Thursday, September 03, 2009

The PayCheckr Promise



Allan Hoving showed up in the comments section of this blog post: New York Times, Don't Die, Live. Maintaining my good blogger practices, I replied to his comment. We moved from the comments sections to email to the phone to a three way with someone on his team. Some of his demo round people who had gone to sleep came back from the dead.

I have ended up with an arrangement with PayCheckr that leaves plenty of room for my primary startup, and my three active blogs. There is the promise of creating major value with the button, but then there are also the learning opportunities.

Allan took me to a media conference along the L line near the Apple store. The famed NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen was the star attraction. I got up to ask a question.

Image representing MySpace as depicted in Crun...Image via CrunchBase


The team has been telecommuting for the most part. Skype works great for conference calls. And of course there are meetings, with investors, potential partners. Allan is a big picture person. He is the visionary type.

I think PayCheckr is after something big. News, if anything, is more important than ever before. News is not dying, it is thriving like never before. But newspapers are dropping like flies. The blogosphere is expanding like the universe after the Big Bang. Somewhere in there is big money for publishers small and large. That is what PayCheckr is betting on. Money is going to be made.

Jay RosenImage via Wikipedia


PayCheckr is a good thing for me to get involved in on the side. I have three active blogs and two startups. My involvement with PayCheckr is good for my own startup: JyotiConnect Inc..

What we have out there is PayCheckr demo. We are working on PayCheckr 1.0. I am hoping PayCheckr 3.0 is a button that an entity like the New York Times would want to put on its site.

What could be PayCheckr's exit strategy? One would be to get the button on 10 million

Image representing Rupert Murdoch as depicted ...Image via CrunchBase

blogs and sell it off for 10 million dollars. But then the MySpace guys sold MySpace for $500 million and Rupert Murdoch, in weeks, turned around and got Google to pay him $900 million to be allowed to serve ads on the MySpace property. Why did not the founders cut that deal?

Steve Outing: PayCheckr: the ‘ShareThis’ for donation, pay options
As author of this blog, I’d love to have lots of options for readers to send a few cents (or dollars!) my way if they like my writing or find value in it. But this blog could easily get overwhelmed with donation graphics from all the different services! ........ I’ve been looking for the solution, which is an obvious one: a ShareThis-like widget that aggregates all the solutions for payment and/or donation. The first such solution appears to be PayCheckr........ I’ve been looking for someone to come up with something like this, and PayCheckr founder Allan Hoving appears to be the first. Somehow he evaded my radar, since minOnline gave the fledgling service a write-up in late July.
Steve Smith: PayCheckr: Let ’Em Pay! Any Way They Like
“We have customized everything else [online], why not let us choose how to pay for it?” Hoving says. ...... the button is designed to aggregate the monetization opportunities a site already uses and let the visitor decide how they want to

Image representing New York Times as depicted ...Image via CrunchBase

remunerate the owner. ....... “We may be the delightful, easy-to-use interface between the publisher and the reader,” Hoving says. “We make the introduction and then get out of the way. Another way is to get more involved in transactions and perhaps fulfillments.” ....... At the very least, PayCheckr could be a clearinghouse and analytics engine for monetization opportunities. ...... Hoving has worked in a variety of magazine positions over the years at New York, Rolling Stone and Thomson Financial.
Netizen is the very first blog that put the PayCheckr button on. Let that be noted. History got made.

PayCheckr - Keeping what's read in the black
PayCheckr.com (PayCheckr) on Twitter
PayCheckr
Netizen: PayCheckr Potential
Netizen: PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?
PayCheckr: Let 'Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
#hashtags - paycheckr
PayCheckr: Let Em Pay! Any Way They Like :: MinOnline
Twitter / PayCheckr.com: @Mediabistro @NiemanLab @T ...
paycheckr.com - Steve Outing - FriendFeed
USER-CENTRIC ONLINE REVENUE MODEL (pat. pend.) « PayCheckr
PayCheckr: This content is sponsored by PayCheckr.com
Allan Hoving - FriendFeed
Yes, News Sites Are Facing A Crisis, But Aggregators Aren't The ...
Mark Cuban Is a Big Fat Idiot—News Will Stay Free
Flickr: ahoving's Photostream
The death of snail mail & Sunday papers « BuzzMachine
Allan_Hoving on HuffingtonPost
digiday:DAILY - FT Editor Finds "Inexorable" Revenue Model
Raise Your Hand If You Think Media People Have a Future

The PayCheckr button is a piece of real estate that will increase in value as online publishing steps up to the plate, and as the button itself morphs and makes itself valuable and easy to use for publishers and bloggers in general. The challenge is to benefit from the first mover advantage but also spring forth the muscle and finesse of latecomers. It is going to be a wild ride, that's for sure.

Netizen: The First Blog To Place The PayCheckr Button
The PayCheckr Promise
PayCheckr Potential
PayCheckr: Bringing Money Into Blogging?
Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

NY Tech MeetUp: Gravitas


September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp

The September 2009 NY Tech MeetUp was really something. You had some NYU and Columbia folks demonstrate some cutting edge stuff - taking image and video search to a whole new level - and you had the inventor of the spreadsheet show up: Dan Bricklin.

Dan BricklinImage via Wikipedia



Dan was introduced by Anil Dash. Anil is a Desi like me. He has been blogging for 10 years now. He started blogging when the word blog did not exist yet, and is friends with the guy who coined the term: blog.

I shared a small anxiety with Anil: [WordPress #336657]: Not Being Able To Leave Comments.

Anil Dash On Google Wave

I showed up half an hour early and saw the point in showing up early. I bumped into Mark Peter Davis on the way up. We briefly chatted about our mutual friend Adam Carson. Adam and I met first through the NYTM mailing list.

As I walked into the hall, Nate Westheimer walked up and out.

"Is there an early bird special?" I teased him. He laughed.

Showing up early meant I got to chit chat with Anil Dash, then Dan Bricklin, and Bricklin's son in law who I sat next to the entire show.

Nate: Why Tomorrow Night's NYTM Is So Important

I lingered afterwards until they kicked us out. Then I got to hang out with two members from ScienceHouse on the sidewalk. Gabi was officially the last person to vacate the premises an

Anil DashImage via Wikipedia

d has a picture to prove it.

I guess they did not announce a bar for the after party for this one. Usually they do.

It was a relief to experience a long presentation by Bricklin. Usually the demo people get five minutes. Next you know Nate is breathing down your neck. I guess that is how he creates spots for many presenters.

Towards the end I met a Desi, a Pakistani, who had moved from Dubai only a week or so ago: Adnan Rafik. He claimed to have visited my blog. He recognized me from my picture. "Robert De Niro has only one of these!" It helped that I left a comment on the NYTM page of MeetUp that had my blog's web address.

If you have a startup, you likely have a small team. You need to show up once a month for the tech meetup to imbibe the energy of the hundreds in attendance.

I had the honor of asking the first question to Bricklin. MeetUp CEO, Founder Scott asked the second. This was my first question ever at a tech meetup. It helped that I had got to know Anil right before the show started. He spotted me and handed me the mic.

"With HTML 5 and beyond, do you think the online spreadsheets will end up with much richer functionalities and features than the desktop versions?"

He said they already have. People get to collaborate online. Many people can be working on the same spreadsheet.

"Hi, I am Paramendra with JyotiConnect Incorporated," I began.

For me personally the most touching part of Bricklin's presentation was when someone from the audience asked him if because of the One Laptop Per Child people are getting smarter everywhere.

"People are smart everywhere before the laptop," he said. "They are human." This was the utter, matter of fact non-racism of an extraordinary mind.

Before the show began, and I positioned myself behind Anil's seat and did not realize I was sitting only two seats from Bricklin - at one point I was about to ask him, excuse me, but are you someone famous - and I got into small talk with Bricklin and realized here was a guy who knew Bill Gates and Bill Gates knew before Bill Gates became Bill Gates.

"What was he like?" I asked.

"Oh. He was and is the same guy you see on Charlie Rose," he said.

I found the answer so very disarming. Bill Gates is just human.

http://twitter.com/paramendra/status/3718180749
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3719386089
http://twitter.com/DanB/status/3718554278

Dan Bricklin CNet Video





Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Ultimate Paintball


The Ultimate Paintball online store provides you with everything you need to get into the game. The prices are reasonable and shipping is free. You can choose from many brands.

Where is your paintball gear?

Get colored. Get colorful. Spread the joy.

They sell "Tippmann, Spyder, Smart Parts, Dye, Empire, Draxxus paintball gear plus many more brands."

Shipping is free.

The top selling items: "Tippmann A-5, Tippmann 98 Custom, Smart Parts Ion, Tippmann X7, and Spyder MR1."

Get in the zone, the color zone.