As I mentioned in the last update (which was way too long ago), things are a bit hectic. I’m looking forward to adding a new section on the site to share just what I mean in the near future. In the meantime, please excuse the plain Wordpress template while we migrate Boomtrends to the new site. Also, as I mentioned we are looking for guest contributors to Boomtrends. Today’s post is from Apurva…enjoy!
If you’re like me, you have trouble remembering things like: Do I owe anyone money? Do they owe me anything? I remember lending Freakonomics to someone, but who? I have Entourage Season 1, but who did I borrow it from? For questions like this, BillMonk provides a great little utility.
Their goal is to “…defuse the financial tensions between friends by providing a tool that manages social money in a way that is easy and fair. Use BillMonk when you need to track money and there isn’t a better way.”
Or, as Hamlet put it, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend.” Um. let’s just move on.
To start, you can add your friends via your Facebook account, an excel spreadsheet, or manually with email addresses. Your friends don’t even have to go through the setup process to get an account. If they choose not to, they’ll receive an email message or text message whenever you mention them in your account.
The site itself provides two unique tools. First, it allows you to track who owes you money, and whom you owe money to. If your friends have accounts, whenever one of you makes an entry mentioning the other in a transaction, the information will be shown in your view. To settle these transactions, you can either pay them in person (duh), or you can sign up for an Obopay account (who coincidentally just bought out BillMonk). Once you have your bank account linked to Obopay, you just click on the amount you owe someone and the money will be transferred. Conversely, if someone owes you money, the amount will show up in your account. Of course there’s a service charge for all this: 10 cents to send money and 1.5% to load cash into your account.
I like the way BillMonk keeps track of all of the various transactions a user has with different people, and the current amount owed at any given time. For instance, if I buy dinner for Rob and we decide to split the $100 bill, and later I owe him $8 for coffee, BillMonk knows that he only owes me a total of $42. When I tell BillMonk that he’s paid me $20, it automatically lowers the amount owed to me to $22.
Although not really a part of the site, Obopay also offers a mobile service that lets you transfer money to your friends through your cell phone via SMS messaging. While I haven’t used this feature yet, I think it has some far-reaching potential. How often do you go to dinner and there’s someone who didn’t bring enough money, so they offer up their credit card, while most of the other people are looking for change because they only have 20 dollar bills?
Using Obopay’s mobile service (or even PayPal’s mobile service), you could easily settle bills right at the table just with a simple text message. For the user who chooses to manage all of his money and transactions through BillMonk, it’s an easy process to download transaction history from Quicken or any other utility that enables CSV functionality. It even provides the capability to ‘tag’ your expenses for easier historical navigation.
While the payment feature is the most popular feature of this site, BillMonk also allows users to set up libraries of all the ’stuff’ they have, focusing primarily on books and DVDs. Using this feature, you can browse your friends’ libraries and ‘check-out’ and ‘check-in’ stuff. The process of going through your actual libraries and inputting them manually is a bit tedious, but it is cool to see what all your other friends have. Instead of rushing out to buy something, you could just as easily find a friend of yours that has it and is willing to lend it out to you.
Now, admittedly, this may seem like a lot of work to keep track of your money and things, and it probably is overkill for easygoing people who are good about paying people back and remembering who has their stuff, but if you have a forgetful set of friends, BillMonk might just be what you’re looking for. As for me, though, I still have no idea who I borrowed Entourage from.
I like to be “connected”. I sleep with my mobile and my laptop on my nightstand. But when I leave my computer, I must rely on my mobile to stay in touch. I have no problem keeping up with my RSS feeds, stocks, news and email (yes Google owns me…) but IM has always been a challenge. The built in IM client on my phone supports AIM, ICQ and Yahoo! and it also sucks. However this leaves Jabber (Google Talk), Live Messneger (MSN) and Skype on the sidelines. Also, I cannot sign on to both of my AIM screennames at once with the integrated client. I need Trillian on my phone!
EQO is like Trillian for your phone. I discovered EQO a couple months back but I didn’t have a chance to test it on a non-T-Mobile-crippled handset. Now I have. EQO supports mobile IM with AIM, Live, Yahoo!, Jabber, Google Talk, ICQ and Skype. It allows you to sign on with multiple screennames, like Trillian. It also supports VoIP connections if your PC is running with Skype and the EQO Skype plugin. You can even install an EQO widget on your online profile (MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, Xanga and Tagworld) so your visitors to your page can IM you whenever. Okay, maybe that is not such a good idea. EQO even threw in their own little mobile social network so you can message all your EQO friends with text, photos or just where you are and what is going on around you (A toned down version of Dodgeball or Loopt).
Wow, that’s a lot of features! I tested EQO on the trusty Nokia E61. After creating an account and picking my phone, I received the install text message and was up and running. EQO allows you to create a very simple profile so your EQO friends can see what you are up to. But what I really care about is the mobile IM. I was able to quickly login to AIM, Google Talk, MSN and Yahoo!. EQO works really well for mobile IM. It definitely beats the built-in clients I’ve tried. I didn’t get a chance to test the Skype VoIP forwarding but I’ve used the same feature with SoonR. Just pick who you want to call on your Skype buddylist (from within the EQO client) then both your phone and their phone will ring, just like Jajah.
The last feature of EQO that I would have liked to try (Assuming I were to have EQO friends) is messaging to other EQO users. Suppose I am at Medjool and there is a really good DJ, I can let all my EQO friends know just by changing my public profile. Pretty slick!
Overall, EQO rocks because 1) It integrates all your IM applications on your handheld and 2) Unlike your phone’s IM app, EQO DOES NOT use up all your text messages! If you are an IM addict, EQO is your crack. Enjoy:)
I do not own an iPod. I’ve been very tempted to get one, but I really don’t need another gadget to carry around. I do have a mobile phone that has a microSD slot so I can bring 2gb of music with me, however my phone has a USB 1.1 connection which makes data transfers painfully slow. And besides, 2gb is just a tease, I want to have my whole damn music collection with me, all the time!
I was hopeful Orb would do the trick but it didn’t work for streaming music to my mobile. Today I discovered Phling!, a mobile music social network. First and foremost, Phling! claims to allow access to all your music and photos stored on your PC from your phone. In addition, it is supposed to allow you to snap pictures with your mobile phone and have one touch uploading to your PC or your MBlog (mobile blog?). This all requires your PC to be running the “Phling! My PC” client application on your PC, just like Orb and for it to be running all the time.
So I gave Phling! a shot. After signing up for an account, I filled out a short profile (like any social network) and installed the desktop background client (which requires WMP 10 or newer). Just like any social network, you can have “friends”, six of whom you can share all you music with (a limitation Orb does not have, but then Orb doesn’t seem to work!) When I went to select my phone to which I found there to be a VERY limited selection of Symbian based handsets. The java app only works on a handful of Nokia and Sony Ericsson models. Disappointed that the E61 was not a choice, I selected the Nokia 5500. I lucked out and was able to install the app on the phone.
I started up the program, logged in and I was greeted with a shrunken home screen, I assume due to the fact that I was running software designed for a phone with a smaller screen (I wish java apps could figure the screen size out without requiring a version for each type of phone!). I was able to navigate my way through all my music and select “U2 - Elevation” then select play…then buffering…then MUSIC! Phling ! took about 5 seconds to buffer each song when running on EDGE, so I imagine it performs very well on a 3G network (I couldn’t get Phling! to run on my LG CU500).
I was also able to browse the photos on my PC. The software automatically resizes pictures to the size of the phone’s screen. If my phone had a camera, I would have also been able to take photos with the phone and upload them to your PC or my Phling! Mblog page. So far, there isn’t much “mobile social community” here. But this is where it is…Phling! allows you to see what music is most popular amongst other Phling! users, as well as rate and comment on songs. Those songs you can select to buy, which I didn’t try this time.
Overall I am very impressed with Phling!. I am now able to listen to my entire music collection from my phone. Where I think Phling! can use some work is with their support for additional models and by making their software a little more “music playery” and less “phoney”. Prefetching would greatly improve the mobile application’s performance, just like it does with Google’s mobile Gmail application. Phling! is really cool and I bet Phlinging music is going to become very common in the not too distant future (Sling for your video, Phling for your music and photos…Merger!). If you have a Symbian based Nokia or Sony Ericsson, you have to check Phling! out!
and use Kiva.org, a site that facilitates P2P microfinancing AKA adopting a developing world business . It works like the sponsor a child programs that we see infomercials for, however by giving to these loans you are practicing my friend Jammy’s motto: “You buy a man a burger he eats for a day; you find that man a job he eats for a while.”
When you have selected the business to donate to, you can even subscribe to the RSS feed to get updates on the business! Also, after a little bit of poking on Kiva’s site, I found that the repayment rate on these loans are upwards of 95%. And if you’re just not quite VC material, and the business you chose fails, just think of it as a donation to a good cause.
Here is the link to the business I chose to give to, please contribute too! However if you are a grinch this holiday season and want to make money off your loans, give Prosper.com a try. It’s a site where you can bid on loans, like on eBay. Here’s the NY Times article covering the launch earlier this year.
Happy Holidays!
