kickfly blog

Hello kickflyers,

After a three month hibernation (where we’ve been busy retooling our code to improve some performance issues, surviving the holidays, and hiding out from the economic storm) I’m pleased to announce that we have a new kickfly beta version!

kickfly makes it really easy to point/click and create a ‘3D’ scene out of your existing photos on Flickr, Facebook, or MySpace.

It’s a fresh way to share your photos with friends.

This version should load considerably faster than the one that we demoed at the Web 2.0 Expo. There are still lots of little things to improve, but we look forward to your feedback. Make a kickfly scene and post it to your Facebook/MySpace page!

Please provide feedback on our message boards. We have plenty to do, and we’re just trying to carve out our little niche. Your feedback will help.

More in a bit. Thanks in advance,

Joel

hello there!

Hi everyone. It’s been a busy week - we had a good reception at the web 2.0. We were pleased at our very first public ‘test’. We certainly learned a lot and we’re going to apply what we learned to the next release - addressing the biggest issues that we observed. We think it will make for a better application once we’ve finished our updates in a couple of weeks.

Along the way ran into some old friends… Elliott at Uptake, Albert at Union Square Ventures, Matt Thomas at I-forgot-what-name-your-company-is (but always nice to see you), and had a insightful conversation with a very smart guy named David from his firm (VisionVP) - to just name a few interactions.

People have asked us when we’re going to launch. This test period is going to have to last a while longer. So the answer is, later this fall. Still plenty more kinks to work out so we’re happy with any feedback you have.

Thanks again.

Hi everybody,

We’re at Booth #6, showing off our new beta version. Tomorrow and Thursday, September 17 and 18.

This is really our first public beta, a demo of some of what we’re capable of doing. Still a lot of little usability issues that need to be fixed, and that we’re aware of. But, we’re going to show what we have right now, learn from it, and hopefully get better. Sign up when you get a chance or link to us!

This is a soft launch, at best… certainly not a ‘launch’ in any traditional sense of the word.. It’s more for us than it is for the press - a way to kick the tires and see where we are.. We appreciate all your feedback.
Anyway, stop by if you are in town. We’d love to see you.

But we’re getting there…

the next version of kickfly is almost ready to show (private beta).

The current site will be moving to a different URL, something like old.kickfly.com or test.kickfly.com.

We’ve redone everything in the latest version of Flash, new graphics, etc.

Will let you know when it is done!

Just a little update for our fans out there.

Migrating the backend to Amazon EC2.

Re-writing the front-end in pure Flash (no Ajax).

Updating the look and graphics.

It all takes time but we are cranking away.

Stay tuned — !

One of my least favorite words is refactoring. I know it’s necessary to clean up the internals every so often, but a more optimal way would be just to design it right the first time. : )

OK, I’m kidding. It’s not always possible to do that.

I was just reading an excellent old post by Dan Dodge, called Is your product a vitamin or a painkiller?

To sum up, some products are painkillers - you need them to solve a pain point. Others are vitamins, nice to have, but ultimately, not necessary. Triggers are events that make a potential customer feel the pain to have your product. Sometimes, external events can turn vitamins into painkillers. Dan gives the example of Sarbanes-Oxley and compliance software.

So the question for us is, what pain points are we solving, and, are the events on the horizon that will turn us into a guaranteed painkiller?

Of course, we need to finish refactoring first before any of you can see what we’re thinking about!

So I spent some time out at the TieCon show (www.tiecon.org) this past weekend.

It’s billed as the world’s largest trade show for entrepreneurs. The highlights were Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, both ex-Paypalers. Both Peter and Elon are undeniably brilliant. There were some other interesting panels, and the panelists that impressed included Joanne Bradford of SpotRunner, and Dave McClure, Master of 500 Hats (Dave also led a panel at the Web 2.0 Expo).

Peter described his framework for investing. He described it as a combination of two factors: ‘good fundamentals’ + ‘being out of favor’. For example, when he invested in Facebook back in 2003, Friendster had just crashed in burned. So Facebook was not an ‘obviously good’ investment. If something is ‘in favor’ - especially in the Silicon Valley echo chamber, there will likely be too much competition, reducing returns for everyone.

Elon is on his way to going 3 for 3 with his latest ventures - Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity. Terrific stuff.

Went to a Tech Meetup here in New York City. I have to admit it was fun but a bit disconcerting, reminding me of our famous bubble from 8 years ago. You might suspect that the coming layoffs on Wall Street (carnage) would take away some of the froth. But it looks like the local correction hasn’t affected the tech sector yet. There were plenty of people talking about ideas that are applications, not businesses. Where are the unfair advantage that professional investors look for? Where are the network effects? What is the market space and what is the big picture growth story? Just because an app scratches an itch (many do) doesn’t mean it needs to have a team around it. Yes, there is a new-media/tech industry here, but it has more substance out in Silicon Valley.

The best time to be in an industry is really when others are (unreasonably) down on it. This means that talent is available and at fair cost. We have the opposite problem right now in new media (and have had it for the last 2 years). We’ll hit that sustained downturn in real estate in the next year, and that will provide savvy investors with good opportunities. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same thing happens in the tech industry with a decline in AdSense revenues and CPMs, hitting us in a year’s time.

We’ve been getting a lot of email from new friends that we’ve met at the last couple of trade shows. Before heading out to TieCon this Thursday (at www.tiecon.org ) I thought we’d put down some of our favorite launched (and almost ready to launch) sites.

Acquia - Drupal services. Boy, it’s really needed.
Chictopia - Fashion social network for girls
Okupy - Digg for Frat Boys
Profy - Cool Blogging tool, cool people
Rearden - ok, I think the name’s a bit creepy, but they are really successful
RockYou - Love Jia Shen’s hyper-kinetic presentation style. OK, they are too ‘established’ for this list, but they are real thought leaders in the social network app space.
TheWorldIs - Watch out for this social network.
Triggit - Graphical Adsense Inserter - top voted at the Web 2.0 Expo, nice guys

many more to mention in future posts. Let’s see who makes it..