Last week I was in London to spend time with the team from AMEE. On the flight to London, I read an article that provided a potent reminder of the importance of measuring CO2 emissions. The Independent had a big story on Methane gas being released from the Arctic sea floor off the coast of Siberia in far larger quantities than previously feared. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas (20x more potent than CO2) that was trapped beneath permafrost. The release of this gas is a great example ...

Last week I was in London to spend time with the team from AMEE. On the flight to London, I read an article that provided a potent reminder of the importance of measuring CO2 emissions. The Independent had a big story on Methane gas being released from the Arctic sea floor off the coast of Siberia in far larger quantities than previously feared. Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas (20x more potent than CO2) that was trapped beneath permafrost. The release of this gas is a great example ...

foursquare rolled out version 3.0 last night. Dennis and the team have a terrific post that explains all that is new and different. While I am excited about the new leaderboards and specials 2.0, I am most looking forward to the broad availability of recommendations.The idea is pretty simple: tell us what you’re looking for and we’ll help you find something nearby. The suggestions are based on a little bit of everything – the places you’ve been, the places your friends have visited, your loya...

foursquare rolled out version 3.0 last night. Dennis and the team have a terrific post that explains all that is new and different. While I am excited about the new leaderboards and specials 2.0, I am most looking forward to the broad availability of recommendations.The idea is pretty simple: tell us what you’re looking for and we’ll help you find something nearby. The suggestions are based on a little bit of everything – the places you’ve been, the places your friends have visited, your loya...

When I first met Susan in a cafe in Paris 20 years ago, one of the very first things I told her was that I had a list of all the things I was going to see in Paris during my vacation there. According to Susan, my super geeky line in asking her to join me on some sightseeing went as follows: “I am going to do all the things on this list, so happy to start wherever you want." A lot of things have changed in the two decades since but my love for lists continues: I still keep many different lists...

When I first met Susan in a cafe in Paris 20 years ago, one of the very first things I told her was that I had a list of all the things I was going to see in Paris during my vacation there. According to Susan, my super geeky line in asking her to join me on some sightseeing went as follows: “I am going to do all the things on this list, so happy to start wherever you want." A lot of things have changed in the two decades since but my love for lists continues: I still keep many different lists...

Lots of good news about Foursquare. You can read about it from Dennis, Bijan, Fred and myself. I love using the new version of the app – go check it out. All feedback on it is welcome!

Lots of good news about Foursquare. You can read about it from Dennis, Bijan, Fred and myself. I love using the new version of the app – go check it out. All feedback on it is welcome!

Most startups spend all their time on optimizing the experience for registered and logged in users. But what about those who come to a site through a link? Or right to the home page by either typing the company’s URL or more likely searching for the company name. Most companies spend very little time on this which is a mistake because it is the top of the user acquisition funnel. Companies that get the logged out experience right can get a lot of mileage from that. In particular showing immed...

Most startups spend all their time on optimizing the experience for registered and logged in users. But what about those who come to a site through a link? Or right to the home page by either typing the company’s URL or more likely searching for the company name. Most companies spend very little time on this which is a mistake because it is the top of the user acquisition funnel. Companies that get the logged out experience right can get a lot of mileage from that. In particular showing immed...

Huge kudos to the entire team at foursquare on today’s release. This is not just about the incredible amount of work that has gone into building the release (and for iOS and Android simultaneously to boot). It is primarily about what I have called the “courage of big changes.” This new foursquare release brings exactly the kind of big changes that take courage to make because inevitably there will be users who won’t like some or even all of them. It would be so much easier to get trapped in i...

Huge kudos to the entire team at foursquare on today’s release. This is not just about the incredible amount of work that has gone into building the release (and for iOS and Android simultaneously to boot). It is primarily about what I have called the “courage of big changes.” This new foursquare release brings exactly the kind of big changes that take courage to make because inevitably there will be users who won’t like some or even all of them. It would be so much easier to get trapped in i...

Today’s release of the latest version of Foursquare has me super excited. It puts together all of the data and capabilities the team there has built over the last five years to provide the best local recommendations: based on lots of detailed data and knowing your tastes. Dennis's vision for Foursquare has always been to create the best local discovery engine – one that’s personalized just for you – by crowdsourcing bits of information from users all over the world. Today brings Foursqua...

Today’s release of the latest version of Foursquare has me super excited. It puts together all of the data and capabilities the team there has built over the last five years to provide the best local recommendations: based on lots of detailed data and knowing your tastes. Dennis's vision for Foursquare has always been to create the best local discovery engine – one that’s personalized just for you – by crowdsourcing bits of information from users all over the world. Today brings Foursqua...

Yesterday saw the “wire transfer heard ‘round the world,” as Bryce put it in a tweet. Foursquare did indeed close a Series B financing as has by now been widely reported. My job of writing a blog post about this has been made very easy: Dennis wrote a terrific announcement on the foursquare blog, Ben Horowitz from “A16Z” does a great job in his post of describing why all the investors are excited about Foursquare; and my partner Fred provides a refreshing perspective on the process. The only ...

Yesterday saw the “wire transfer heard ‘round the world,” as Bryce put it in a tweet. Foursquare did indeed close a Series B financing as has by now been widely reported. My job of writing a blog post about this has been made very easy: Dennis wrote a terrific announcement on the foursquare blog, Ben Horowitz from “A16Z” does a great job in his post of describing why all the investors are excited about Foursquare; and my partner Fred provides a refreshing perspective on the process. The only ...

The original plan was to announce the Union Square Ventures investment in foursquare today, but then the news broke on Friday based on the Reg D filing (so much for thinking we could sneak the filing in late on the Friday before Labor Day). If you missed it then, here is a link to our post announcing the investment. All of this made for an exciting start to the long weekend – especially for the foursquare team as they were in the middle of a major database upgrade. They made a brief post on t...

The original plan was to announce the Union Square Ventures investment in foursquare today, but then the news broke on Friday based on the Reg D filing (so much for thinking we could sneak the filing in late on the Friday before Labor Day). If you missed it then, here is a link to our post announcing the investment. All of this made for an exciting start to the long weekend – especially for the foursquare team as they were in the middle of a major database upgrade. They made a brief post on t...