Square changes all that.  All you have to do is download their app, give them your social security number and a bank account number and you can process credit cards.  If you want to get a lower fee, you can request that they send you a free credit card reader, which you plug into your headphone jack.  From their site:

In February 2009, Jim McKelvey wasn’t able to sell a piece of his glass art because he couldn’t accept a credit card as payment. Even though a majority of payments has moved to plastic cards, accepting payments from cards is still difficult, requiring long applications, expensive hardware, and an overly complex experience. Square was born a few days later right next to the old San Francisco US Mint.

I’ve downloaded the app and played around with it and it’s about as easy to use as it could possibly be.  Just like paypal, you always know what you have to do to accept payments.  Imagine being able to settle debts and split bills at restaurants right on your phone.  Or maybe accept a utility bill from your roommate who never has cash and doesn’t like to write checks.  Or imagine a street vendor selling food or tshirts.  Square opens up completely new markets and lowers the friction between buyers and sellers.

There are drawbacks.  First, many people do not trust vendors who use their personal mobile phones to accept credit cards.  People are worried about being scammed.  I wouldn’t be too worried about being scammed, since if you challenge credit card purchases, your credit card company refunds you and goes after the seller.  From my understanding you won’t have any liability, but that does not stop the trust factor from being an issue.

The second problem are the credit card fees.  Square charges 2.5% when you use the card reader (card present transactions) and 3.5% when you just type in the credit card number.  These fees seem really high.  I use traditional credit card processors and their fees have been 1.5%-2%.  I know that when I sell big ticket items, I shy away from PayPal because the fees eat up any money I make.  Square needs to figure out a way to lower it’s fees and get buyers to be more trusting, or find a place where people are willing to pay those fees out of convenience like PayPal did with eBay.

For now, I probably won’t use Square very often, but I can see times I would use it.  I’m really interested to see how the general population reacts to Square as it becomes more mainstream.  I think it’ll be a tough road, but ultimately, accepting credit cards on a mobile device will be the way of the future, unless we just eliminate the credit card completely and just use our phones to make purchases like they do in Japan.

What do you think?  Will Square take off?  Will you use it?  Are the fees too high?

                          

Most of my goals are not huge.  For example, this year, I wanted to make sure that I traveled more frequently, played more soccer, read more books and learned how to cook at least one new dish per month, to name a few.  I have done some of them, but all of them and wanted to try to find ways to give myself incentives to actually complete them.  I was reading the Freakonomics blog the other day and remembered an old post about a new website designed to help you follow through.

StickK.com, a website founded by Freakonomics contributor by Ian Ayres and two of his Yale collegues, allows you to set a goal, a completion date and puts some teeth behind failing to complete your goal.  They came up with a “commitment contract” to help make sure that you follow through on your goal.  From their site:

Entirely unique to each person, a Commitment Contract obliges you to achieve your goal within a particular time-frame. Not only are you challenging yourself by saying “Hey, I can do this,” you’re also putting your reputation at stake. If you are unsuccessful, we’ll let your friends know about it.

Oh but wait, there’s more…

Sometimes losing face with your friends might not be enough to keep you on track. So, what is the one thing no one can stand to part with? You guessed it! Cold hard cash.

As a true test of your commitment, stickK will let you put your money on the line for any Commitment Contract. Achieve your goal and you don´t pay a thing (and you´re much happier than before, aren´t you?).

But if you aren’t successful, you forfeit your money to a charity, an anti-charity or even that neighbor who keeps stealing your newspaper.

Adding money into the situation is a really interesting idea, but the idea of an “anti-charity” is what makes this website unique and innovative.  For example, if you are a hardcore Republican and you want to lose 15 pounds, you can make your contract say that you will donate $100 to a gun control advocacy if you do not achieve your goal.  The anti-charity adds so much added motivation for you to complete your goal.  If you fail, you are not only letting yourself down and spending money, but you are helping a cause that you do not like.

I decided to try it out today to see if it works and set up an account.  They only have a few anti-charities, so I used the “friend or foe” option.  Since I am a proud UW grad and a huge Badger sports fan, if I do not achieve my goal, I will donate $200 to the University of Michigan Athletic Department.  I will keep you updated if I accomplish my goal or if the University of Michigan Athletic Department will get $200 of my hard earned money.

Do you think StickK is a good idea?  What anti-charity would you donate to?

                          

Have you ever gone to a new city and been confused by the way the locals speak? Whether it’s an idiomatic expression, a nickname for a local street, or the name of a local food, cities can have confusing language. For example, should you be offended if someone in Pittsburgh calls you “nebby?” In Philadelphia, will you know what to say if someone offers you a “whiz wit?” Will you be alarmed in Madison when someone says they drank a “boot” last night?  If you understand all three of these references, then you’re in the minority. For the rest of us, there’s City Dictionary.

They launched the site back in May 2008 as a Madison website, trying to “capture the eccentricities of Madison language and culture” but have since expanded nationwide.   They have made some great progress lately, including winning the Burrill Business Plan Competition and a cool $10,000 first prize, signing a deal to put dictionaries on over 60 local TV news websites and adding lots of new definitions.  

The site is interesting because it fills in the gaps that other sources like traditional encyclopedias, Wikipedia and others leave out.  Thomas Carmona told me that “eventually, we would like City Dictionary to be a valuable reference for all cities and towns–large or small–in the US, similar to the way Wikipedia is a powerful reference for, well, everything. Whereas Wikipedia and other existing city references give the “official” account of a city, City Dictionary will fill in the gaps with the subtleties that only real locals can offer.”  

City Dictionary’s market is a niche that had been previously underserved and  I really like their strategy of partnering with local TV stations to get more users and content.  If they are able to get enough partners, they will build a wall around their industry, making it hard for competition to break into the market.  The syndication deals are a promising sign because others companies realize the value that City Dictionary brings to the table and provides City Dictionary with a much larger presence across the web.

Currently, City Dictionary is ad supported and it will be interesting to see if they can find a way to squeeze revenue out of the page views that they generate or have to find another revenue stream as they move forward.  I’m excited to see how they continue to grow.  Check out City Dictionary and let me know what you think.

                          

GeoBuzz is a really cool idea.  It allows you to post Buzzes, or messages similar to tweets on Twitter, to its platform that is visible t the people with the GeoBuzz application the area around you.  From their website:

GeoBuzz is a location-based, cross platform chat application that puts you in touch with the people around your geographic location. You can share thoughts on speakers or performances at live events, post restaurant specials, or get people together to meet.

All of what you see is narrowed down from people in your area. GeoBuzz brings back the idea of community and will help you connect with people that are literally around you. It is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, and Windows Mobile phones.

Forrest Woolworth, head of the GeoBuzz project, says that the goal is to bring people together in their own community.  ”The internet has allowed people to connect instantly with others all around the globe, but it has pretty much ignored local connections.  GeoBuzz aims to change that and connect people, via social media, to others in their own community.”  You can follow their trials and tribulations on their blog, here.

GeoBuzz is especially innovative because it is cross-platform, meaning that the GeoBuzz application can be used across multiple mobile devices.  It brings together the fragmented mobile device market and allows all of these people to connect, regardless of their mobile device.  Its similar to Twitter, but location based and is divided into multiple channels where people can organize events, check out bar atmospheres before going and “live buzz” local event.  Its a really cool idea, and will be interesting to see how they promote it and expand to more users, as there is huge room for innovation with their platform.

I was also struck by how GeoBuzz could be used in the recent Iranian protests after the elections.  I wrote about the role of social media and the new media’s response to the unrest compared to the traditional media in previous posts and was thinking about how GeoBuzz or a service like it, could have been used to organize protests, disseminate information and show safe and unsafe areas.  The protestors could have buzzed about friendly locations, where riot police and basij were most angry and allowed people another outlet to connect.  Most likely, the regime would have tried to block a service like GeoBuzz from the start, but it would have been interesting to see.  As GeoBuzz and others catch on, and I believe they will, it will be interesting to see what they are used for.   I think it can be used like Twitter, but for more real time, location based information that can turn into action more quickly.

What do you think?  Would you use GeoBuzz?  What would you Buzz about and what situations would GeoBuzz be most useful to you?

                          

Brian and I left Microsoft just over a year ago after they acquired our last start-up Jellyfish.com (news here). At the time, we set out to answer one question: “Why doesn’t anyone buy toilet paper online?” It sounds kind of silly—it did to me anyway—but that question was a metaphor for the larger challenge we wanted to tackle. Namely, could we figure out a way to get the mainstream consumer to buy Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)—non-perishable stuff like toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry detergent, and diapers—on the Internet?

Despite the enormous size of this market, the vast majority of people still don’t use the convenience and power of the Internet for this category. In fact, consumers buy items like clothing and shoes—that need to be tried on and often returned—more than they do these simple CPG goods that are bought repeatedly in chore-like fashion.

I attended a talk that Mark gave at the UW Business School back in December about his experiences starting businesses and his current work with Alice and have been following their blog ever since.  After their launch on Monday, I decided to try it out.

At first glance, I really liked the graphics and layout.  They are inviting, playful and fun, without overwhelming you with too much going on to distract you from the core use of the site.  The text has the same inviting, playful feel.  For example, Alice’s phone number is 877-Yo Alice and includes text like “start your free account” and “never run out of toilet paper,” instead of something boring.

Once I registered, I started inputting the products that I use around the house.   You can either find for products by typing them into the search box or selecting “my products” which gives you a “fish” for each type of household product you might use.  You can click on each fish to find a product, shop via search or shop by room in your house.  I did most of my shopping by clicking on “fish” (stand ins for each product until you select a one) and loved the inviting text of “lets go find some” to get to the products.  I also really liked the scrolling coupons on the bottom of the site that offer deals on different products.  At one point, I left my computer to come back later and had to sign in again.  On some sites, its bothersome, but on Alice, there was a funny graphic of a policeman telling me I needed to log in again.  I was fairly easy to sign up, select products and place an order and I really like the overall idea.

While I really like the site overall, the process of inputting all of my products took a pretty long time.  It would be cool to see Alice preselect branded products for each product type I am interested in.   In my case, brands don’t matter for products like soap, toilet paper, napkins, paper towels etc, as long as they get the job done.  It would not only save customers time and energy, but it would allow Alice to possible make more money by pushing customers toward certain products.

Alice asks you how often you think you will run out of each product, so that it can remind you to reorder.  I really have no idea how often I run out of most things, so it would also be nice to see examples of how often other consumers need to reorder the products that I am ordering.  A cool graph of x% reorder in 2 weeks, x% reorder in 4 weeks and so on.

The biggest change that I would like to see is the ability to sort each product by price, after the site coupons have been applied and the ability to sort by cost per unit.  I normally shop for products in the supermarket via a cost per unit comparison, but its not readily apparent on Alice.  Its also interesting that it doesn’t seem to be advantageous to the consumer to buy in bulk.  With many consumers trained to buy in bulk, its weird to see single rolls of paper towel have a lower cost per unit than the same paper towels in bigger sizes.  I wonder if this will cause Alice to have higher shipping costs than they otherwise would, as there does not seem to be an incentive to buy in bulk.

The Good

• Innovative, needed idea
• Inviting, playful graphics, text and branding
• Clean layout
• Free shipping
• Lots of products
• Low Prices

Suggestions for Improvement

• Sort by cost per unit and cost after coupon
• Preselect brands for each product to save consumer time and possibly increase revenue
• Create incentives for consumers to buy in bulk
• Add a graph with information on how often others reorder

I really like the site and will try it out for a few months to see how it goes.  I hate going to the store to buy these types of items, so hopefully it will work as well as I think it will.  Check out Alice.com for yourself and let me know your thoughts.

                          

You go to crowdspring and fill out a form with what your project’s needs.  Then, you post how much you are willing to pay for the winning design.  After you submit your project, the entire CrowdSpring community is able to work on your project.  You are guaranteed at least 25 entries, or your money back.  The project lasts for a week and you can watch the designs roll in, comment on them and ask for revisions.  After a week, you choose the winning design and get the files from the designer.  Crowdspring takes care of the legal documents to make sure that you own the design that was created for you.

I recently used it for a project of mine and it worked perfectly.  Here is an example of an entry on crowdspring.  I would suggest checking crowdspring out for any of your graphic design needs in the future.  Crowdspring is cheap, easy and provides quality work.

                          

It’s a tough question, especially if you are trying to schedule a meeting with more than two or three people.  My friend Jason Strutz, who also wrote ExchangeHut, just completed a new project aimed at answering this very question.

MeetingWhen is a free , easy to use tool to help you schedule meetings.

Instead of bouncing emails around trying to guess good times for everyone to attend, MeetingWhen allows you to take control of the scheduling, and ensure that you maximize the chances of high attendance.

The more people in your event, the harder it is to schedule manually. But with MeetingWhen you can schedule large meetings without any fuss!

MeetingWhen.com allows you to:

• Create an event
• Input your availability
• Invite others to input their availability
• Pick the best time for everyone involved

I was one of the beta testers and really like the idea.  Check it out for yourself and see what you think.  You do not have to register and can use it for free!