

MessageParty (YC S10) Ties Location With Chat Rooms - mhunter
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/24/yc-funded-messageparty-ties-location-with-chat-rooms/

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colonelxc
Since we had a thread this morning talking about sceptics on HN (
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1629583> ), I have to say that I'm not a
big fan of this idea.

As it turns out, multiple people in the same location can already talk to each
other. In fact, that's how it usually happens.

One of the problems I see with this is critical mass, will you get enough
users on it to be useful? Note that most other location related services (say
yelp, foursquare) don't require a critical mass of people to be at the same
spot at the same time.

Conferences would certainly have enough people that some might wander in to
your track's channel, but would it be used enough day to day for people to
naturally open it up when they have an extra minute?

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nlwhittemore
I actually think it's exactly the opposite.

If one of the main benefits of Foursquare is letting your friends know where
you are, then it requires your friends to be there to engage.

I think that MessageParty is about exploring how to use chat to create new
relationships with the people around you and places your at.

If there are only ten users of a service, I'd prefer that it doesn't much
matter which ten their are.

I do think the earliest use cases will be things like concerts, though, versus
general daily use.

~~~
jacoblyles
It would be fun in coffee shops, bars, and book stores. Probably a good way to
break the ice in meeting new people.

It might even be good in apartment buildings or neighborhoods. Say you're
having a barbecue, you don't know your neighbors that well, but you have extra
food and you'd like to meet them. Put a notice on the local IRC with message
party.

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knodi
I and few others pitched this same concept to YC in 2009 and they rejected it.

~~~
donw
Did you keep on going and implement it?

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blasdel
Bingo! YC abhors any startup that wouldn't be started anyway without their
investment — like Mark Twain's refusal to join any club that would have him as
a member. In this round a huge chunk of the startups were already founded and
taking revenue / profitable before joining YC.

"We invest in people, not ideas" is a hell of a depressing way to get
rejected.

~~~
tomjen3
>"We invest in people, not ideas" is a hell of a depressing way to get
rejected.

Not really - PG isn't a god, so what he can reject you on is an application, a
talk and a video and hope that this is a good enough indication about whether
or not you are worth investing in.

I doubt he get it accurate more than say 60% of the time, but because YC is so
popular, enough people sign-up who are a no-brainer (Sam Altman, etc) that it
doesn't matter much.

But for those of you who have been rejected, there is a good chance that YC
would accept you, had they known you.

~~~
spotted_at
PG / YC rejected me / my startup idea but I made it anyway and its starting to
get some traction. YC / TechStars etc.. are just programs that help you not
make you.

If you don't take the initiative and get started on your own then why would
they assume you have the tenacity to keep going in the face of constant
opposition. There are lots of problems that you run into while running a
startup and many days really suck. How can you make it through this if you are
not even willing to move past a YC rejection?

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dongle
I love this app. I can't wait to use it during the trailers at a movie, or in
between bands at a show.

~~~
lawrence
Events based chat + location makes a lot of sense. Reminds me a bit of Meetro
from back in the day (though that was IM).

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rubyrescue
I've been thinking about this type of app a lot and i think it's a great idea
and it won't be the last of these type of platforms. My prediction is there
will be hundreds of micro chat sites in the next few years and there will be
thousands of 'foursquares' similar to the way there are many, many "social
networks" that aren't threatened by facebook.

1\. Chat apps will appear for major cities that may or may not feed into a
larger community. For instance, why doesn't someone launch 100 of these apps -
Miami South Beach, Atlantic City, Vegas Strip, etc. I click it, i'm chatting
with people I know are in Vegas and doing the same things... drinking and
losing money, of course.

2\. Reward systems will develop that are much more elaborate than a free beer
for mayor. Pseudo-panzi-schemes with downlines, etc but tied to real financial
rewards, to incentivize people to chat. For instance, you give people a share
of ad revenue in proportion to how early they sign up in an area and how often
they're online. Or prizes, or points that they can spend... Like groupon on
top of chat?

3\. Normal people will start to think of location based chat. Hashtags are a
poor tech geek's way of filtering by location... if i'm tweeting to friends at
a conference i wish i could _prevent_ my friends who aren't there from
receiving those messages. I know they don't care and don't want to be
irritated at our elaborate tweeting about where to meet for the best Thai food
in north america (which happens to be in Vegas, by the way).
<http://www.yelp.com/biz/lotus-of-siam-las-vegas>

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points
Here's a great analysis of why Meetro (Doing similar thing) failed:

<http://meetro.lefora.com/2008/05/21/meetro-post-mortem/>

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jacoblyles
I love this app idea. I think we've only scratched the surface on extending
the natural social experience with technology.

There are many more to follow in this vein.

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alexchung
This is actually really cool. It's like location based IRC... just waiting for
some new cool rooms.

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luu
Neat. This reminds me of using bluetooth to chat with folks in cafes and
libraries, back before bluetooth became popular.

