Jill Lawless:
>Julian Assange told an audience at the Hay literary festival in Wales that “there are no official allegations in the public domain” of anyone being hurt by the secret-spilling site’s disclosures.
I picture Assange putting air quotes around the word: official. I also have no “official” proof that Assange is an egomaniac.
Dr. Drang whipped up a way to have a reading time estimate in TextMate — nicely done.
Dave Winer speculating on Apple buying Twitter:
>Twitter is a poor imitation of Apple, in every way.
and:
>Another reason Apple would like it is because it’s inevitable that Twitter will turn the screws on the news business, and Apple loves to get into position where they own the mortgage on a media industry.
The price? Winer speculates that it would take about $10 billion to get it done — cheap.
Shawn and I talk about Typekit, cable modems that confuse us, and the great unknown (WWDC ’11).
Thanks to our sponsors: [Typekit](http://Typekit.com/), [Idea Division](http://ideadivision.com/) and [Tasks App](http://tasksapp.com/).
Dan Shipper on why Groupon dispersed all the VC money the original employees and investors:
>If it doesn’t work out we’re all pretty rich. If it does work out, we’re all really rich. This would keep the entire original team together, the people who understand the business the best, so that in the next year we can shoot for a much higher valuation than the $6 billion offered by Google.
I can see that point too, don’t agree with it.
Conor Sen on Groupon:
>That being said, it’s operating like a Ponzi scheme that needs constant infusions of cash to stay afloat as it’s hemorrhaging money.
A great point is made, the main difference between what Groupon and a true Ponzi scheme is that the investors in Groupon are aware that part of their ‘investment’ is going towards paying off old investors.
Jeff Croft commenting on Windows 8:
>Effectively, Metro works just like Windows Media Center does: it’s just an app that run atop the Windows we all know and…well, know. Just as Media Center provides a 10-foot UI on top of the existing keyboard-and-mouse Windows UI, so does Metro provide a touchscreen UI.
He has some other great criticism, but the above highlights exactly what the problem is with Windows 8. Windows alone is fine for computers, Metro is great for touch — combining the two though is just, as Croft says, “ghetto”. Or think about it like this: how many people are clamoring for that great Windows Media Center experience?
John Gruber:
>What Microsoft revealed this week is that they do not believe there *is* a post-PC era. They’re banking that the PC era will never end.
This is not only evident with Windows 8, but in everything that the company is doing right now.
Peter Bright:
>The hackers retrieved account information from the database. They claim there are more than a million accounts in total; their BitTorrented dump just contained a sample. The database contained information about a variety of different account types, apparently related to different promotions and features operated by the company. Different sets of accounts, but with one major feature in common: they included plaintext passwords.
Wow. Also, don’t entrust any of your information with Sony. Ever.
Travis Falstad CEO of the now failed iP4Play, the FaceTime video ‘vixen’ chat service (reporting by Nicole Martinelli):
>Lack of FaceTime adoption and competition from webcams, coupled with higher costs to maintain quality talent…
Wait, you mean people didn’t want other people seeing their face during a sexy video chat? Shocking.
Craig Grannell:
>Kudos to Microsoft if they pull this off and ‘force’ software creators to make their products work brilliantly with pointers and touch, but I worry Windows 8 will be the same old Windows on the desktop, and also the same old Windows on a tablet, just with a touch skin overlay that works really well for very few applications.
If you look back to that [Windows 8 demo video](http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2011/jun11/06-01corporatenews.aspx), notice how they didn’t demo using Excel on the device — cause that would have been hilarious to see.
A fascinating look at Twitter, Facebook, design, reporting, and social networks through the eyes of Craig Mod who was in Tokyo the day the earthquake hit. What fascinates me most is his dissection of how each tool was used and why that is the way those tools were used and how the design of each played a part in that.
PayPal was once an up and comer — *the* hot web commodity — a service that users loved and were rightfully excited about.
*Remember when it didn’t suck?*
You probably don’t because for the past few years it has really been a miserable experience. The service is still the best out there, but that’s not saying much given that it’s only real competitor is Google and Google is only *now* starting to put an effort into it.
I use PayPal for all the banking on TBR and the B&B Podcast, so I am regularly on the site. There are not a ton of transactions being made, but there are enough that I regularly interface with PayPal on both my phone and computer — I rely on it. My experience has been less than great since I started using PayPal again regularly in January, which surprised me because when I was regularly selling on eBay back in college, I remember being quite fond of PayPal.
It’s not that PayPal as an idea or product is bad, but much like with Twitter, PayPal’s management and leadership is questionable at best. Quite honestly there are a lot of missed opportunities that PayPal could have snatched in order to move into a much stronger position than where they are today.
### History
Here is, [according to PayPal’s own website](https://www.paypal-media.com/history), a list of the notable moments in PayPal history (my comments added in italics):
##### 1998
– August: It Started at Stanford. *This is not referring to the founding of the company, rather a talk between two people that would later form a company.*
– September: Levchin and Thiel dream up digital wallets. *Actually they founded a company that created a digital wallet on, primarily, Palm Pilots.*
– December: Confinity is founded. *This is the company that actually started to work on money transfers between PDAs. This also marks the start of innovation.*
##### 1999
– July: If you can beam $10, then why can’t you beam $4.5 million? *This is just the company raising funding, but they received the funding via their service. Neat, but hardly note worthy.*
– October: PayPal is born. *Finally they come to realize that emailing payments maybe far easier than sending them between PDAs with IR. Though this is just a demo, it is huge for everyone.*
– November: Get paid for referring pals! *I have no clue why they include this in the company history. No clue. It is just a referral program.*
– November: PayPal develops the Money Market Fund. *Starting to become more like an online bank, stepping the right direction.*
##### 2000
– January: PayPal’s first foray into eBay. *This was the money making moment, when they see that eBayers love the service they embrace it full on and PayPal jumps to 100,000 users. This is the best move on this entire timeline — hands down.*
– March: One million and counting! *Three months later and they are still reaping the rewards of eBay users.*
– March: Confinity becomes X.com. *Some background stuff, not that important at this point. Just goes to show that they were a hot company at this point.*
– April: First customer service center. *No comment.*
– August: Palm Pilots can’t beat the Internet. *PayPal has 3 million accounts and the Palm Pilot program has 10,000. The web was a smart move, eBay accelerated growth.*
##### 2001
– March: The war on fraud. *CAPTCHAs!*
– June: PayPal officially takes its name. *Another name change, everything is now officially PayPal. Also I start using the service regularly to buy and sell on eBay.*
– September: Igor. *PayPal gets even more fraud protection. This is a trend we will see for a while.*
##### 2002
– February: PayPal goes public. *Notably it is the first IPO after 9/11 and was a success.*
– June: eBay Live! *eBay users demand that the service integrates with PayPal, nothing but good news for PayPal. May be the last time that people rally for PayPal.*
– October: eBay Inc. acquires PayPal. *The most obvious acquisition ever.*
– October: Bonjour, PayPal. *Paying with Euros and Pounds allowed — why did it take this long?*
##### 2003
*PayPal has literally nothing listed. For an entire year the company did nothing noteworthy. This is amazing to me, and this also marks the slow down of my usage of the service. Wow.*
##### 2004
– May: PayPal Web Services. *PayPal gets into the API game so that people can build off of the service. This is actually big and good.*
– December: The British invasion. *PayPal is integrated with eBay UK and revenue surges by 300%. Good numbers, but it took this long to integrate with your UK parent company? Odd.*
*Notice too that the only major thing PayPal did to outwardly improve and expand the service is to add an API. This most likely is a result of the eBay beast controlling PayPal and the pains of integrating the two companies.*
##### 2005
– August: PayPal customers give back. *$2.1 million raised for Hurricane Katrina support.*
– October: PayPal acquires VeriSign’s Payment Gateway. *More security and a smart move.*
*Notice now that it has been well over a year since any type of innovation has taken place. One would have expected some huge consumer facing moves at this point.*
##### 2006
– April: PayPal goes mobile. *Back in the days when ‘mobile’ used to mean texting.*
– October: PayPal expands internationally. *Woah, it took that long to be ’officially’ international?*
##### 2007
– January: Safety first. *More anti-fraud stuff, this time by way of a security key, thus complicating a super secure access process.*
– March: PayPal continues international growth. *…*
– June: Travelers take off with PayPal. *PayPal now a payment method for Northwest Airlines. They also note that PayPal is accepted as a payment means for all top 10 U.S. airlines. Meaning that now, in June of 2011, I am just learning about this. Seriously.*
– August: PayPal debuts new logo. *Yippee.*
##### 2008
– January: PayPal improves its safety features with Fraud Sciences. *They kicked off the year with a security acquisition.*
– October: eBay Inc. acquires Bill Me Later. *eBay made this move, but the service was — from the outset — intended on being combined with PayPal. Right idea, poor service choice. Basically it makes PayPal a credit card company without the actual credit cards.*
– November: PayPal expands globally. *Really? Just now? I thought we just talked about PayPal being international — I guess I don’t know the difference between the two.*
– December: Happy Birthday, PayPal! *10 years old, just as ADD as a human 10 year old.*
##### 2009
– August: The new way to ask Mom and Dad for money. *This was/is and allowance account thing. Truly though how useful is this unless your kid also has the PayPal debit card or something.*
– October: October 2009, eBay and PayPal offer Bill Me Later. *A way to pay interest without having a credit card.*
– November: PayPal now available in 24 currencies. *Again, just now?*
– November: PayPal opens its global payments platform, PayPal X. *I won’t repeat my last. Also, I thought we were already global. Confusing, unless they mean another planet.*
##### 2010
*2010 looks like it was a big year, at least a long list.*
– February: Pay with PayPal on Facebook! *Wonder how long that lasts…*
– March: Magento and PayPal Expand Relationship. *A small-ish partnership for payments. Move along.*
– March: Send Money from your mobile phone! *Wait I thought we had that already back in April 2006? Oh wait, now we mean the iPhone.*
– April: PayPal Mobile iPhone App Hits the One Million Mark! *Meaning 1/3 of the customers that you had in August of 2000 are now using the service on the iPhone. Congrats.*
– April: Alibaba.com Introduces Payment with PayPal on AliExpress. *Here is another partnership for payment solutions. Boring.*
– May: PayPal’s Mobile Payments Library Now Available for Android
– July: PayPal Bling. *I honestly don’t even know what this is after reading the blurb about it. Honestly.*
– August: PayPal Mobile App now for Android.
– September: PayPal Expands Purchase Protections
– October: Bill Me Later Comes to More eBay Shoppers
– October: Take a Photo, Transfer a Check! *Finally a feature that truly benefits the end users. Man thought PayPal forgot about us for a minute there.*
– October: PayPal Unveils New Payment Solution for Digital Goods. *Read: A way to pay without being routed through PayPal’s website.*
– November: PayPal’s local Israeli site now available in Hebrew
– December: PayPal and VIVO bring mobile payments to Brazil. *They are still expanding, wow.*
##### 2011
– January: New Customer Support Center Opens in Malaysia. *Fun.*
#### The Point Already
My point is that while PayPal has expanded a lot and partnered with a lot of places, there really was no innovation happening. Look through that list and tell me where they were a first mover, or even where they had a novel idea anytime after oh, 2001.
Everyone was doing an iPhone app when they did theirs. Every bank was offering picture deposits when they enabled it.
Amazing.
### Mobile payments
PayPal was a first mover in online banking and more importantly, in securing eBay transactions. They made eBay what it was 4-6 years ago: a juggernaut. If it weren’t for PayPal, eBayers would still number in the thousands and would be sending checks via snail mail — hey maybe then USPS would be in better shape.
PayPal changed that.
When the market changed and it became quite obvious to many that mobile payments was the new hot market, well, PayPal didn’t do much. You can most certainly pay back your friends and receive money from anyone for very low fees, but doing so on your mobile device is anything but fun and only works well when all parties involved have a PayPal account.
Perhaps you disagree, but which would you rather use to buy a chair at a garage sale: PayPal or Square? If you know what Square is, then Square will be your choice hands down. Let me just say that Square wouldn’t require *you* to be a user of the service, just a passive payer as you are at most all stores.
NFC? PayPal could have been, and should have been, the go to payment system for everything — yet their ambitions stopped at freelancers and eBayers. ((A nice market, but not as robust as what they should have at this point.)) If you think about it, iTunes probably handles more transactions than PayPal does in a year.
### Expanding Outside the Internet
All of this is leading me to say that PayPal should have pushed to be people’s one and only bank — not just their online bank.
You accomplish this much in the same way that USAA has done. By creating top notch customer service and making it easy for your customers to get money into their account (free deposit mailing envelopes for checks, mobile “scanning” of checks, and so on).
You further establish yourself in such a position by ridding your customers of one of the most frustrating charges they face: ATM fees. Again, USAA, will reimburse you for ATM fees monthly up to about $15 with some other restrictions, even with restrictions that is a great deal, should have been a PayPal move.
#### Brick & Mortar
What really baffles me though is that PayPal never sought to expand into tech savvy retail locations to make themselves a payment option. Retailers already pay fees to Visa/AMEX and others for processing, one would think that with the rise in ‘self-checkout’ lanes at big box retailers — PayPal would be a natural payment option for customers. Login to your account using a secure pin, your member perks card is stored there and added to the transaction — receipt emailed to you. Done.
I can’t be the only one thinking this…
#### Customer Fears
The biggest hurdle to becoming a full time, one stop banking solution is to reduce fear. The thing that scares me the most about PayPal is not someone breaking into my account, but PayPal freezing my account to sort out a dispute.
Simply put, this should not happen. If a customer complains about a transaction (or vice versa), the entire balance of an account should not be frozen. Freeze the disputed amount and call it good until it is resolved — don’t screw over your customers because you are slow to act. ((Not sure what the laws are on freezing just a portion of a bank account, but I do believe it can be done given what I have seen in ‘traditional’ banking.))
Hacking, simply put, should never happen to PayPal. If accounts get hacked because of weak passwords, stop allowing weak passwords. Fix the hole in the ship, don’t try to make it back to dock faster.
### Customer care
Of course a large part of all of this is the customer service and care that PayPal shows towards its users — of which most of us see very little of.
Here are some suggestions:
– Better, top notch, fast dispute resolution tools for buyers **and** sellers.
– Stop assuming that buyers are always right and instead take the approach that everyone is wrong and move from there. It seems that PayPal is biased towards protecting buyers and not sellers.
– Escrow. Why PayPal isn’t heavy into the escrow game I don’t know — it could have been the leading way people to facilitate the sale of cars online and the transfer of things like domain names. Makes so much sense.
### Business Friendly
Each month I get a ton of checks for all the properties that I manage, we also send out a ton of checks to different contractors and vendors. A lot of companies are trying to move to ACH payment methods to reduce the cost of stamps and administrative time (among other things). This is great, but presents some legal challenges for landlords (like me), of which we don’t need to get into.
I have always wondered what PayPal could have done to solve these issues if they had made a stronger push into the business to business sector. What if all invoices just came via PayPal and you paid them with PayPal each time. Thus eliminating a ton of paper waste, stamps, and time for all parties involved… what indeed.
### Story of the Wrong Leaders
Once again this is another case of poor, to little, leadership. There is no doubt that PayPal did well for itself, but it *could* have been so much more that it should make the top brass at PayPal cry.
There were a ton of wasted opportunities and short-sighted strategies.
PayPal became content with what they had and rested on that.
They had one great first mover idea and stopped thinking.
Too bad.
-•-
**Check please.**
Shawn has a great write up of a neat dialing app for the iPhone called Dialvetica — a long time staple of my homescreen. I agree with just about everything Shawn says, except for the list annoying him with its constantly fluid nature. I find this to be a killer feature and here’s why: the people you tend to call a lot changes week in and week out.
Shawn has set Dialvetica to default to texting, I set it to default to calling. So when I have a week where I am talking to the same people over and over again (say a plumber to troubleshoot a problem that will, hopefully, be gone next week) the list is accurate and helpful, the next week won’t be the same though and thus the list will readjust. The resorting is always saving me time. This is why the system works well for calling, and lacks for texting — with text messages I assume you aren’t constantly texting new people over and over, as we tend to text people that we *know*, versus people we don’t *know*.
The one thing Dialvetica needs to figure out is how to show missed calls and voicemails (even if it just pops open the default app, but shows badge indicators). If it did that I could finally rid my homescreen of the default phone app.
Eric Slivka:
>The implications of an HSPA+ iPhone are significant in the United States, where Apple presently offers a separate CDMA iPhone running on Verizon. Even with both current models of the iPhone 4 limited to 3G networks, AT&T’s HSPA data network is already faster than Verizon’s EVDO data network. That disparity will be magnified with the next iPhone as AT&T users will be able to experience download speeds in the range of 5-10 Mbps under HSPA+ while users on Verizon will remain stuck on the carrier’s current 3G network running in the neighborhood of 1 Mbps.
I don’t doubt that Apple wants to put in a faster wireless chip, but I do doubt that they would ever market the two iPhone models as having different theoretical download speeds. I *really* doubt it.
So if Apple does do this, don’t expect them to say anything about it.
The Oatmeal is perhaps one of my favorite sites on the web, but not just because it has funny comments — no Matthew Inman, the man behind the humor, sends the best email responses I ever see. Now he isn’t sending them to me, but to idiots that email him.
The crap he and others has to put up with surrounding FunnyJunk.com and other sites is shameful. I vote he sues, but that’s just me — the guy that thinks we *do* need software patents.
Dr. Drang with a smart take on how we “fix” the patent system:
>The solution, I think, is a patent system that recognizes that software and hardware are not the same.
There’s a lot we still don’t know after seeing this video. ((Apart from the [crappy audio](http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/06/01/previewing-windows-8).)) What is clear is that the ‘start’ screen is a wrapper on Windows 8 and that is never a good thing.
From what I have seen thus far, this is a pretty to look at and not great to use move. That said, it sure is pretty.
Marco Arment makes a strong case for abolishing software patents:
>The entire software industry works like this, and the use of patents is very rare relative to all software that’s written. The market rewards applied innovation, but doesn’t try to artificially inhibit competition. It combines the best parts of capitalism, collaboration, and a vast public domain.
I largely agree with what he is saying from a philosophical standpoint, but I *still* think it is not the right approach right now.
It is much the same of how I would *love* for all iPhone apps and social services to be free, but I realize that we *need* to pay for them. That is to say, I agree with Marco and would very much like the system gone, but by the same token I don’t think that it is right move here.
In my mind it is much more than just an overhaul of the patent system that we need, it is a rethinking of what is patentable and how we will — and should — be able to apply these things in the future.