Jul 28
▼It's interesting, because I get dozens of pitches every day. I went back and looked at Flipboard's original pitch to me and thought it'd be interesting to post it here. This is my favorite startup of the year so far. Interesting that they didn't tell me much about what they were building, but they did catch my eye where many other pitches get tossed.
+++++++++
>>>> Hi Robert,
>>>> I've read your stories over the years, but I really enjoyed seeing you
>>>> emerge from the Apple store with the first iPad a few weeks ago. That was
>>>> such fun. Which leads me to the reason for this email. I was inspired by
>>>> your iPad enthusiasm and I always enjoy your perspective... So we're hoping
>>>> you'll take an early look at a new product we're building. The product is at
>>>> the intersection of two things you know intimately - the iPad and social
>>>> media. Our very short closed beta testing will start May 7. We're only
>>>> asking a few people on the outside to take a look and we're hoping you'd be
>>>> willing to be one of those people.
>>>>
>>>> We are in downtown Palo Alto, is there any chance we could bring you in
>>>> early and show you what we're building (under NDA until launch)? We are huge
>>>> fans and we'd be grateful for your time.
>>>>
>>>> What do you think?
>>>> Kindest regards,
>>>> Marci
+++++++++
>>>> Hi Robert,
>>>> I've read your stories over the years, but I really enjoyed seeing you
>>>> emerge from the Apple store with the first iPad a few weeks ago. That was
>>>> such fun. Which leads me to the reason for this email. I was inspired by
>>>> your iPad enthusiasm and I always enjoy your perspective... So we're hoping
>>>> you'll take an early look at a new product we're building. The product is at
>>>> the intersection of two things you know intimately - the iPad and social
>>>> media. Our very short closed beta testing will start May 7. We're only
>>>> asking a few people on the outside to take a look and we're hoping you'd be
>>>> willing to be one of those people.
>>>>
>>>> We are in downtown Palo Alto, is there any chance we could bring you in
>>>> early and show you what we're building (under NDA until launch)? We are huge
>>>> fans and we'd be grateful for your time.
>>>>
>>>> What do you think?
>>>> Kindest regards,
>>>> Marci
63 people liked this - ABBa fun, Alex Pchelintsev, Alex de Soto, Anthony De Rosa, Bogdan Oltean and 58 others, Brian McNely, Charles Warren, Christian Reyes, Curt Lindner, DR. PIJUSH NANDI (SASTRI), David J. MacKay, David Somers, Duane Roberts, Dugald Holmes, Graham Jenkin, Günther Mulder, Heather Solos, Hector Ramos, Holger Eilhard, J. Abdul-Qahhar, Jeff Slobotski, Jesse Casman, Jonathan Brier, Joost Houben, Juan Pablo Mattenet, Kent Looft, Kevin D, Kevin Mullett, Kevin Whalen, Kyle Graham, Louis Gray, Mahendra Palsule, Mandi Engram, Mark Essel, Michael Carver, Michelle Marie™, Mike Lizun, Neeraj Dabgotra, Newton Mota, Nipun C, Ouriel Ohayon, Paul Furiga, Paul Greer, Paul Voulas, Ren Media, Richard Barley, Richard Lusk, River Khan, Rolf Piechura, Rumi Ahmed, Sally Church, Sandip Kumar, Search Search Yah, Shachar Pessis, Shaun Trennery, Sigurður Árni Svanbergsson, Sohail Mirza, Thomas Hawk, Tim Coldwell, Travis Koger, ZEROXSYS Solutions, alejandro rubio and david robins
Andre P. Siregar - Did you know Marci before this email, Robert? And what did you think about them asking for NDA?Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Jeff Slobotski - I enjoy the fact that they don't start talking about themselves or there company first, rather what they've enjoy about you and what you're interested in...Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Andre: not at all. In fact, I had no idea who Mike McCue was before our interview. I like it better that way. If I had known he had sold a company for $800 million I probably would have been affected by that.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Jeff: I totally agree. I like these kinds of approaches better. Some things that Flipboard did well:
1. Got me early. I can't stand getting pitched on something that's already on some blog. I do video, not press release rewrites (good video takes a week or two, at minimum, to edit and put together). Flipboard got me in three months before launch. Funny that the other great company, SIRI, which sold to Apple, actually got me in six months before launch, and Saluto, who went on to win Techcrunch Disrupt, showed us everything six weeks before launch. Great companies show me early.
2. Got me extra early. That way I could actually give them feedback. Mike, the CEO, told me they added Twitter list functionality after our first visit.
3. Got me extra extra early. During testing I reported dozens of bugs to Flipboard and sent them lots of product feedback all for free.
4. Showed they were interested in me and that they had been doing their homework.
5. Focused on a hot area. I call these "battlefronts" but it's rare that a company so nails an interesting market. I like trying mobile, location, or iPad apps. If you're pitching me something for Windows XP it's gonna be tough to get me excited (but still PR people try).
6. Kept it short. It's amazing how many pitches I get that go on for pages.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
1. Got me early. I can't stand getting pitched on something that's already on some blog. I do video, not press release rewrites (good video takes a week or two, at minimum, to edit and put together). Flipboard got me in three months before launch. Funny that the other great company, SIRI, which sold to Apple, actually got me in six months before launch, and Saluto, who went on to win Techcrunch Disrupt, showed us everything six weeks before launch. Great companies show me early.
2. Got me extra early. That way I could actually give them feedback. Mike, the CEO, told me they added Twitter list functionality after our first visit.
3. Got me extra extra early. During testing I reported dozens of bugs to Flipboard and sent them lots of product feedback all for free.
4. Showed they were interested in me and that they had been doing their homework.
5. Focused on a hot area. I call these "battlefronts" but it's rare that a company so nails an interesting market. I like trying mobile, location, or iPad apps. If you're pitching me something for Windows XP it's gonna be tough to get me excited (but still PR people try).
6. Kept it short. It's amazing how many pitches I get that go on for pages.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Andre: as for NDA, that's common proceedure for startups or news announcements. Especially when a startup opens up so early to a blogger/journalist. That can really be dangerous. Imagine if I had talked about this three months ago? I would have blown their launch totally.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - By the way, I enjoy getting pitches, particularly when they turn out to be so damn cool like Flipboard is. My email is scobleizer@gmail.com
Joe Rideout - @Steve Hanov, @Alex Ausch, @Adam Spitz thought you might find this conversation interesting.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Paul Voulas - I got access to all of Flipboard's functionality today. Now what I would be interested to know is by how much they are scaling on a daily basis as the experience so far is awesome. This is one slick product.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Paul: they turned off some features and kept people from getting access in order to keep the experience high for existing users. They are adding a lot of new people every day and the CEO told me he expects to be caught up with everyone "within days."Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
david robins - Robert, thank you for sharing this! If you happen to come to Israel again, hope to see you here!Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mike Carlucci - It's rare that people on the outside can ever get a real idea how these ideas are shared. His email to you is brief, but hits on the key points you are talking about. Thanks for look behind curtain!Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Michelle Marie™ - Yes, I'll be a beta tester.... thanks so much for asking :)Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mark Essel - What's interesting to me is that the Flipboard team had an office and 10 people before you heard of them. Being cash rich has its benefitsJul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mark Essel - Look forward to trying out a flipboard front end to other feedbased info organization projects.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Mark: yup, that did get me to take note. But it isn't all that strange. Today I interviewed a company I never heard of who had a handful of employees already.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Paul Murley - Robert: Do you know if there are any plans for Flipboard to be available on formats other than the iPad? Great device for it, sure, but I don't see anything keeping it from being on a web page or even a native PC/Mac application..Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - Flipboard is a great app, maybe my favorite so far this year, but the problem is the solution they've developed is not unique. Others have done it before, and I can see even more folks taking the concept and doing it better. The floodgates for apps that turn your social networks into a better, magazine like experience are open. Great for consumers, not so great for Flipbook.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - @Robert Scoble what's you're take on the legal issues? It seems like a bit of a grey area to me since we're on the bleeding edge of a new era of content (especially when you're talking about flipboard on an ipad!).Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Muneeb Waseem Khawaja - Scoble: Will you listen to product pitches if they aren't in US? e.g. a video chat etc?Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mark Essel - @Paul Murley I think if Flipboard doesn't go native web someone else like seesmic or tweetdeck will.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Kevin Mullett - Nicely worded and done. Of course they want the publicity, but first show an interest/admiration in you and your opinion.Jul 28DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Muneeb: I only do face-to-face interviews of companies that want to be global brands. Often that is overseas.
Regarding Flipboard: no one has done what Flipboard has. Anyone who says anyone is close hasn't really thought it out. Can it be copied? Sure. But then so can everything great.
As to other formats? This really is designed for touch interfaces. They are getting a lot of requests for iPhone and Android. Makes sense to do it there too. Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Regarding Flipboard: no one has done what Flipboard has. Anyone who says anyone is close hasn't really thought it out. Can it be copied? Sure. But then so can everything great.
As to other formats? This really is designed for touch interfaces. They are getting a lot of requests for iPhone and Android. Makes sense to do it there too. Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Jack: nope. But mostly cause there wasn't anything there that would piss her off.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mark Essel - But Robert flipping pages is soooo begging for left right arrow or page up, page down.
and clicking on "read article on the web" will work from a browserJul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
and clicking on "read article on the web" will work from a browserJul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Mark: maybe so, but I'd rather they focus. I can see 50 features I'd rather have than have them waste time on other platforms. This is a killer app for iPad and it would defocus a small team to focus on other platforms.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mark Essel - I don't always have my ipad on me, but I can check instapaper anywhere. It's a nice perk for interfaces to be web/cloud based but I understand what you're saying.
Maybe even more important than extra features is tuning the ones they have, and scaling. It's a solid app. I wish I could read full articles in it.
Oh hey, not sure if you checked it out yet but Kevin Marshall (@falicon) hacked out a nice tool instapaperfeed.com that works with bit.ly and finds reshared links in your follow stream, piping them directly to your instapaper. So far I've read a handful of posts that I really enjoyed that I might otherwise have missed, kudos to Kevin and the bit.ly team.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Maybe even more important than extra features is tuning the ones they have, and scaling. It's a solid app. I wish I could read full articles in it.
Oh hey, not sure if you checked it out yet but Kevin Marshall (@falicon) hacked out a nice tool instapaperfeed.com that works with bit.ly and finds reshared links in your follow stream, piping them directly to your instapaper. So far I've read a handful of posts that I really enjoyed that I might otherwise have missed, kudos to Kevin and the bit.ly team.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Mike Lizun - Great personalized pitch, not starting with about them, with some exclusivity, and a great app. I linked my Twitter to Flipboard last night, Facebook tonight. Really enjoying the experience.Jul 29DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Sasson Margaliot - Robert, our new demo is on-line. Turning search into a game - LingLL http://lingll.com/ #search #game Natural language may eventually dominate cell phone applications, don't you think?Jul 30DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Jeremy Pepper - Dude, you really had no idea who McCue was?Aug 17DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Christopher Rizzo - Flipboard is my 2nd favorite app on my iPad! Awesome story!Aug 17DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
William Dowell - I can't help thinking Flipboard is overrated. Yes, it's good, but it's not great great great. It needs far more intellegance on how it orders content, and they should add Google Reader RSS sync..Aug 17DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - William: I don't use RSS anymore, so I don't care about that. Of course it needs more features. It's a 1.0. But for a 1.0 it's the best iPad app I use. Not overrated.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - Robert, you're one person, many people use RSS and as a way to subscribe to information, there's nothing that comes close to RSS as a delivery method. I think Flipboard is a great application, but to blow off RSS as an option is just flat out foolish.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Hector Ramos - For RSS there's Reeder. I can take care of my own RSS subscriptions thankyouverymuch.
However, for discovering content from sources you'd never have subscribed to, Flipboard is GREAT. It's free, and five minutes every morning gives me more content than possibly having to wrangle through all the unread posts in my Google Reader RSS feed. Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
H
Anthony De Rosa - Hector, there's no harm in making it an option for those of us who would find it worthwhile.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Hector Ramos - You can set up a RSS to Twitter of your google feed. Then add that
account to a Twitter list and follow that on Flipboard...Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
account to a Twitter list and follow that on Flipboard...Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Anthony: name one RSS feed I can't get into Twitter. Most people don't realize that you can do this with Twitter: http://twitter.com/scoblemedia/world-news-brands Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Anthony: there +is+ a harm: it takes developer time away from doing some features that are more worthwhile.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - I'm having trouble understanding how adding RSS is a bad idea. Can you elaborate? Flipboard would replace Reeder for me if they added that functionality.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Anthony: because Twitter has replaced RSS already. You just don't realize it. Like Hector says, you can convert any RSS into Twitter and then pull that into Flipboard. So why would Flipboard waste developer time to test everything out and build a new importer? They have more important things to do to make their product better (like give me more tiles, which are desperately needed).Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - That's fine but without RSS, there is nothing to feed to Twitter. Therefore, Twitter hasn't replaced anything.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Jack Tse - @Robert Scoble - I think what you are saying is that Twitter has dominated all forms of syndication in the way people actually consume content.
The two technologies are still relevant in different ways. The role of each may start to divulge even further though such as RSS becoming more XML rich.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
The two technologies are still relevant in different ways. The role of each may start to divulge even further though such as RSS becoming more XML rich.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Jack: I watch how normal (IE, non tech excited) people read stuff. They don't understand what RSS is. They do understand how to follow something on Twitter or friend or like something on Facebook. Geeks are the only ones having this conversation.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - Robert, we realize RSS never went mass market, we know how normal people read stuff. If Flipboard doesn't want to support it, that's their decision, and they're probably right, since it's a niche market. Twitter is still very much the domain of geeks as well, most "normal" people stop using Twitter soon after they open an account. We've both see the data proving this out.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Anthony: if it's only geeks using Twitter then RSS is even more dead. Why? Geeks know how to take RSS into Twitter and get it to work on Flipboard. I disagree with you and the stats show that enough normal people are sticking around on Twitter to make it pretty damn important. Flipboard and Paper.li are making it even more important.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Jack Tse - @Robert Scoble - i agree with you. That's why I'm saying RSS is relevant for developers to integrate with all the social media as more of a public XML file rather than a consumed file (like HTML).
We'll always have websites but how do we get our content onto social media such asTwitter, Digg, FB, Buzz - through a single format. That format is RSS. RSS is a functional doc type outside of social media itself. You can parse RSS just like XML for a variety of uses.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
We'll always have websites but how do we get our content onto social media such asTwitter, Digg, FB, Buzz - through a single format. That format is RSS. RSS is a functional doc type outside of social media itself. You can parse RSS just like XML for a variety of uses.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - You're taking a hack to get RSS into Flipboard as a sign that RSS is dead? Show me how to subscribe to my content without RSS and then I'll be happy, but without RSS, there is no way to have the content delivered to me in an elegant way. Flipboard is just one cute application, one I enjoy, but requires me to hack a feed to get my RSS data into it. "Normal" people are forced to follow whatever Twitter is providing them instead of being able to subscribe to whatever website they want. Again, I agree it's not Flipboard's job to make everyone happy, and I think they're making a good business decision, as you pointed out, because the mass market doesn't care.
As far as Twitter, the stats show normal people stop using it soon after they join. If Twitter eliminated follower/following count, it would help get rid of the spammers, the hucksters, so called "social media experts", celebrities that have zero influence (http://mashable.com/2010/06/16/twitter-follower-influence/ ), self promoters, etc and make "normal" people use it without being discouraged by their tiny follower count. This is another topic entirely and I don't want to derail the topic of Flipboard being a great application, which it is, but I think it's important to note that Twitter is still very much dominated by geeks, most mainstream users lose interest in it quickly.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9148878/Twitter_now_has_75M_users_most_asleep_at_the_mouse Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
As far as Twitter, the stats show normal people stop using it soon after they join. If Twitter eliminated follower/following count, it would help get rid of the spammers, the hucksters, so called "social media experts", celebrities that have zero influence (http://mashable.com
http://www
Chris Heath - Twitter replacing RSS is a bad idea... sure it CAN replace rss but think of the power that you're giving twitter by surrendering syndication powers to themAug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Anthony De Rosa - I also don't want to spam twitter with a bunch of RSS feeds. We already have a high noise to signal ratio on twitter, more RSS feeds on Twitter just creates more noise and less valuable conversation.Aug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - ALSO, Robert - have you addressed the legal concerns with flipboard or can you point me somewhere that does address those concernsAug 24DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Chris: the legal concerns are totally made up by the press. If Flipboard has these legal concerns (they do not, they only publish a small portion of the text) then Google Reader has these legal concerns x100 (Google Reader often displays ALL the text). In fact, here on Buzz you can see ALL my text. If I was a publisher and was going to get pissed about this issue I'd get pissed at Google first.Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Christopher Carr - I thought it was a matter of Flipboard reformatting the text in sort of re-purposing it, that was the issue -- not the amount of text they display. No?Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Christopher: there has not been a single complaint. It was a made up issue and, no, that was NOT the issue.Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - RE: legal concerns - it was my understanding that they said they were using the RSS feeds (which is fine, right?) but that in reality they were scraping more than just the RSS (which is a no-no, right?)Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - and also the "Big Picture" images from the boston globe... those aren't licensed to the globe by the AP to then be scraped by third parties... that surely can't be legal, right?Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - I'm not trying to hammer this point, but get this discussion started. It's more than 'oooh that's illegal' -- there's innovation happening and that's a good thing but innovation while disruptive and positive can also be disruptive and negative. -- what are the pro's and con's to this type of innovation?Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Chris Heath - i don't really see a big problem with what they're doing but it looks like they're pushing the envelope in ways that other people might see as a big problemAug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
Robert Scoble - Jack: that is true, but then they can ask Flipboard not to display their content, or, better yet, they can work with Flipboard to find a new way to do advertising which will be coming.Aug 25DeleteUndo deleteReport spamNot spam
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