Help from the Professionals

A couple of months ago we were in a very difficult place. Earlier in the year we had finished building Phuser, got it into a fit state for a Beta launch and got a great crowd of innovators trying it out and liking it. Then, besides a few new sign-ups, the whole thing stopped moving. We had stalled and something was badly wrong.

The whole Facebook/Twiter/Pownce/Jaiku storm kicked off and we were going nowhere. Here we had a service which offered more privacy and control over your network than these sites, as well as easy ways to discuss and plan with any group.

Looking for inspiration I contacted Stowe Boyd who by coincidence was going to be in  London the next week. He was happy to meet up and chat over dinner before we went to the Library House after party at the IMAX. I hadn’t met Stowe before and found it a pleasure to talk with such an affable veteran of the industry.

I explained how Phuser is this great private social website with practical tools to save you time, frustration and money when planning with a team but that we were struggling to get any traction in the market. Stowe hit the nail on the head: our best strength, privacy and control was also our greatest weakness. There was no public side to Phuser and it was killing us. Without a public side there was no way for the good word of Phuser to spread virally.

Stowe also had another good point. Entrepreneurs don’t like to backtrack and reassess the fundamentals of their ideas. But, as they say, when you find you are in a hole, stop digging.

In a further bid to help Stowe kindly offered to buy as much equity as he could afford with the contents of his wallet:

Thanks again Stowe! It took a while to sink in but when it did it set me on a mission.

The last bastion of messaging

or how Twitter ruined SMS

The first thing I would like to make clear is that I know I can just unsubscribe from Twitter. But that is not the point.

The point is that SMS (that’s text messaging to us Brits) is endangered. For me SMS has always been a very personal thing. It is truly great, when I get a message I know it is something important or interesting from someone I know. Something I will value.

The other day I was cycling into work listening to music on my phone converged device. I have an O2 Orbit and with the handsfree kit it works splendidly as an MP3 player. This also means I can take calls on the move and know when I receive SMS. For those concerned about my safety as I listen to music while I cycle, my journey is six miles on a disused railway track. So as I was cycling to work I heard an SMS arrive. Thinking is was something to do with a colleague or family I stopped, dug out my phone and read my important message:

“Scobleizer: Well, I’m tired of talking about iPhone. Hopefully something more interesting will come up soon.”

Thank God I stopped! What would I have done if I hadn’t know that right then? I felt fulfilled by technology and proud my ability to keep my finger on the pulse of Scoble’s every thought. Wow.

So this is the future? Every messaging medium turns into a continuous stream of micro comments. Facebook is doing it, Twitter, Pownce. What, I ask you, is the value? Answers in the comments please.

This got me to thinking about what Kathy Sierra was saying about Getting Things Done and my previous blog entry about when email was great.

I am so conditioned now to react to all of these distractions that in my work day I don’t realise they are even happening. At least when I was cycling I was moving along making progress and when I stopped to read Scoble’s Twit I realised I had stopped, dug around for my phone, unlocked the keypad, read the message, got no pleasure, reversed the last three step and got moving again. This is what is happening all the time in work places around the globe and it must have an effect on people, the amount of hours they work and the economy. Perhaps food for another blog entry.

I suppose I have the small consolation that I didn’t get three points on my license because of Twitter, like Mike Butcher. Poor sod.

Dublin, I love it when a plan comes together.

I recently planned a trip to Dublin with some friends I haven’t see for about five years. The problem was, I’m sure, not an uncommon one. We were six people coming from Berlin, Godalming, Paris and Chamonix. We needed to find a weekend when we were free, get our flights booked and then make some plans for our trip to the Emerald Isle. Just the job for Phuser.

The first, choosing a date, was surprisingly easy. I created a Phuse and added the other five people to it. We immediately had a private place to put all of our chat. In the old days this would have been a whole bunch of emails. I added a Date Decider to the Phuse, suggested a date and asked for other date suggestions. A couple more were added by the others and we all said whether they were good or bad. It was obvious which one to go for and so our trip was underway:

Next I got some good tips on cheap flights from the others and after a bit of discussion over a few days (all in the Phuse) we had booked our tickets. The discussion continued as we decided what to do, where to stay and whether to hire a car. We were able to share the load as everyone booked either the rooms, car or the essential Guinness Brewery tour!

What would have been 88 emails over a couple of months was all on one page and really easy to refer to. I wanted to know when there was something to look at in the Phuse so I set Phuser to send me an SMS everytime there was a new update.

Phuser really came into itself once we were off and away from any computers. I set up Broadcast so that we could stay in touch easily by SMS. All any of us had to do was send an SMS to Phuser (+447624806185) and start the message with the keyword I had chosen (Dublin). Phuser then relayed the message to the other five phones (three French, two UK and one US). No fiddling and only billed for the one standard rate SMS to Phuser. This was great for meeting up as we all landed at different times as well as when we split up into groups. Try doing that privately in Twitter!

After we got back Phuser had one final task. I added a Photo Album to the Phuse and we all uploaded our pictures. My favourites are the ones of us jumping into the icy cold waterfall in the Wicklow Mountains. It was very inviting:

You won’t see us in our underwear on the internet though! Those photos are tucked up privately in our Phuse. This one sums up the trip nicely