This weekend has been a tough one.  From finding out about a newly filed patent from Apple that directly conflicts with what I’m doing, to a demo/survey that I made which suggests users don’t find my product appealing enough, and then finding out there is a competitor that is doing 2/3′rds of what I have planned.

Now, I’m not too worried about the patent because there is a ton of prior art in various formats making the patent a huge waste of companies time/money in the end.  I’m not worried about competition since that can be a good thing and they aren’t focusing on the consumer like I had in mind.  The biggest concern I have is the “quality” of the product.  Safe to say, I’ve saved myself and others a lot of time and money by backing out now.  No sense in having a grand opening if everyone comes inside and doesn’t buy anything.

I was about 25% complete with the business plan, it was coming along well.  One fact does remain, Internet news junkies (like myself) are left with a disservice when it comes to offline news, or better put, the ability to get their online news while offline during a commute or exercise.

You may be saying “what are you doing telling everyone what your doing, just wait, the technology will get better”.  Well, I’ve talked with the vendor that makes this product in particular (mostly a B to B product) and there is no road-map currently or planned to improve their product in the way that it needs to.  And while I’m a web application developer it’s a far cry from being a computer scientist that can actually create a better product from scratch.

So, on to the next “idea”…

For starters You Be The VC is a site where anyone can submit their business idea which eventually is widdled down to 20 remaining participants where “you judge the entries and help us decide who gets their idea catapulted from concept to functioning company. Winners will receive guidance from some of the top entrepreneurial minds in the country.” So, if you want the full skinny on You Be The VC head their way, if you want some idea about the who,what,why of my idea then keep reading.

I thank Mark Modzelewski at Bang Ventures for actually reading what I submitted, and, that his company sees what it can become. A HUGE THANK YOU!

What Is My Idea And Whats Next?

While my career over the last 10 years has shifted from client side technologies (the web browser) and into server side technologies I still have a passion for good user experience design, without it your web site will die. This passion seems to be shared by one of the judges, specifically Marissa Myer (Google VP of Search Products and User Experience). Her impact at Google has been huge. So much of what you take for granted in Google’s products came from the teams she ran.

Below I outline specific quotes during an interview last November on CNBC with Marissa and Mark Modzelewski (Managing Director and Co-Founder of Bang Ventures).

 
When Marissa was asked to comment on the scope of what kind of applications were going to be submitted she said the following…

• “I think we are going to see a lot of different companies in a lot of different spaces…natural language, mash up and social applications.”

After hearing her say that last November I just new it was time to dig up an old project of mine that encompasses exactly those three things together and give it a shot.

When she was asked “What’s in the DNA to make a successful startup” she responded with the following statements

• “focusing on the users…working on something that really matters to people… where they use it every single day…”.
• “building a technology that can be deployed in a bunch of different ways…”
• “strength of the founding team and early players…”

Use it every single day indeed. The old adage of “there must be a better way to do this” is the why behind what I submitted. I was and still am experiencing a problem that needs a better solution and no, this isn’t one of those “my idea for web site x is better than web site y because of abc” but rather the way I go about doing this thing in particular and the need for a better method of actually doing it.

The reason why I didn’t build this myself out of my garage (other than the fact its not insulated) is related to her comments on having the right team. I could’ve made an attempt, and you never know it may have panned out. But I wanted to do it right vs. working in a vacuum. And the only way to do it right is to get the funding for a complete team, the right talent, smart talent.

What you can do to help

For starters subscribe to my blog via rss or email so that you know the instant the Judges accept my project as one of the final 20 ;-). Once that happens voting begins and your vote will make this much needed technology come to fruition.

One last note, my other posts on this blog relate to other smaller projects of mine started prior to being notified about being one of the top 100 finalist and have nothing to do with my You Be The VC application.

First lets start with the definition of a micropayment. A micropayment as defined today for the most part is a payment that is too small to be affordably processed by a payment gateway. An example would be a $1 payment that for most part comes with a 20 cent fee on top.  When the seller has to pay the fee that represents a 20% cut into revenue. You can easily see how this can add up very quickly in today’s viral Internet (the focus of this post).

Imagine if YouTube wanted to charge you 2 cents to view todays top video(2/6/2008). With 79,758 views at 2 cents per view and a 20 cent fee for the transaction, YouTube could receive $1,595 in payments and end up paying $15,951 in fees. So, the way around that obviously for YouTube is to use a payment gateway that allows the user to make deposits into an account and simply deduct from your balance over time.

So, you aren’t YouTube owned by Google and don’t have your very own payment gateway called Google Checkout? Then what is the lone ranger web application developer to do?

Use A Branded Micropayment Gateway

Content is king, usability is queen and when it comes to users handing over their credit card online the right payment gateway is God. The last thing you want your user to do on the checkout page is question the legitimacy of who they are giving their credit card to.

There are many payment gateways out there, OK tons. But, most are either laying wrapping up one of the branded gateways into their own and adding more fees on the top or more often simply have no brand recognition amongst your user base.

Branded Payment Gateways

Like I said there are many, but I, and most likely you if you are reading this need one that has an API of some sort, and, a simple and quick process for your users. Also, the most important thing for payments less than or equal to $1 is that the fees are as low as you can possibly get.

All of the following assume a “business account” vs. a “personal account” as well as a transaction between 5 cents and $1.

PayPal

PayPal is obviously leader of the pack in brand recognition, but, their fees are atrocious and their audience isn’t necessarily micropayments. For both PayPal to PayPal as well as Credit Card to PayPal payments a simple $1 transaction will cost you 33 cents.

Now, I should simply be done with talking about PayPal in the context of this post, but, if you are fine with that 33cent fee, then right now it’s your best option due to them being the long time leader in this space as well as the sheer number of your customers that are likely to have a PayPal account.

Integration Homepage - Fees

Google Checkout

Same story as PayPal with a difference in fees of 1 cent on a $1 transaction. Also, while Google has a trusting brand for your users it’s adoption is not as wide spread as PayPal.

Integration Homepage - Fees

Amazon FPS (Flexible Payment System)

The clear winner here and the largest brand bar none for your customers. While in a limited beta that I am part of I must say PayPal’s and Google’s API don’t even come close to the functionality you can build into your apps. I wont elaborate on that here but, most importantly is their 10cent fee on a $1 transaction. While 10% is a lot, it’s half of Google and PayPal’s fees and something I can live with and the end user trust is already established.

I highly recommend any social web application developer who wants to integrate micropayments to implement Amazon’s FPS. If you want a simple “buy now” button or something a tad more flexible it’s a breeze, and if you need a flexible two way interface into their gateway that’s where it really shines.

Integration Homepage & Fees

Facebook

This has the potential to be bigger than all other payment gateways. Imagine a teenagers parents give them their allowance on Friday and instead of cash, they transfer from their Facebook Wallet to their kids Facebook Wallet. Now, Facebook Wallet is just a fictitious name as I don’t have any worthy details about this other than their beta invite. But, they have a growing brand and a large user base.

Beta Sign Up (I will update this post when more info is available)

In Summary

As long as Facebook watches their privacy stance (beacon anyone?) the end user trust will be there, in the mean time (tonight) I’m implementing Amazon FPS into my Facebook application Utmost Kudos. Also, with the adoption of Open Social by the recently launched MySpace API you can bank on Facebook’s payment gateway using Open Social as well. The PayPal of social networks will be owned by Facebook, and it will happen in 2008. Well, that’s just my 2 cents anyway.