Few cool sites of note

Sony introduced me to: app.net last week, this should have some legs. Smart way for app’s to have their own web presence outside of app stores. I’m intrigued because this is similar to our single vacation home theme websites.
-I’m partial as I have a stake in surfbreakrentals.com, but it’s a niche vacation rental directory built for surfers. All the surfbreaks are indexed around the world, then beach vacation rentals get associated to them.
–Tourwrist.com – really cool solution for vacation owners that want to provide 3d tours. It’s an iphone app, they host the video, they offer awesome embed script for you sites.

more to come…

Usability testing – usertesting.com

This is really smart, will be keeping this one in my notes for future use. http://www.usertesting.com/

Product Dev. tool: Balsamiq for wireframes

I was introduce to balsamiq recently, great tool for wireframing.

Rio De Janeiro – My new home!

Only a few short weeks away and I’m off for a new chapter of life in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. During my time here at Rocket Space in San Francisco, I have met numerous Brazilian start ups which has led to an apartment swap for a few months. Everything I’ve heard from my new Brazilian friends is that Rio is the place to be right now and this nytimes.com article validates this:
A gold rush mind-set is in full swing, with foreign work permits surging 144 percent in the past five years and Americans leading the pack of educated professionals putting down stakes.

(– read full article

Funny side note, our first international client with Webchalet was Riobeachrentals.com. All signs point to rio!

Project mgmt tools: pivotal & yammer

In my continued effort to manage my teams, I’m always looking for better tools and ask around. Today Yael of Lifesta suggested http://www.pivotaltracker.com/.
On a start up crawl last week in sf we went into Yammer, there stuff looks too facebook for our small team, I don’t think we would use it in the depth that’s there. We’ll keep with Skype meetings/communication for now.

Currently using until we grow out of it:
Basecamp: track bugs, programmers 2 do list, long term projects
Zendesk: client request and what communication with clients is needed
Zoho: crm
Google Docs: client list and contact info.

Techcrunch: “I want the logo bigger and that cool pixelated tech look”.

I know many have had a few weeks to comment on the disastrous techcrunch site makeover…but I’ve been so busy and traveling that I haven’t had a chance to really see tc on a computer. This morning I was catching up on the article on safety from airbnb.com and found myself completely distracted by the over bearing green 90’s freshman college students attempt at typography. Clearly the message from above was “I want the logo bigger and that cool pixelated tech look, we’re leaders in this industry, we should look the part”. I’m so distracted by this design that it compelled me to stop reading the article and comment on this…

Docusign= digital signatures…

“i don’t have a printer or a fax machine here to print and sign the document… i can take care of this tomorrow when i’m at the office probably”… My first thought was, this is ridiculous, there has to be a solution out there for this. Mike Bowie emailed me Docusign and it looks like they have solved this problem. Just sent out a document, we’ll see how it goes…thanks docusign!
-i like their color scheme…the tan, sunset orange and green.

Zaarly.com startup pub crawl got naarly…

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Thanks to the organization by Shirley over at Zaarly, we had a fun night checking out different San Francisco startup offices. It’s pretty amazing what’s going on in SF, I’d get out here if there’s nothing holding you down…

Best office race track:

Best flip cup arena:

Best Themed: (growth in this category is encouraged)

Best Flipcup Prizes:(growth in this category is also very encouraged)

Most likely to be confused as a VC’s office:

Best Ice Cream: if you get enough people to tweet this, #OMGFreeBenJerrys they will come and deliver ice cream 😉

Vacation rental websites I’m using for inspiration

Current vacation rental websites that i’m currently pulling inspiration from:
http://www.gogobot.com
http://www.flipkey.com
http://www.airbnb.com
http://www.localo.com
http://www.vivareal.com.br

more to come, just had to start keeping track of these…
http://www.offandaway.com/ This site has the feeling of a scam, like that stupid site where you pay for credits to bid on items. But there’s something to take away from the look and feel. I also thing the bid option on rentals is the next big thing.

Vacation rental guest payment options

I’ll be spending the next couple months researching payment solutions for our webchalet websites. Currently airbnb is experiencing high growth due to their business model of “free to list, but we’ll take a high fees of your bookings”. As vacation onwers become more savvy with their web presence, they are looking for ways to collect payments themselves (this is one of our most commonly asked questions). Thus, we are looking for the best solution to offer or integrate…

Running list of options: (will be updated)
http://www.instantsoftware.com/
Just talked to crew form zaarly today. They are using Poundpay.com for C to C payments. Checking it out.
–yapstone.com this is going to be it it think!