Dave Morin

This morning, here at the Future of Web Apps Conference in Miami, prolific 37Signals founder Jason Fried made a call to the web community: “Please start charging for your applications. Free is not the future.” Jason’s essential thesis was that we have spent too much time building free applications on the internet. And, that if you choose to charge for your application, you will out-last your free competitors.

I couldn’t agree more. I was thinking pretty extensively about this last week as it relates to one of my favorite web applications, Dopplr. They are doing incredible things with their community, their experience, and their brand. They’ve also got one of the most talented engineering teams on the planet, led by my friend Matt Biddulph. Their most recent investors are world class, including Joi Ito, Esther Dyson, Tyler Brule of Monocle, and the guys from Index Ventures.

Since their launch as a niche travel social network for frequent travelers, they’ve consistently added features and content value that continues to surpass many other experiences on the web. Last year included an awesome Facebook Application, a focus on increasing travel serendipity, and This year has seen the addition of some amazing new features such as travel tips, travel questions, groups, and the ability to keep track of all of your trips retroactively.

Late last year they took it to a new level, blurring the lines between Web and print, by creating a personalized PDF for every user called a “Personal Annual Report.” The report was beautiful, fit to print, and Matt mentioned to me that it took them almost a week to run the script they needed to run in order to deliver it to everyone. And, they just recently launched a fantastic Dopplr Shop featuring great stuff for frequent travelers.

Suffice to say, Dopplr is one seriously bad ass web brand. And, I would pay for it.

As someone who is constantly traveling the world doing the work of an Internet citizen, the value they provide me of connecting me to similar travel oriented people, their opinions, and incredibly high quality (and truly) unique content, is invaluable.

I pay a $125 yearly subscription fee for Dopplr investor Tyler Brule’s new magazine Monocle for very similar reasons. Incredible brand, high quality content, community and experience. And, involvement from terrific people. All pointing to a brand that I can invest in for the long term.

I would gladly pay a yearly subscription for Dopplr at a fair price point. So this is my call to the Dopplr team. As I look out across the web landscape, they are the shining light that could help start an important trend. I urge them to consider.

Posted from Miami, Florida

Popularity: unranked [?]

So, I love the guys at Life is Good™ and the general goodness they are spreading throughout the world. Their marketing is genius due mostly to how authentic it is. My good buddy Greg Hydle was at their world record pumpkin carving festival this weekend and made this super cool/hilarious video about it.

Check it out:

Do what you like. Like what you do.

Popularity: 43% [?]

As I have been having many more extensive conversations on the digital divide between the various currently available generations, I’ve come across some great source material in the last few weeks. But most notably one article from TechWeb: Younger Generation Embracing Technology Like Never Before

Now, this is somethign that we in the technology world have been talking about profusely over the last year or so. But, as I mentioned in a recent post, this is something that many boomers are unaware of, and very important to lend a thought to. The most notable quote from the article being:

Gen Yers spend an average of 12.2 hours online every week, which is 28 percent longer than Gen Xers and almost twice as long as older Boomers, which range from 51 to 61 years old, Forrester said. Gen Yers are 50 percent more likely than Gen Xers to send instant messages, twice as likely to read blogs and three times as likely to use social networking sites.

What this basically means is that choices on communication, collaboration, and media are being taken online by the Digital Generation (as refered to here as Gen Y, can also be called Gen M, or the Hand-Me-Up generation).

The most important underlying fact here is that our generation uses the online world as a social space. Interacting with friends, consuming media, collaborating, and creating for reconsumption back into the internet.

How does this apply to management and work space decisions? When an entire generation is used to essentially “living” part of their waking lives online.

Are 9-5 workdays as important anymore? Should the office/school/home environment be adjusted to suit different collaboration and workflow styles? Should the current social software interface styles be more like those environments? How?

Popularity: 13% [?]

At the reception for one of my best friend’s wedding this weekend, I had the fortunate opportunity to sit at a table with a family of 4 from Denver. The 13 year old son remained the topic of conversation for most of the dinner as mom had some very real concerns relating to a game that her son has been playing “too much” of, RuneScape. Mom had many concerns about her son’s privacy, quantity of gameplay, and even went so far as to say:

Sometimes I wish he would just stop playing with the thing and watch some TV.

Whoa.

This got me thinking (and talking about) the world of parenting the digital generation. Most of mom’s concerns revolved around the what she perceived to be her son’s need to make friends in the “real” world, not in the online one. Or rather, he should be playing outside with his “real friends.”

Now being that I spend most of my days thinking about (and working in) the online world, I think that I sometimes naively forget that the aggregate “we” (and mostly those currently parenting high school age children) haven’t realized that the convergence between the on and offline worlds has already happened. And, that is especially true for your children.

It used to be that your online friends and your offline friends were different sets of people. In 1999 you had a screen name on AOL with which you cloaked yourself in a veil of false privacy. Because the internet was so vast, and uncharted, that screen name helped you establish an identity online that you were comfortable with. So, you kept two sets of friends. One on, one off.

That’s all changed. The internet’s not the scary place that it used to be (though there will always be shady characters causing headlines). People understand it for the most part, and now, for your kids:

The online world is the new city park.

The games your kids play, the instant messaging that they do, and all of those social network sites they participate in are all social collaboration and learning grounds. So, be careful how much you try to fiercely control that environment. If it was the real world, you’d let your child run down the street, and play with their friends.

Remember, you can use parental controls, privacy policies, and any kind of “closed” type of technology environments on your kids. But, they’ll always find a way to sneak out the window, and go meet up with their friends to play a game of kick-the-can with their friends. Things haven’t changed all that much (they never really do). It’s just an on (and) off line world now.

The skills that they are acquiring with all of that time online are going to help them in the long run. Trust met. At the end of the conversation that night (to illustrate for mom), I turned to a work colleague of mine who manages hundreds of people, and asked him how often he uses instant messaging with his people every day. And, he explained to mom that without it, he’d never be able to get in touch with many of his people.

Instant messaging a tool he uses every day. And, he’s a boomer. A progressive one at that. Remember, I repeat, those skills your child is learning are going to be vastly important in the world that they are growing into.

Written from North Beach – San Francisco, California

Popularity: 12% [?]

Last week I was having a lot of conversations around the changing habits of my generation in relation to email. One of those conversations proved fruitful with a college friend of mine who said:

I get all of my work done through facebook and myspace. I don’t even use email anymore.

Now, this friend wasn’t talking about “hanging out” online. This friend does marketing on college campuses.

The very next day, I came across this article, discussing the demise of email in generation m. My favorite quote, is the last paragraph from a Ms. Kirah up at Microsoft:

For that reason, she says bosses should go right ahead and use their e-mail — and should not feel threatened by IM.

“Like parents, they try to control their children,” she says. “But companies really need to respond to the way people work and communicate.”

The focus, she says, should be the outcome.
“Nine to 5 has been replaced with ‘Give me a deadline and I will meet your deadline,’ ” Ms. Kirah says of young people’s work habits. “They’re saying ‘I might work until 2 a.m. that night. But I will do it all on my terms.’ “

And, I can’t agree more. This drives down one of my earlier posts talking about the changing perception of time. Our generation grew up with the internet, using it as a knowledge tool throughout our entire lives. Instant messaging enables fast collaboration, worldwide. Social networking sites ensure you can always find collaboration partners no matter where they are. Thus, having to “know” an email address (which may change due to a wedding, new job, etc) is becoming a thing of the past.

Managing digital natives is as easy as saying: here’s your deadline, get it done. We’ll take off on a worldwide information tour gathering the best feedback for the project, quickly and effeciently. Because, due to tools like Facebook, not only do we know where to find each other, but we know what jobs everyone is doing and what skills they have aquired.

We’ll get the best answers and solutions to the problem or project. Then, see you in the presentation

(A quick early morning follow up: JP Rangaswami did a great follow up from London last night check it out)

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