Mike’s posterous

My NomX3 cohost is putting together his second annual NogUp next week and I thought I do a little practice round to warm up.

This is how it's done.

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Mike Langford
Tweet Me: @MikeLangford
Call Me: 617.699.9835

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Jeff Cutler and I will be covering this topic during a taping of NomX3 at Dynamite Sushi and we would love to hear your thoughts. Which factors do you consider in your decision making process? Below is a quick list I pulled out of the air but I am sure there are many more. Please share your decision process in the comment section.

• Content
• Attendees - Who will be there?
• Distance
• Cost
• Relevancy to You and Your Business
• Lead Generation Potential
• Food and Beverages (Open Bar?)
• Other Events - Are you willing to go out every night or do you attend one event per week?
• Time of Day

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Foursquare is a fun game and in some cases a useful tool. I've become quite fond of it despite a bout of craziness that ensued early on in my Foursquare usage. That little bit of insanity however did give me pause and made me think about how I wanted to use the application. Below is a short list of criteria that I use to determine whether I will friend someone on Foursquare:

1. Do I know you well enough to feel comfortable in letting you know where I am and where I've been? I'm not an overly paranoid person but if you and I just met last night and you are sending me a Foursquare invite this morning, you probably aren't going to make the cut immediately.
2. Are you a fun person? As you can see by the "bout of craziness" link above this is not an exact science. To me, Foursquare is a great app for having fun with friends. My buddy Chad Northrup and I are constantly ribbing each other over the Mayorship of our favorite liquor store and Starbucks. I like having fun and I don't mind other people poking fun at me, that's who I am. If I don't feel that you could handle a little teasing from time to time then you aren't right for my list.
3. Do I want you to comment on my location or potentially show up after I've checked in? This is an odd one but SO important. There are a lot of people whom I would call friends, and sometimes family members fit here too, but I wouldn't want them seeing me check in to Starbucks. Why? Because they have demonstrated stalker-like and time sucking vortex powers of epic proportions. We all have these friends. We love them but we can only take them in small doses. If you are a "I'll see you when I see you type of friend" then you aren't going on my list.

That's pretty much it. It's not a self righteous bullshit list where I tell you how you MUST use Foursquare to stay in my good graces. It's a social tool that I use for fun and to stay connected with other fun people.

BTW: I'm not offended if I don't make your cut. I've got several people who have yet to accept my Foursquare invites and I'm not losing sleep over it. I'm sure they've got their criteria too.

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Developers bitch about Apple's App Store but iPhone/iPod users spend $200 million a month there. Who's the app store built for? You guessed it, the iPhone and iPod touch user. It's not that Apple doesn't care about the developers, they just care more about the people giving them money.

The app developers are users of the app store, by virtue of the fee they pay to the developer program they are customers too, but Apple is smart in focusing on the application discovery and delivery process as it's top priority. $200 million per month smart. Now I know Apple has a monopoly and users have no other choice but to use the app store to get applications on their devices but I think most people would agree the process of finding and installing an application couldn't be much easier. And it is this ease of use for the paying customer that has made Apple billions.

Customers exchange money for things they value. So the question you as a business person need to answer is "what do I have that is valuable and who will pay me for it?" Once you have the answer focus your attention on maximizing the experience for that group of people.

In Apple's case, developers are great and they will pay to play because they need access to Apple's distribution system but everyone in the ecosystem knows it's all about the person with the iPhone in his hand. Why do you think Apple can sometimes seem almost hostile to the developer? It's because their first priority is to the happiness of the end consumer. They know that as long as there are millions of iPhone users cruising the app store there will be no shortage of app developers looking for shelf space.

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Mike Langford
Tweet Me: @MikeLangford
Call Me: 617.699.9835

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This is ShortMan's entry for his school's pumpkin fest celebration this weekend. The boy loves Scooby Doo.

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Mike Langford
Tweet Me: @MikeLangford

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