Texts, Teens and a Tale of Two Twitters: a Second-Go at Group Messaging

In March 2008 the Paste team made its annual pilgrimage to SXSW. I was producing three days of concerts that year and was dreading the amount of coordination required. So when Paste's tech-savvy co-founder Tim Regan-Porter suggested we all sign-up for a service that would let us text each other in a group, I was intrigued.

The service was called Twitter.

I signed-up for Twitter that day and activated it so that I could send and receive "tweets" as texts. Everyone else on the Paste staff did the same. This would allow one of us to send out a tweet via text (ex: "I need help backstage! Anyone around the venue?") and quickly reach all 10 people on staff.

This is what I expected Twitter to become: a group texting service. Why else would anyone constrain a message to 140 characters, right?

We all know the rest of the story (and had understood how important brevity would be in the Twittersphere, I would not have picked a 15-character username).

But what about that group SMS function that got me to sign-up for Twitter in the first place? Why didn't that stick?

Well, a host of new start-ups are trying to resurrect that service... only they seem a few years late to a party that no one showed up to in the first place.

In 2006 Yahoo! tried its hand at group texting with Mixd, while Twitter, Dodgeball and Zemble were also identified as promising multi-purpose SMS services by Techcrunch. Those services were either shutdown or evolved past the group SMS piece of the business model.

So what makes this the time for companies like GroupMe and Rabbly to emerge?

There's the exclusivity piece of it. All friends and followers are not created equal, so as our social networks expand, something like selective group messaging could be a valuable way to post status-like updates to only a handful of people.

Then there are the teens. I'm no longer a teenage girl, but I could see how this would be helpful in keeping up with a clique. Nielsen reports that the average American teen sends nearly 3,400 text messages a month. This group of consumers also rely less on email than their 18 and over counterparts. Not a bad customer group to go after.

There's also international markets, where SMS usage is generally higher than it is in the US.

Still, with smartphone adoption growing, and phone plans becoming all encompassing (text, voice and data for one flat fee) it could be that the new Facebook Groups or good ol' email will serve the need for the group messaging just fine (at least amongst smartphone users).

Will group SMS be the next It Thing, or is it, like, so 2006?

Discuss below, my Blogosphere friends...

The London startup scene: Party like a rock star?

Too much funding and boozing? Not enough collaboration and execution?

Sounds like criticism reserved for troubled rock stars on the brink of a break-up, but Ben Colclough sees the same problems in the startup scene (specifically in London).

TechCrunch: The London startup scene: Too much funding, boozing and not enough collaboration and execution

Reminds me of a nice analogy drawn out by Shane Snow and referenced by Fred Wilson, which compares a Rock Band to a Tech Start-Up. I agree that the analogy is pretty spot on, except that it does not address what happens "if all goes wrong"... and chances are, it will.

Consider that in 2008, 106,000 new albums were released, but only 64 albums went Gold in 2009; meanwhile, 11,716 venture deals were struck between 2007 and 2009, but there were only 104 IPOs over that same time period (according to Thompson Reuters). Signing with a record label or a VC does not guarantee success, but sales sure will. I agree with Colclough that more time and attention needs to be paid to this piece of entrepreneurship.

Not that it should be all work and no play, though. Take Music Hackday London, which encourages collaboration and networking, but is centered around executing something quickly.

Work hard and have fun, but save the real celebration for later.

Read the full post at TechCrunch

Caren Explains Ringo, Entrepreneurs and the Unluckiest Man in the World

Unless you're a Beatlemaniac, like me, you probably don't know much about Pete Best, the original drummer for The Beatles, who is often referred to as the "unluckiest man in the world."

Pete joined The Beatles (then called The Quarrymen) in 1960, nearly four years before the band appeared on The Ed Sullivan show. But in 1962, Pete was replaced by drummer Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr.

From my entrepreneurship classes I've come to realize that there are a lot of Pete Bests in the world: namely, entrepreneurs who are ousted from their companies right before pay day, or those who find their equity so diluted that they walk away with very little* to show for their innovation and endeavors [of course, "very little" could mean a fraction of multimillion or billion-dollar deals].

To draw out this thought a little more, let's consider why Pete Best may have been asked to leave The Beatles: poor fit? poor performance? didn't look or act the part? politics of the record industry? [According to The Beatles Anthology, it was the later -- at the suggestion of Parlophone Records]

Now let's think about an unlucky founder/CEO and why, after funding is secured, he is asked to leave the company: poor fit? poor performance? didn't look or act the part? politics? ... could be any or all of the above.

The young Beatles franchise, like any entrepreneurship, was a business. The record producers wanted to get the most out of their investment, and therefore wanted the "right" team in place. I highlight the word "right" because it's possible that the band would have earned such acclaim even with Pete Best behind the drum kit... but I'd sure rather be Ringo than the guy who didn't see it coming.

With the release of Rock Band: The Beatles and The Beatles Stereo Box Set this week, Pete must either be curled up in the fetal position, or laughing it off. I suppose that depends on how he measures success. According to Wikipedia, Pete and his wife have been married for 40+ years, whereas three of four Beatles divorced their first spouses. Maybe that success is more important to him than money ("money can't buy me love").