25
October
2007
|
08:08 AM
America/Los_Angeles

Convos: Online Groups Simply Managed - Made in NYC


Thursday afternoon I met with Matthew Trush and JP Checa, co-founders of Convos, a New York city based startup offering a "Yahoo Groups on steroids" web based application.


Convos is an interesting application, with a clean user interface and the ability to add features through modules. It is built on Flash using Flex. It recently opened up its beta to the public prior to a commercial launch with a tiered pricing structure.


I asked them if they had a Facebook app yet, because I could see this kind of functionality would be great to help manage Facebook groups. They laughed when I mentioned Facebook, and said they don't have plans for one.


Mind the Culture Gap


Are we too Facebook obsessed over here, I asked? Probably was the answer. We talked about the different startup cultures of SF/Silicon Valley and New York. Everyone is laid back here, they said. Yes that's true, but don't be fooled, we're always on, it never stops.


The New York startup community is an exciting place to be these days, they said. Lots of tech meet ups, lots of networking, and lots of discussion about Silicon Alley versus Silicon Valley and which is better. Do we have the same discussion I was asked? No, we don't talk about Silicon Alley at all.


I do like Silicon Alley Insider, an excellent NYC news site. And I would love to spend more time in New York.


I'm always interested in how others view the SF/Silicon Valley culture and its ideas.


I sometimes find that ideas take time to travel. Publishing an idea happens at the speed of electrons but understanding ideas happens at a different speed.


When I worked at the Financial Times in the SF bureau we primarily worked with editors in NYC and London. I noticed that it generally took about six months per 3000 miles for ideas to travel and be understood. I termed it the Foremski Universal Constant of Kulture - for which there is no polite acronym.


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Meet the Convos team:

Date: Friday, October 26th, 2007

Time: 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Location C325, Cheit Hall, Haas School of Business

City: Berkeley, CA


http://blog.convos.com/home/2007/10/24/convos-coming-to-uc-berkeley.html


Friday October 26th - 2007 at UC Berkeley.


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