Month: October 2009

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Playing Foursquare: a few feature requests

by bijansabet

I’m a fan of Foursquare. I’ve been using the service since July and I’m completely hooked.

As a user, I’ve been thinking about a few features I’d love to see in the product at some point. So I thought I would jot them down here.

1 – History.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon the Flour Bakery in the South End. I checked in at the time on Foursquare. Yesterday, Mo and I were in the South End meeting with a startup. After the meeting, I said, “I gotta take you to this place but I don’t exactly remember the name but they have the best macaroon cookies”. The problem was, I completely forgot what street it was located on as well.

It would be super cool if Foursquare could show me on the iphone my check-in history from my current location/neighborhood. And I’d love to see my friends history as well based on my current location at the time.

2 – Twitter Oauth

The sign up process for Foursquare couldn’t be easier. Phone  number and password and you are off. They also give the option to login with Facebook Connect.


It would be great if they also offered Twitter Oauth as an option. Disqus has that option built into the commenting service so you can leave a comment on this blog using your Twitter credentials. Then, all of my Twitter profile data would exists and a bunch of interesting things could flow from there (DM in the app, recent tweets, follow/invite etc).

3 – Photos.

The Foursquare iPhone app is also a Twitter client in some ways. You can tweet your Foursquare checkins. I’d love a way to add photos to the check in as well just like other iPhone Twitter apps. Integration with twitpic, tumblr and flickr would be sweet.

* * *

The interesting thing about all of the above ideas is that in reality FourSquare doesn’t have to do any of these themselves. The Foursquare API looks really nice. So it’s quite likely that many of these things, and much more, will come from 3rd party developers which is the most powerful way to build a platform.

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The family tree is missing medical history

by bijansabet

My wife and I have recently become quite interested in putting together our family tree. It’s such a diverse family with various backgrounds and cultures. And a large family at that. 

We signed up with Geni and with a bit of nudging and effort from various family members we now have a tree that spans over 380 people and growing.

We are getting a ton of details that we wouldn’t have known otherwise. It’s really quite excellent.

As we reviewed all the information and watch the tree develop, we started thinking about health matters and family medical history.

For example, my wife’s dad died at  50 years old. Her father’s father also died at a very young age as well. Her’s father’s grandfather also died at a young age. All of them died because of heart failure. It’s clear how important it is to understand your family medical history.

But aside from that striking data, we really don’t know much about other medical history we inherit from our family tree. Who in our family has diabetes? Or cancer? Or Alzheimer’s?

I realize that I’m walking into a hornets nest and patient records are highly confidential. But if I had a medical issue that might pass down to my kids and so on, I would very much want them to know about it. I assume my grandparents, parents, uncles & aunts feel the same way.

At some point, we are going to have better tools that give us data and access. Of course, we will need assurances & security to make sure that the right people have access to the right information.

Electronic medical records are a start. Stitching our medical records with our family tree is the next step after that. And we will all be better for it.

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Start with the ending

by bijansabet

When there’s no pretending,
then the truth is safe to say,
Start with the ending,
get it out of the way – David Wilcox

When I was in undergrad people would often ask me what I wanted to be when I grow up.

Then after college people would ask what was my 5 year plan or my 10 year plan.

I had no idea. I was really living in the moment.

And nowadays, in my personal life and in my work life, I still tend to focus on the here and now.

But with young startups, I often suggest early stage companies to think about the ending at times. At least quarterly.

What is the ending?

The day you run out of cash.

It’s not uncommon for an early stage company to raise seed or Series A capital that does not take them to profitability. That’s true for a number of our portfolio companies. Consider, Boxee, Twitter and Tumblr. Those companies clearly did not generate revenue but all of them were able to successfully raise follow on rounds. That’s because they made signficant product progress with the first invested capital.

Founders should think about what you want your company to look like when it raises the next round of capital. And then work backwards from there. How do you make that happen? Who do you need to hire. What do you have to learn. What do you have to create. What should you focus on ?

Don’t get me wrong. Focusing on the here & now and executing is the name of the game. But it’s worthwhile to start with the ending from time to time.

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by bijansabet


http://bijan.tumblr.com/post/210984654/audio_player_iframe/bijan/tumblr_krehyv5HLk1qz4j35?audio_file=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tumblr.com%2Faudio_file%2Fbijan%2F210984654%2Ftumblr_krehyv5HLk1qz4j35

Unless Its Kicks – Okkervil River (demo version)

This song is on the album “The Stage Names”. Just heard this demo version on the Hype Machine. I gotta track down the source of this demo track.

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Plantronics Discovery 975 review

by bijansabet

Let me say right up front: I really don’t like headsets. Actually I don’t really like talking on the phone at all but for my job its part of the deal.

My car has bluetooth built in and the iPhones can pair up nicely with the hands-free system. It’s a breeze.

But I’m traveling a lot to the west coast and the law of the land is that drivers must have a hands free system. I think that’s a good idea.

So I wanted to get a bluetooth headset to use on the road.

I picked up the Plantronics Discovery 975. Here’s my quick thoughts on this headset.

-First of all, who came up with the name of this product? I mean, really, the Discovery 975. I found out the the previous model was the Disovery 925. Not kidding. If I was an engineer at Plantronics I would be pretty bummed with the marketing peeps. They work hard at building a product and that’s the best the marketing folks can do?

-okay, now on to the product itself. It’s pairs up easily with the iPhone. No sweat.

-i like that the device can rest in your ear without any of those ear loop things. I wear sunglasses quite a bit and those ear loops never worked for me. I’ve used the device for a few long conference calls and it stays in just fine. Lightweight and comfy.

-audio quality is great in the car. I haven’t used it walking around the city because that’s not the use case for me.

-battery life is a bazillion times longer than the iPhone. I also like that it uses a standard micro-usb charger. Also comes with a portable charger too.

I’m going to recommend this headset if you need a handsfree in your car.

But you probably won’t see me walking down the street with this thing on….