Starting Up: The Blog of Brenden Mulligan

Hello there, i love your webbygram, is there anyway to share my Instagram gallery to public (for non-instagram users)?

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:31:22 -0700

Yes, that’s been added. As long as you log in with Instagram, you can share it with anyone!

Hello and excuse for using this mediumhow do I enter Webbygram to view the comments made about my work??thanks Jorge Rosensvaig.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 17:31:04 -0700

You just need to sign into Webbygram with an instagram account and then go to the photo you want to see the comments on.

Uber Experiments With Lower-Priced Taxis

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 17:26:02 -0700

Uber Experiments With Lower-Priced Taxis:

A few days ago, Uber announced that it was going to start an experiment with getting existing taxis involved. I was absolutely thrilled to hear the news.

While I’m a fan of Uber and know people on the team, I rarely feel like I need the full Uber experience. I split Uber’s value offer into the following buckets:

Uber makes it easy to find the closest driver
Uber guarantees someone will actually pick you up
Uber gives you a car with a clean interior and usually calm, responsible driver
Uber makes paying easy and frictionless

I detailed this out a bit more in a post I did for TechCrunch called Reduce Friction, Increase Happiness. In it, I summarized my opinion of Uber with:

Uber has reduced all the friction. What was a tedious process before is a seamless, pleasurable interaction. The most important thing Uber provides its users is that frictionless experience. The fact that it’s a black car means it’s generally an aesthetically nicer experience (and with SF Taxis, that can make a big difference), but that’s a small detail compared to the other benefits of using the service.

So it’s clear that what I truly value about Uber isn’t the fancy, it’s the easy. It’s knowing that when I order a car, someone will pick me up. I dont even care about the payment stuff. I really just care about the reliability of the ride.

You don’t get this reliability with cabs in San Francisco, which is why Uber is such a hit here. But that doesn’t mean I want cabs to go away and be replaced with higher priced town cars. I love disruption, but I dont want the existing system replaced. I want it improved.

It’s because of this that I’ve been excited for apps like Cabulous and Hailo to exist. But while these apps have the potential to make a big impact, they haven’t delivered yet. They still haven’t nailed the “guarantees someone will actually pick you up” aspect. And that’s all I really care about.

So, this is why I’m really excited to hear about Uber getting into the taxi business. If they’re app, rating system, and user base can quickly create a community of reliable cabs, then I dont think I’d ever use another taxi app again. I can’t wait for it to come to SF.

Uber, put me on your SF beta list!

“so intense yet peaceful” - elle

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:43:10 -0700

“so intense yet peaceful” - elle

I’ve always had a strong emotional relationship with large...

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 16:42:10 -0700

I’ve always had a strong emotional relationship with large bodies of water. I’ve naturally gravitated living close to them (Chesapeake Bay in Baltimore, Lake Michigan in Chicago, and the Pacific in San Diego and San Francisco).

Thanks to Elle for sending this over.

Introducing Webbygram, my vision of how Instagram on the web should feel.

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:12:00 -0700

Synopsis: I’m tired of Instagram not having a simple web app. So I built one.

I’m a huge, huge, huge Instagram fan. As a user, I’ve been enjoying the app for well over a year. I’ve posted 750 photos. I’ve probably made at least as many likes and I comments. I love the app.

As a developer, I’ve also been a long time fan. About a year ago, I launched PhotoPile, a simple, fun way to view Instagram photos on the web. Then, I launched MorningPics, a way to refresh old memories through a daily email. Both apps have done well and are completely built on top of the Instagram platform.

In fact, PhotoPile has done so well that Drew from The Next Web wrote a piece about it in January titled “This app nails what your Instagram profile should look like”, even saying:

The folks who made PhotoPile would be a good group of designers to bring in [to build the web version of Instagram].

Of course I was flattered since I did all the design and engineering work, but I actually disagreed with Drew. Although PhotoPile is a fun experience, there are a bunch of reasons why it wouldn’t make sense as the official Instagram web app. So I’ve been patiently waiting for Instagram to finally release their own.

Several other apps have built Instagram on the web experiences, including Webstagram. Although they’ve all been interesting, none of them resemble enough of the design and product ethos that exists in the native apps.

Instagram is put on a pedestal for being “mobile first”, meaning they launched on mobile before they launched on the web. But that term isn’t “mobile only”. Unfortunately, that’s how Instagram has stayed. They provide some very rough web views of individual photos, but that’s it.

Some would say that Instagram doesn’t need a web presence. I disagree. When I click an Instagram link on Twitter, I want to have a slightly similar experience than I would within the app. I want to be able to like the photo, or comment, or dig deeper and see what other photos that user has posted. I don’t need to be able to change settings, or even see my own home screen. I just want to interact with posted photos.

Path has managed to create a beautiful “mobile first” product with a beautiful accompanying web view. They didn’t port the whole app to the web. They just brought the important interaction points. I brought this up on Twitter the other day.

.@Path proved you can be mobile first and still have a light, interactive, and useful web presence. Wish @Instagram would follow their lead.
— Brenden Mulligan (@mulligan) April 13, 2012

But instead of just continuing to bitch about it, I’m going to try to contribute. I did this a few months ago with Uber’s UI, and it ended up being a useful exercise when the company actually improved the UI.

the updated surge pricing screen seems to take into account some feedback from OneSheet creator Brenden Mulligan on his blog after the New Year’s Eve debacle.

Source: GigaOm

So I sat back and thought, what would the official Instagram Web UI look like? The result: Webbygram. A silly name, I know, but who cares.

It allows you to see a photo, like it, comment on it, and browse around. That’s it. It’s not supposed to completely mirror the Instagram native apps (so you wont see account settings). It’s meant to bring the important interaction points to a web interface.

Here are some of the rules I used when building it:

It’s all about the images. Make them bold and beautiful.
The colors and assets should be consistent between the app and the web. The icons are from Instagram. The brown background is from their website (which I used because there is no background in the app). The link colors are the same as within the app.
The format should feel similar to the app. Although the web browser has greater width, I think one of the joys of Instagram is scrolling through one photo at a time. So I used the centered format to keep this interaction.
Photos can have their own page. Within the app, photos are just part of a stream. Because it’s the web, they all can have their own page. This is, after all, what people link to on social networks.
Photo lists can be simplified. Because the photos get their own page, I used this as an opportunity to simplify the photo lists. I moved all the likes, comments, and captions onto the photo pages (except liking on the lists - see #7). This allows for the photo lists to focus more on the actual photos (see #1).
Make users more human. Because the web has more space, I wanted to make the contributors (likers, commenters) more visual and tangible. In the app, it just lists usernames. On Webbygram, it shows their photo and lists their full name if available.
Liking photos from the list has to be easy. The double tapping in the app is so simple, that I wanted to make liking a photo on the web just as easy. When you hover over a photo on a list, you reveal a button that allows you to easily like the photo.
The interface has to be minimal. The native apps are beautifully minimal, I wanted the web app to be as well. I tried to add the least amount of information as possible to each interaction.
Photo metadata has to be browsable. In the native app, you can click a username and go to that user’s page, or click a hashtag and see all the photos with that hashtag. This is one of the biggest deficiencies of the Instagram web experience today. On Webbygram, everything is browsable. You can keep discovering new photos as you click usernames, user photos, hashtags, and soon, locations.
It has to be simple.

So, with all this, I present Webbygram. It was a fun project to build that used a bunch of the codebase of PhotoPile with a whole new front end. (Another rule was that I needed to build it in under 12 hours). Hopefully you like it.

I fully expect members of the community to tear it apart, tell me why I’m wrong, etc.. If you do, please link to it in a comment, so all the discussion around this is centralized.

Hat-tips to: Ryan Marshall for writing the code that allows users to actually like and comment on photos. Danny Trinh for the Path web UI, which I used for inspiration. Elle Luna for helping me find a name. Instagram for building a phenomenal app and community.

brycedotvc: It wasn’t long ago that the billion dollar...

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 00:03:00 -0700

brycedotvc:

It wasn’t long ago that the billion dollar Instagram boys set out to debunk 8 startup myths to a room full of Stanford Mayfield fellows. At the time of this video, the service had about 4 million users. Earlier this week they announced having added that many users in just a matter of days. My how time flies.

But the advice and insights shared here really are timeless. From the “bar exam”; i.e., a test to see whether you’re able to explain your product to a friend in a bar without losing their attention, to the 6ft tall 1 yr. old; ie, scaling up a company before it’s ready or needed, there are some real gems in here.

As they talk it seems their primary takeaways are to believe in yourself, trust your instincts and build the product that only you can build. But most importantly, just start.

Priceless advice and required weekend viewing.

Caines Arcade: Kid from East LA builds arcade out of cardboard....

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 19:17:04 -0700

Caines Arcade: Kid from East LA builds arcade out of cardboard. Flash Mob arrives. Joy ensues.

Micah Baldwin told me about this a few days ago, but I forgot to watch it. Then tonight Crystal English tweeted about it. It’s wonderful. Watch it.

This photo of lightning striking the Bay Bridge really is...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:55:27 -0700

This photo of lightning striking the Bay Bridge really is incredible.

Japanese Yen is my favorite paper currency design. I love the...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 13:16:00 -0700

Japanese Yen is my favorite paper currency design.

I love the size (they are slightly longer and talled than the USD), the paper’s weight, the texture, and the artwork. It’s beautiful and sophisticated.

I’ll eventually write a longer post about it. Just thought I’d randomly declare my love for the design.

Will Google+ focus on what's working, or force feed us what they wish was working?

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 09:07:00 -0700

I opened Tumblr to write about Google+, and of course, MG Siegler had already written a great post with a lot of what I was going to say. The overall thesis of what I wanted to talk about is:

The point is that if Google+ is so great, shouldn’t Google be straightforward about the service and how it’s actually being used? Instead, it looks like they have something to hide.

Source

I totally agree with this.

When the big number they release is 170+ million users, it’s clear that something isn’t totally working. We all know they get those users from their distribution network and product integration, not people saying “OMG I NEED TO GET ON GOOGLE+ IMMEDIATELY.” And that’s fine, having a network like that to onboard people is a result of all the hard work Google has done up to this point. In short, they deserve the access to those users.

But now that they have them, it’s important to understand what “users” really means. And that’s where the metrics Google releases falls short.

We have no clue how those users are actually contributing to Google+. As a personal example, I go to Google+ when someone links to it on Twitter. But that’s it. The only other time I might contribute / visit Google+ is when I want to +1 something and add a comment to it. But that’s rare, because the only things I usually do that for are my own posts. Check out my Google+ profile to see the examples.

What metrics might actually matter?

Compelling headlines might be “Avg Google+ user spends over 90 minutes per day browsing Google+” or “Google+ users post 5 times on average to their page every day”. Those kind of metrics would show that the site is being used.

But since there isn’t a firehose API for another company to dig into, unless Google releases more info, we just dont know. So those of us that pay attention can assume it’s not working.

I feel like this is an opportunity for Google to actually have a conversation about what is working and what isn’t. Tell us that “Hangouts are a breakout success. Users are spending an average of 45 minutes per hangout.” Then also say “The whole circles thing isn’t working. People create them once, but dont update them. We’re working on things to make that easier.”

But they wont. Companies rarely talk about this stuff verbally. Fortunately, many companies do open the kimono in the way they iterate the product. Generally, they take one of two paths:

Focus on the stuff that’s working. (This is how Instagram evolved from Burbn).
Force the stuff that’s not working down a user’s throat in an effort to try to make it work.

So it will be interesting to see how Google+ chooses to evolve. If they choose #1, I think it could turn out to be interesting. If they take the second route, it’s time to wave goodbye to all the buzz Google+ launched with.

About a year ago, I was standing on top of Machu Picchu and...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:09:00 -0700

About a year ago, I was standing on top of Machu Picchu and taking a photo to post to Instagram when I realized that I’d probably never see this photo again. It would exist in my Instagram stream for a while and then disappear.

I started thinking that it would be amazing to get a random reminder of these kinds of memories each morning. The idea for MorningPics came out of that moment. I returned home and built it.

Last week, MorningPics sent me the Machu Picchu photo.

Mission accomplished.

Last night I gave a talk to a huge group of Japanese...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:55:00 -0700

Last night I gave a talk to a huge group of Japanese entrepreneurs through an event sponsored by Open Network Lab. The topic was exploring the subtleties around launching a product, specifically Setting Goals, Choosing Metrics, Visualizing Metrics, Launch Promotion, and Gathering Feedback.

Thanks to Hiro Maeda and everyone who came out! Was a blast!

Hiro Maeda (@djtokyo), through his incubator Open Network Lab,...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:49:00 -0700

Hiro Maeda (@djtokyo), through his incubator Open Network Lab, is making a huge difference to the Japanese startup ecosystem. With the backing of Digital Garage and Netprice, they have graduated 4 classes of entrepreneurs in 2 years.

I’ve had the chance to meet with many of the teams, and they’re really impressive. Follow Hiro and Onlab to see how they continue to grow this community!

Photo Credit: Elle Luna

When the new @Rdio launched, I complained that it was too much...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:18:36 -0700

When the new @Rdio launched, I complained that it was too much like Spotify.

New @Rdio is beautiful, but it’s a shame that it’s so much less unique than Spotify. They copied so much / everything.
— Brenden Mulligan (@mulligan) March 13, 2012

Lead Rdio designer Wilson Miner replied:

@mulligan We spent a lot of time with it. We made what we felt were the right choices for the experience. Sometimes patterns emerge.
— Wilson Miner (@wilsonminer) March 13, 2012

After using the new UX for a few weeks, Wilson is right. It’s a great new experience. Wilson and his team did an excellent job with the new version. It’s great, and there are lots of subtle, delightful surprises throughout the UI. That are far ahead of Spotify.

Wilson, sorry for being a jerk! :)

"A single VC firm entering or leaving the seed market will make just as much of a difference as a..."

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:36:26 -0700

“A single VC firm entering or leaving the seed market will make just as much of a difference as a Facebook IPO, just because VC firms have so much more capital that they put to work regularly.”

- Naval Ravikant from This Week In Startups

This interview with @naval from AngelList is outstanding. An...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:35:32 -0700

This interview with @naval from AngelList is outstanding. An amazing view into the world of angel investing.

Dirty Pillows: Subtleties of unregulated collaborative consumption services

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:25:00 -0700

This post originally appeared on TechCrunch

When my wife and I travel, we rarely stay in hotels. We usually either stay in hostels or apartments. The apartments are usually found and booked on Airbnb. We’re big fans of the service, and think it’s one of the best ways to experience a foreign city. However, some recent events have made me think a bit deeper about this maturing marketplace and the whole spectrum of collaborative consumption services.

We are currently on a trip to Tokyo for an speaking engagement and some mentoring of the teams at Open Network Lab, a Tokyo-based incubator I wrote about last fall during our last Tokyo visit.

Last night, we arrived to our apartment. The amenities and space was almost exactly as described. But there was something about our place that didn’t appear in the Airbnb description, which almost made us walk out immediately: the cleanliness of the bedding.

After 24 hours of traveling, got to a disgusting @airbnb place. Not happy we are stuck here 5 nights. Provided pillows: twitter.com/mulligan/statu…
— Brenden Mulligan (@mulligan) March 31, 2012

Luckily, both the host and Airbnb have been extremely responsive and helpful with the issue and we’ve got it resolved (the pillows and sheets are being replaced). But it got me thinking about a few subtle aspects of collaborate consumption.

Lack of Consistent Health / Cleanliness Standards

When you stay at a hotel, there’s a certain level of cleanliness you expect. That level is probably directly proportional with the price you are paying, but even at budget hotels, you still expect a decently clean room. And the worst case scenario is that your room isn’t what you want, you can try to switch to one that’s more suited for your needs.

But personal apartments are different. There is no baseline of cleanliness, and no immediate options if it doesn’t suit your needs. If when you check into a hotel room, you see a big stain in the middle of the bed, you can ask to switch rooms, or at the very least to get new sheets. But when you check into an apartment in a foreign city, you don’t have that option. There’s a small chance you can be moved to a different apartment, but that might be in a totally different neighborhood, with different amenities, etc..

I think that’s a subtle but very important dynamic. Essentially, when you choose to stay in an apartment, you are making a gamble. Most of the time, the gamble results in a more positive overall experience, but in the times it doesn’t, it really leaves a negative impression.

To be clear, I love @Airbnb. But when every pillow provided looks soaked in every body fluid imaginable, hotels seem appealing.
— Brenden Mulligan (@mulligan) March 31, 2012

Sometimes the trade off of a more local experience isn’t worth the chance of dirty sheets.

I’ve found a similar experience when renting cars from RelayRides, GetAround, or Zipcar. In general, the interiors of the vehicles are dirtier than a traditional rental cars. The reasons for this are obvious. Rental car companies prep the cars for each renter, the same way hotels clean / prep the rooms for each guest. But with the economics of car sharing by the hour, it doesn’t make sense to professionally clean a car every time someone wants to pay $10 to take it to IKEA.

As more of these companies come into existence, it’ll be interesting to see if a set of standards is developed so renters / guests can come to expect a certain amount of cleanliness when reserving a car/apartment/etc…. That will most likely increase consumer confidence in these services and take them closer to mainstream use.

Professionals service providers are more attune to when items “expire”

Hotels make a business out of rotating people through its rooms night after night. I’ve never worked in the industry, but I’d assume there is some kind of schedule about when they replace certain things. For example, maybe a hotel has an internal policy to replace the pillows once a month.

But most people renting their spaces on Airbnb or Homeaway probably don’t think about this stuff, because they’re not professionals. They are just making some extra cash from their places.

It’d be interesting to see these services help owners by adding some alerts to their dashboard. Maybe after they have logged 60 consecutive days of bookings, an email is sent to the host saying “We recommend you replace the pillows and sheets”.

Even better, maybe there’s a way for the hosts to mark in their account that this has happened, so potential renters can see “Pillows replaced 23 days ago” in the profile. I know this seems minor but think about it: you are smashing your face (and mouth) into the pillow for 8 straight hours. You should care about how many other people did this on the same pillow.

TripAdvisor brought transparency to hotel photos; Airbnb does the opposite.

When TripAdvisor launched, it gave us all an opportunity to see what hotel rooms actually look like. It was amazing. We got to see beyond the stock photos hotels post on their website and get a glimpse of what the real bed and bathroom we will be experiencing. It was great, and brought accountability to the whole industry.

But Airbnb is almost the total opposite from a photography standpoint:

We extend a professional photography program that offers immense value. Professionally photographed listings get booked twice as often as those without professional photography since high-resolution photos really showcase your space.

Source: Airbnb Support

This is an awesome service that they provide and they’re really smart to do it. They bring in a photographer — with a wide angle lens, it seems like — to stage the apartment and make it feel as bright and spacious as possible. And it works; the places look huge!

But this also has negative consequences. For almost every apartment I’ve rented on Airbnb, my first thoughts were “this is smaller than it looked online”. I’ve come to expect this, so it’s never a surprise, but for new Airbnb-ers, it could be a turnoff.

But this doesn’t bother me. The thing that bothers me is that although they let me write reviews, I can’t post my own photos.

I want to see the glamor shots, and think they should always appear on the front page, but I also think it’d be useful to see the real photos of these places. I can see why Airbnb wouldn’t want that on their site (because the renter photos will undoubtably look MUCH worse than the provided ones), but it’d be nice for this to exist somewhere.

Regardless if it’s apartments, cars, or hotels, when you rent from a well known brand, you inherently start with a basis of trust in how the end product will appear in comparison to how its represented on their website. When renting from another person, there isn’t that basis of trust, which is why reviews from other users are so important and the addition of visual elements can enhance those reviews.

Going Forward

Collaborative consumption is amazing and is here to stay. But as these services grow in usage and enter the mainstream, they will continually need to add more elements that make the experience across their inventory more consistent.

I can’t wait to continue to watch as this dynamic matures and see the new things that become standard across these sharing marketplaces.

How to Fix the Relevance Issue in Highlight

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 11:11:00 -0700

Last weekend, I wrote a post on TechCrunch called “Why Highlight Wasn’t A Breakout Success At SXSW”. Although it sparked some controversy, especially around my logo rant, one part of my message that was lost to some was that I actually think the idea of Highlight is solid. My point was that we shouldn’t have expected SXSW to be the place it exploded.

So, to continue to understand the usefulness of the app, I reinstalled it when I got back from SXSW and have been using it for a few weeks. This has led me to uncover the single enhancement that would drastically change the value of the app for me.

Let users define what relevance means.

One of my criticisms was that Highlight set the bar too low. It notifies you in many non-relevant situations, such as when you have one friend in common, or have liked the same thing on Facebook. I suggested that Highlight raise the bar for what is a relevant connection:

But on services like Highlight, most people would rather get one extremely relevant notification about a possible connection than ten somewhat loose connections. If I walk past someone on the street and Highlight tells me they also like Sigur Ros, that’s not going to make me stop everything and connect with them. But if they like Sigur Ros, and we have 10 very solid friends in common, and are from the same town, then I get interested.

Highlight just set the bar too low. They know this, and they’re working on it. But they should have just raised it before SXSW.

But after a couple weeks of using it normal circumstances, I realize that I’m wrong. Highlight shouldn’t raise the bar, it should let me define the bar.

Personally, I think Highlight is worth having on my phone (especially if they can solve perceived battery issues). But I’ll disable it again if it keeps alerting me when I’m around some person who I really dont have much in common with. In my case, I would like to set it to alert me when I’m around someone who I have 15 friends in common with or more. Personally, I dont care about shared interests, because I dont “Like” everything I’m interested in on Facebook. But I do keep my friend graph fairly up to date there.

But I’m unique, like everyone who uses the app. A more networked person might only want alerts when someone with over 50 connections is near. Or someone who is a high fan of a certain TV show might only want alerts when another person who likes that TV is near.

My point is that everyone is different, and everyone will have a different preference for getting alerted about a potential “relevant” connection. So I think Highlight should just make this part of the onboarding process.

This single change would make the app about 100x times more useful for me. Sure, I wouldn’t get as many notifications so the app wouldn’t be as active in my life, but when I got a notification, it would mean a lot more to me and I would pay close attention to every one.

Elle and I will be speaking to Entrepreneurs in Tokyo in a few weeks

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:26:00 -0700

Elle and I will be speaking to Entrepreneurs in Tokyo in a few weeks:

We will be having an event with @elleluna & @mulligan on design and post-launch startup strategy - bit.ly/GzYnAz
— Open Network Lab (@on_lab) March 21, 2012

I’m very excited to return to Tokyo and speak with the local entrepreneurial community in a few weeks. The event link is above.

Elle and I were invited to speak by Open Network Lab, an incubator we visited the last time we were in Japan (I wrote a post on TechCrunch about our visit).

See you soon Japan!