arena that have promise?

Re: getting to know the iPad

Brian Magierski — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 09:16:46 -0000

Great post. GetJar just release a survey it did and confirms your #4 on Enterprise is coming (http://bit.ly/bB5PqP). Among findings, 84% of enterprises will support personal iPads and 80% of enterprises will purchase iPads. The iPad has great potential for next generation apps in the enterprise.

Re: Life is 10% How You Make It and 90% How you Take It

Brian Magierski — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:50:22 -0000

Great post Mark. I like Gretchen's work a lot (blogged about it here) and have been doing some reading on happiness over the past 6 months or so.

Wealth is not a metric of happiness - you are absolutely correct, there is always somebody that has more or will have more soon. This could be said of any material object. You are also absolutely correct, that startups and entrepreneurship is not for everybody. What drives success and happiness is the passion (blogged about For Love or for Money here). Without passion, you may make money, but whether the money or the process drives any happiness is not likely.

For me, my priorities in life are health, family, and career, in that order because without my health I'm not good for my family. My career happens to be in web/software entrepreneurship. I derive happiness from all three and they are in balance but prioritized. Properly balancing these priorities is a mindset and way of life, just as health and nutrition is order to stay fit.

Re: Why is Customer Service Still So Lousy?

Brian Magierski — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:25:33 -0000

Andy - this is a horrible experience that you outline and clearly unacceptable. Does AmEx offer you other channels for support? Per a lot of comments here, companies are striving to drive down support costs while increasing the quality of the experience and end result. The phone is a high cost and relatively unsatisfying channel for support, unless speaking to a person or going up the chain to resolve a problem is necessary.

I'm wondering if another channel, such as a Live Chat, would have been able to address your problem. You get a live person interaction, but in a way that allows you to multi-task and not have to weave through a blind menu of items on the phone.

Call deflection to Chat and Twitter support channels allow a company to get cost leverage in that agents are able to support more requests simultaneously and the end-user consumer gets a direct line to a person without the interfering phone menu.

What AmEx should have, at least in times of high call volume, is an opening statement that Chat support exists on their website as an alternative option.

Moreover, if you are a frequent / good customer, you should be able to get some preferred level of Chat or Twitter support.

At the end of the day, companies are driving down support costs through call deflection. This is a case of horrible call deflection by design or failure or both. The best companies are driving down their costs through call deflection, but the deflected leveraged channels of support should provide a superior experience and all should be intertwined into a total customer experience allowing the customer to choose the base channel for support and providing excellent support across all channels.

Re: MongoDB

Brian Magierski — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 12:44:33 -0000

Fred - We are using MongoDB for our new enterprise collaboration product at nGenera - watch for announcements about it next week. The team here really likes it - 10gen is doing great things, congrats!