Another idea

Recently, I’ve been writing about ideas I have about products that would be neat to create. And this post is another one of those posts.

I was talking with my roommate RJ about the failures of foursquare and facebook events. RJ was once ardently our VP of Communications for our house/group of friends. He would coordinate anyone who wanted to hang out. He was good at it and during the peak of his reign we would typically have a large group of friends that did things together. We were “rolling deep.” It seemed easy and natural, but thats because he put a lot of work into it that we didn’t really notice.

Then we got girlfriends and the whole thing died because he was happy spending time only with the girlfriend. Can’t blame him for that. I was fine because I had a girlfriend too. Neither of our girlfriends lasted very long, but he got a new one fairly quickly after the relationship with the first girlfriend (of this story) ended. I didn’t. There was gaping whole that was once a strong, large social circle and, later, a smaller one but with a girlfriend. I had to step up my coordinating abilities and I think I’ve done fairly well at it. The social scene has changed (matured) so its a little different. 

Needless to say, there is still that coordinating effort. Its becoming more dynamic. No longer the days of getting wasted was what everyone wants to do. College is over or near the end. People get jobs, have responsibilities, enter into more mature relationships, etc. 

Going back to the product idea. What would a product that addresses this social scene’s needs. Foursquare is too passive and not enough people are on it. I could check in somewhere, but my 4 other friends who somewhat actively foursquare won’t act on that. It’s not social enabler. I think it’s best use is not to engage in social activities, but to track them.

Facebook events are slowly fading in popularity and utility. Once you could plan your weekend by them. It seems like they have no exclusivity. When you get invited to an event, does the person truly want you there, or is he/she simply trying to play the numbers game. Essentially, its too easy to invite every one of your 500 facebook friends. 

Is there a way to create a product that engages users, ie prompting real life activity? It would have to be social, but have strong elements of exclusivity. Groups of friends are that, groups of friends.  It means that when you get a message from someone, its because they want you there, not because they didn’t want to uncheck your name. 

Also, it has to engage the user. Rather than going onto a website (and unless its facebook, twitter or gmail) that isn’t checked daily, why doesn’t the website go to you? Text message are ubiquitous with user engagement. It’s one of those things where people check it at LEAST 5-10 times a day. Knowing that, lets engage the user by have them interact via text message (and maybe an app for smart phones later). If we can incorporate the text messages into a format we’re all familiar with on the web, we can garner the utility that web apps have.

So how would it work? I’ll try to play out the example to further what I’m envisioning. I want to see if people want to do something tonight. I either log on to the website, or text the website’s phone number, signaling the group of friends I want to ask. So, “You interested in doing something tonight?” … that sends a text message to the group members. They respond, opting in or opting out. Then that compiles a list of yays and nays. The yays are then added to a new list, and then you can continue on developing your plans with those who want to hang out.  Fundamentally that is it, but I think there can be a lot of cool features that can be developed around that. One having a system that processes what is said, so you can respond like a normal text message, but having the system still process it like I explained above. Others examples could be addresses, local, mobile features that would be interesting addition. 

It would be best to keep it simple to sign up. Early adapters could get their “normals” to be part of the process. By having exclusivity, large scale won’t be required for creating utility. All you need is your friends.  If you can get 1 person to initiate their 10 closest friends, simply via text or something, and have excellent usability for all involved, maybe 2 of those friends will immediately adapt to a more active user, initiating their 10 closest friends. As circles expand, the growth could be natural and simple. 

Interesting idea, and it is seemingly fairly simple in the initial stages. This might be something I’ll pursue to sharpen my nerd/web design abilities. Added bonus is that if I build it, then I can also use it :)