Daniel Ek is one of the founders of Spotify, which is the leading music service and also features access to podcasts, and videos. It allows users to access songs, videos and more from all over the world. Using the basic functions, like streaming music, is free. There is an option to upgrade to Spotify Premium which costs $9.99 per month and includes personalized features where users can create their own radio stations, collections of music, and playlists. It is also available for use across different devices like phones, tablets, cars, and even TVs. It even has the ability to be integrated into social media and matchmaking apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Tinder so people can find friends and potential dates with similar music interests. They use the idea of “freemium,” where basic streaming services are free to the user with advertisements to offset the cost for Spotify. This way, users can listen to new songs without having to pay for each song. It saves the users money, and also saves space on devices because the music isn’t downloaded onto the device, it’s just streamed. It has big competitors, particularly Apple, but it still has over 100 million users and is continuing to grow. It uses many data collection techniques in order to release new products and keep users interested. Spotify has helped the world by creating a new way for people to access new music. In the past, music piracy was a pretty big issue. Spotify has helped decrease music piracy because it’s free and gives users access to top hits. It is a completely legal way for people to access music, and it in turn doesn’t hurt the music producers and singers who lose out on money when their music is pirated. With Spotify, they still get paid because of the occasional ads that play while the user is listening. Daniel Ek definitely was innovative when he created Spotify. He transformed the music streaming industry by benefiting both the users and producers.
Archive for App – Page 11
Essentially, Evan Williams’ contribution to the world of entrepreneurs is how he basically turned the social network history as we know it.
His drive was to revolutionize the business of Twitter and turn it into something new. After assisting in the decision for the Library of Congress to digitally archive all tweets ever sent out, Williams realized the potential business potential here.
He announced a “Points of Interest” feature that allows user to check in to their Twitter accounts to see what they want to see, making Twitter have the user-friendly interface it has today. This led to Twitter growing over 1,500% in 3 years.
300,000 new users are registered a day. Even though Williams has not tapped into the market of geo-locating like its competitors, Williams made the decision to allow for the monetization of Twitter.
With “Promoted Tweets” by interested companies, Twitter grew to the social media super power it is today.
Ben Silbermann and Evan Sharp, co-founders of Pinterest, both used their prior experiences in the technology and the internet to start a very successful business of their own. Silbermann was a Google employee until he left to design apps on his own. However, these failed to gain any traction, until eventually he designed a product inspired by his own love of collecting things.
Similarly, Sharp worked at Facebook as a product designer. He met Silbermann in New York, and then joined his team to make Pinterest a reality.
Pinterest is really about idea sharing. People enjoy telling others about their ideas, and Pinterest gives them a platform to not only do so but also to gauge how a community will respond to it. It is a great place to see other peoples ideas as well, and find inspiration for many different things.
This business idea is a great example of collision in a liquid network. In the realm of technology and the internet, two men with the experience and ideas necessary collided to make a business that could possibly eclipse Facebook and other social media giants.
Without one another, the idea would just be a pair of hunches, and nothing would have come from it. However, in a community where ideas can bounce around, change, and grow, true innovations can be born.
Do you ever wonder what could be acheived in 54 hours? In 2016, Pittsburgh Startup Weekend Women’s Edition was hosted for the first time ever… and as a result, the winning team Go Jane Go’s Amelia App is now in the beta testing phase. Kate’s idea to create an app to connect women with other professionals in cities away from home was given a chance to develop when she and her sister Ellen attended Startup Weekend and met UX Designer Sanjana. Together they were able to create a solid foundation for their venture while not only winning the competion, but receiving resources to help them in their quest to develop it. These three individuals skills paired with the proper resources and enviroment accelorated the creation of a community womens app.
This year at Pittsburgh Startup Weekend, three of the top winning teams were comprised of some your own fellow GROVERS, with business ideas for Active Home, Chute and The Good Find… so be on the lookout for these potential businesses in the future!
Learn more about…
- Go Jane Go www.amelia-app.com
- Startup Weekend PGH www.techstars.com
- Active Home www.activehomepgh.com
- Chute www.chutestartup.co
- The Good Find www.thegoodfind.co
Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy are the two founders of one of the biggest social media networks, called Snapchat. Snapchat is used by one hundred fifty million users per day. Snapchat has a wide age demographic because it is popular among people who are school age, college age, and even young adults. Users make a username, which is how others see them, and add them. A relatively new feature Snapchat has added is the ‘Snapcode,’ which is a quicker way to add friends, rather than by username. Users can either screenshot their friend’s Snapcode and upload it into snapchat from their device’s camera roll, or they can take a picture of their friend’s Snapcode right on Snapchat, and their friend will be added. Once people add their friends, they’re all kept in a ‘friends list.’ Then, users take pictures of themselves (called selfies), scenery, or anything else they want, and send it to people on their friends list while adding a caption. The picture can be set to be shown for a certain amount of time, or until the receiver taps it off the screen. It is like texting, only with pictures each time, and there’s a catch; the pictures disappear forever either after it is clicked off the screen or the time runs out. This was a completely new and innovative way for communication. The ability to send pictures and videos, while still chatting with a person, was easier and more fun. Also, because the pictures disappear, it added more fun because people can send embarrassing “selfies” and not have to worry about them being seen by everyone. Snapchat also made connecting with people easier because it only requires an internet connection to be able to send pictures. There was a time when sending pictures through texts costed extra. With Snapchat, people could send pictures and messages as long as there was internet connection, and there’d be no extra charge. Spiegel and Murphy were very successful and innovative with their invention of Snapchat. It added a twist to texting and made communicating with friends easier and more fun. Even today, they are constantly adding new features to the network, such as the ability to add filters to the pictures, the ability to use the ‘discover’ page to read magazines and catch up on current events in the world, and make Snapchat Stories. Snapchat Stories are pictures or videos that people put on to their Snapchat and everybody the person is friends with can see it continuously for 24 hours before it disappears. Their new ideas and changes to Snapchat continue to make the network better, more exciting, and more appealing to users, all while still making communication easy.
Mark Zuckerberg is the inventor of Facebook. Facebook is a social media platform used by over a billion people each day. People use the site to post statuses, pictures, links, and anything else they want. It can also be used for instant messaging other users, playing different games that are on the site, and for shopping. People make group pages where others can post items they want to sell, and now there is even a tab called “The Marketplace” where people post items for sale. Users shop the Marketplace, and the items that are shown are based on a certain mile radius from the shopper’s location. It makes buying and selling easier than sites like eBay because the items are close and easier to access. Mark Zuckerberg never dreamed Facebook would turn into what it has today. He originally started the idea for the website at Harvard University with his college roommates. It was intended to be a site for the university so people could search others who go to their school, find out who are in their major or classes, and, of course, make friends. After it took off at Harvard, it was opened up for use at other Ivy League schools. It continued to flourish until it expanded throughout the country and, eventually, the world. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, and all of its ability has made a huge impact on the world. It gave people an entirely new way to communicate. People can communicate with people across the world, which was hard to do before because international calling and texting was difficult and expensive. It is available in about one hundred languages, which also helped to connect the world. People can connect and share pictures with all of their friends and family at once rather than having to send it to each individual person. It makes disclosing news faster and easier. Facebook definitely impacted the world and makes it feel a lot smaller since it is so easy to connect with others. Another trait that makes Facebook so influential is that it is constantly changing and being made better. The Facebook massages now have the capability to make phone and video calls to others on the site. Everything the user needs is accessible all within one site rather than having to use multiple apps and websites to send texts, make phone calls, and make video calls. Mark Zuckerberg is still heavily involved in his company and continues to strive to make it better. He is a true entrepreneur who is invested in, and is passionate about what he created and intended it to be.
Spotify or Apple Music?
Answer: Spotify
Spotify has been around for many years, but it especially rose to dominance in the last few years. However, it hasn’t always been success and diamonds for the two Swedish founders and entrepreneurs, Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon.
Once upon a time (back in 2005), they were two guys fiddling and working on the development of Spotify from Ek’s apartment. It was so hot inside because of all the servers running– and the two founders were said that they were forced to sit around half-naked to avoid sweating to their death.
But let’s back up.
Daniel Ek has always had an unparalleled love for music… and technology. The young Swedish boy was without a biological father in his life and was given the chance to combine music and technology in his studies at secondary school. After completing IT college where he graduated with top grades, he landed a job at Europe’s largest advertisement company and rapidly became successful. At that age, 23, he was financially independent, owned a red Ferrari Modena, and owned a VIP card to the hottest clubs in Stockholm, Sweden. Source
Just before the Ipad 2 came out, a young university student named Garrett Gee had the hunch that there would be blog posts all over the web listing the top 10 apps for the new device. Garrett then came up with the idea that there should be much easier QR code software and apps to use with the new device. Because Garrett felt that he was on to something, he go to work immediately.Had to act quickly to be the first to implement his idea. After quickly getting an Ipad 2 into the hands of his ios developer, Garrett spent two sleepless nights developing his service before it was completed. He named his app Scan and recruited two fellow classmates to help develop the service further and it was finally launched in February of 2011. In the first year, Scan earned over 10 million downloads and made over 1.5 million dollars from venture capitalists such as Google Ventures.
In class we have talked about how many ideas originally stem from a lucky hunch like Garrett’s. When a hunch is taken seriously, it can lead to big ideas and successful accomplishments like the scan application. Hunches are able to develop by clashing with other people’s ideas and hunches. After getting the input of his two fellow classmates, Garrett’s hunch was improved and transformed into the extremely successful idea of Scan.
Diego De La Hoz is a young entrepreneur who thought of a more efficient way to travel from city to city especially for college students. As a college student, Diego was aware of the high cost of gas required to ride home. However, once he noticed that he was not the only one who faced this problem, he decided to come up with a solution.
Diego discovered the answer to this problem when he learned a key fact about many college students. He realized that students with cars tend to travel with empty seats while students without cars tend to use the bus which is expensive and time consuming.
In order to coordinate these two different groups of students to communicate, Diego created Wahi Ride. Wahi Ride is a social mobile app where college students can connect with each other, rideshare, and share the transportation cost.
Wahi Ride saves people money, helps students build relationships, and aids the environment. By splitting the cost of gas between multiple people, the app can greatly reduce the cost of gas for students. And while the app takes people to where they need to go, it also helps build relationships by providing a time for people to connect with each other. Also, the app greatly reduces gas emissions by encouraging students to use fewer cars when traveling from location to destination.
This app caught my attention because at my college, I do not have the luxury of driving to and from my house because I am currently not allowed to have a car on my campus. And even if my car was on campus, the price of gas required in order to journey home is incredibly expensive. And because finding a ride home from other people is often extremely hard, I would benefit greatly from this app which makes ride sharing convenient, efficient, and fun.
Josh Bruno is an inspiring entrepreneur because of his role as the co-founder of Hometeam, app that pairs home health aides with seniors in need of care. When Josh’s grandmother died, leaving his 93-year-old grandfather in need of care, Josh realized that in-home caregivers and nursing homes were all inefficient ways of taking care of his elderly grandfather.
So Josh created Hometeam. Hometeam is known today as the most reliable in-home care giving option for seniors and their families, giving a full healthcare team and a preprogrammed iPad to each customer in order to not only provide excellent senior care but also anticipate potential problems before they happen.
Although this idea is hard to grasp for most young people, Josh understood the hardships of looking for a safe and reliable way for an older relative to be taken care of in their old age. Instead of accepting defeat when the nursing homes and in-home care givers were sub par to his expectations, Josh decided to create a more efficient method for people to search for reliable care giving options.
I personally liked this idea a lot because I have seen the lifeless state that many nursing homes are in and I have had a relative that had to go through the experience of living in a nursing home. From my experience with nursing homes, I have been disappointed in the quality of care they supply to elderly people and I am happy that someone has finally come up with a solution to this problem.