Previous online identity solutions were not successful. Passport failed because it's from Microsoft, Open ID because it's too technical, and several others didn't even get off the ground. I think Facebook Connect is the first identity solution that has the potential to break through to a mass market. Facebook offers more than identity (namely the social component), and that makes it appealing.
Facebook Connect is at the very beginning, though. We witnessed first hand how customers get confused by the FbConnect button. How they are scared by a Facebook popup asking to allow the connected site email or status access. There is no Facebook Connect brand, yet.
I would love to see Facebook overcome this and finally establish an online identity model.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
FbFund
Yesterday we submitted witU as an entry to the Facebook Fund, a start up competition that will land some lucky winners in a 10 week boot camp at the Facebook headquarters.
After some weekend work, we submitted hours before the deadline with no stress at all. Amazing!
Unfortunately, the contest's rules are really unclear and not explained well. Facebook says they will select 50 finalists who will each receive $1,000 in Facebook ads (uh, $1,000 is not really an incentive). Out of these 50, "some" winners will be selected, who are eligible to get "some" funding (but maybe only if they move to the US). The amount of funding is left open, as are the exact terms.
Anyway, we would enter the contest just to win a ticket to the 10 week program. :)
After some weekend work, we submitted hours before the deadline with no stress at all. Amazing!
Unfortunately, the contest's rules are really unclear and not explained well. Facebook says they will select 50 finalists who will each receive $1,000 in Facebook ads (uh, $1,000 is not really an incentive). Out of these 50, "some" winners will be selected, who are eligible to get "some" funding (but maybe only if they move to the US). The amount of funding is left open, as are the exact terms.
Anyway, we would enter the contest just to win a ticket to the 10 week program. :)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Restaurant booking
Few random observations around witU:
- Our conversion rate is around 2%, which I believe is industry average. This needs improvement.
- Landing pages/mini sites work very well.
- Marketing to restaurateurs is difficult.
- Doing promotions that make sense in the restaurant world is difficult.
- There needs to be a better way to connect with the restaurant. They get bookings from witU, but they know only our booking provider.
- Twitter gets page views and no bookings.
- The Ivy is hugely popular.
- We get most bookings on Tuesdays.
Hosting: what matters is service
In our businesses we deal with many different hosting companies either as customer or as vendor. This ranges from budget shared hosters to dedicated server providers.
The successful ones focus on service. In the hosting industry, a huge part of "service" is making the user experience as easy as possible, so that the user does not require expensive human interaction.
Many providers do not get customer service, and we try to avoid them as much as we can. You can usually tell them apart already when ordering or trying to reach them on the phone. The process is cumbersome or their sales people show no interest in you. One example is Easyspeedy in Denmark. If you want to upgrade a server, you are on your own: you have to order a new one and migrate the data on your own - with zero support from them (I quote: "how to migrate your data from one machine to another is unfortunately out of scope of our services"). Compare that to the one click migrations of Rackspace (any any hoster that actually wants your money)!
A very successful budget hoster is SiteGround, based in Bulgaria. They understand extremely well how to make hosting easy to use, providing their own tutorials, one click installers, FAQs, etc.
My favourite shared hosting company of all time is DotServant, based in Malaysia. I have been hosting with them (or him) for over five years. The owner is available 24/7 via email or IM and goes out of his way to satisfy your needs.
The successful ones focus on service. In the hosting industry, a huge part of "service" is making the user experience as easy as possible, so that the user does not require expensive human interaction.
Many providers do not get customer service, and we try to avoid them as much as we can. You can usually tell them apart already when ordering or trying to reach them on the phone. The process is cumbersome or their sales people show no interest in you. One example is Easyspeedy in Denmark. If you want to upgrade a server, you are on your own: you have to order a new one and migrate the data on your own - with zero support from them (I quote: "how to migrate your data from one machine to another is unfortunately out of scope of our services"). Compare that to the one click migrations of Rackspace (any any hoster that actually wants your money)!
A very successful budget hoster is SiteGround, based in Bulgaria. They understand extremely well how to make hosting easy to use, providing their own tutorials, one click installers, FAQs, etc.
My favourite shared hosting company of all time is DotServant, based in Malaysia. I have been hosting with them (or him) for over five years. The owner is available 24/7 via email or IM and goes out of his way to satisfy your needs.
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