Next 2 us

Blog this business plan, day 3

Its getting better.  Also updated the landing page.  Its now 

Simplest, fastest web page by text message example http://m.next2.us/brip

New Home Landing Page

Next 2 business plan

Next 2 networks people together to literally talk about the places they live work or want to visit, travel to or learn more about.  With Next 2 and Google Maps you can view a location on map and see what people are saying in real-time and participate in conversation, post and exchange both public and private messages (via bulletin board system) and communicate directly with others anywhere in the world without revealing one’s mobile number.  Next 2 has developed geolocation and privacy controls that allows Next 2 customers to assign geodata to a mobile number and use their next 2 identify for home/personal contacts.  It allows a user to receive text message updates when info they publish is of interest to another user.  The system is completely private and the two parties may talk by text messaging without revealing their identity or phone number.  Since it is based on text messaging technology it will work anywhere in the world where Next 2 has established relationship with telecommunication carriers to offer this premium text messaging service to their customers.  Customers that have mobile browser or personal computer may login from their phone or home – for free.  Customers in the United States may enroll by sending text “next2 reg name/location” to free phone number  from their mobile phone.

As success of moble2mobile delivery of more powerful handsets delivering even move massive amounts of entertainment and services increases; let’s, not forget fact 90% of market is not there!   The rest of world uses SMS text messaging on cheap handsets as their computer.  The market for the other 90% is astronomical.  Next 2 expects to exploit this by both direct and in-direct investments in developing markets.

Next 2 is targeting bottom-of-pyramid (BOP) applications of its technology to connect urban and rural youths, small business, farmers, NGOs, NFP and GOV around common place, identity and topics of common interest or importance.  Target user is woman in her 20’s or 30’s with family and helps run family business in agriculture, trade or commerce.  Next 2 allows automatic matching of text messages based on location and topic.  Users will be able to create mico-local social networks to talk plan and choose to act together. By facilitating discovery based on proximity and interests a network of micro-local connections can support both public discourse (at http://next2.us) and private affairs via private messaging where data is only shared between exchanging parties.

Location is the last of the big interent filters.  There is Wais/Gopher protocol that allowed file discover,  Then page rank, social, real-time and now of course location.  The protocols that get accepted are few. 

 Many small farmers are currently accessing agricultural price information via sms.  Mobile Banking is already second largest  business and 2^nd   Next 2 will have direct or through licensed agents presence in each country it operates. 

Since Next 2 works by sms, brower or desktop Next 2 takes desktop message and converts it to text message with real-time delivery between users mobile and desktop.  Farmer in sub Saharan Africa will be able to text which would appear live on everyone desktop visiting http://next2.us and anyone could talk and he (or most likely “she” since most small farmers in Africa are women) will reply via text message.

Status

The software currently is available via sms USA short code   There is a web version.  A mobile version is in development

Licensing

Next 2 has executed a Framework Agreement with X s to license Next 2 micro-local social media software on the African continent. The companies will be rolling out the first service in Kenya in fall 2010.  Marketing partners bear cost of marketing in exchange for equal share of per text and advertising revenue.  The company is actively seeking Agents for Asia, Latin and South America.  The company may enter into similar deal or strike strategic partnerships to gain acceptance in other markets.  The company is working on API to allow existing social media to incorporate next 2 geolocation data to their customers.

Intellectual Property

It is believed Next 2 technology that allows social media user to set location and signal to others based on location and use of two sets of keywords is patentable.  The company plans to exploit its intellectual property by offering it to others (through API) or direct through Next 2 global brand.

Competition

Location services is hugely competitive marketplace with social media titans Facebook and Twitter developing and releasing geolocation features there is a plethora of start-ups such as popular Foursquare and Gowilla as well as boutiques such as SimpleGEO and others all vying for piece of market.  Twitter or Facebook could offer same or similar service in USA or foreign markets and cripple company’s own consumer offering.

Next 2 also faces significant hurdles on delivering on its promise.  Customer adoption of geolocation, user-generated content and privacy controls may be insurmountable.

 

 

Looking for community managers to help new users and promote Next 2 in their town.

The beautiful thing about writing your own software is you can make it do whatever you can without having to worry about knitting together disparate tools (like blog software with feed, web site, etc)

Next 2 us si complete custom software.

For example my admin for the system is to have myself listed as friends to all subscribers.  This lets me see new subscribers from time they enroll.

Now image you were listed as friend to anyone that enrolled in Next 2 from your state or town?  Wouldn't that be cool.  With upcoming text to text messaging you will be able to ping all users on their mobile phone.

We are looking for ppl that would like to explore this role in their area.   This is first come first server opportunity.  As community manager you will have opportunity to sell local advertising to local business to earn a fee on each message.

 

<more to come>

 

 

Blog this business plan, day 2

Well today I got up early and worked a little bit.  I had chance last night to think about how to shape Next 2, I am not there yet, not even close.  People like the new homepage but "text messaging"  no one is interested in text messaging in USA except kids and old people.  And, they use it to chat.

That's ok.  Like anything if you know what you are doing, or think you do, then things come easy.  Writing a business plan while not fun isn't hard if you have answers for the why's and why not's.

 

Here is day 2 version of the plan

Next 2 business plan

Next 2 networks people together to literally talk about the places they live work or want to visit, travel to or learn more about.  With Next 2 and Google Maps you can view a location on map and see what people are saying in real-time and participate in conversation, post and exchange both public and private messages via bulletin board system and communicate directly with any other user anywhere in the world without revealing mobile phone number.  With Next 2 users assign geodata to their private phone number and use that data as network identity for their home/personal contacts.  As success of moble2mobile delivery of more powerful handsets delivering even move massive amounts of entertainment and services should be encouraged; lets, not forget fact 90% of market is not there!   The rest of world uses SMS text messaging on cheap handsets as their computer.  The market for the other 90% is astronomical.

 Since Next 2 works by sms, brower or desktop Next 2 takes desktop message and converts it to text message with real-time delivery between users mobile and desktop.  Farmer in sub Saharan Africa will be able to text which would appear live on everyone desktop visiting http://next2.us and anyone could talk and he (or most likely “she” since most small farmers in Africa are women) will reply via text message.

Introduction

All of this exists today inside Next 2 geosocial software and works with USA short code 95495.  The sub Saharan market for roll out is Kenya.  Next 2 has formed Next 2 africa a joint venture with Dubai company licensing Next 2 software throughout the continent.  Next 2 Africa is establishing technical development is Nairobi, Kenya and hiring technical, marketing and administrative staff which is paid by our licensed Agent for Kenya.

Next 2 and Next 2 Africa are expending considerable resources contracting with local telecommunication companies that connect Next 2 sms network to African customers via their mobile carrier. The service is offered as a premium where mobile customers pay a slight premium per text message. The premium is paid to Next2 by mobile carriers based on their customers use.

Next 2 is seeking licensing arrangements for Asia and South America.

Audience

Next 2 is targeting bottom-of-pyramid (BOP) applications of its technology to connect urban and rural youths, small business, farmers, NGOs, NFP and GOV around common place and identity.  Target user is women in her 20’s or 30’s with family and helps run family business in agriculture, trade or commerce.  Next 2 allows automatic matching of text messages based on location and topic.  Many small farmers are currently accessing agricultural price information via sms.  Banking is X business and 2^nd   Next 2 has presence in each country it operates.  IT reaches out to technical hubs and universities, NGO and not-for-profit groups. Next 2 can work on marketing level where match service is prompted to audience, technical level, where orgs mission can be extend utilizing Next 2 and funding level as many of these organizations are actively promoting development.  Africa millennium project.  Size of African audience

Competition

As with many first mover, consumer facing, web applications a significant value is in its good will.  Good will only goes so far especially in fast moving high technology fields where upfront costs are significant when testing any new business concept.  Social media properties

Marketing Approach

Surround and separate – go after third world first.

Next 2 is targeting bottom-of-pyramid (BOP) applications of its technology to connect urban and rural youths, small business, farmers, NGOs, NFP and GOV around common place and identity.

Avoid head to head competition – work on sms and other things in marketing that are emerging not highly contested.

Go big go long – put tech out however can api, opensource, strategic relationships.

Next 2 api allows participates to utilize geo/ID technology in own efforts immediately and at no cost to them.  This will be of interest to education, government and not-for-profit organizations currently looking to fund mobile applications in field of health, agriculture, finance.

There are many worthwhile platforms and earlier entrepreneurs such as Ken Burns at FrontLineSMS and White African at Ushanti that have pioneered sms and still are at the forefront in applying geospatial/community data but what is needed is a network effect where data can be traded like currency, a open free rolling market where input/export from all interested parties mixing and matching data and delivery mechanisms can deliver high quality improvements using simple handheld phones

 

Intellectual Property – patent geosocial match technology

Marketing

Finance

Use of Proceeds

Management

Intellectual property

 

Blog this business plan

Yeah,  I'm writing a business plan and I'm thinking someone must of already done this, right?  Someone must of come up with the harebrained idea to create a blog or blog or whatever we do in social media to blog a business plan . .  .with subsequent happy ending/greek tradgedy (hey wait this IS about ME) sort of thing going on, as that is pretty much my life right now, why not. might be fun and surely can't hurt, and, maybe we'll learn.

Next 2 business plan

Next 2 is building a global consumer brand called Next 2 that connects people together to talk literally about the places they live work or want to visit, travel to or learn more about.  With Next 2 and Google Maps you can zoom around location on map and see what people are saying in real-time and participate in conversation, post and exchange both public and private messages via bulletin board system and communicate directly with any other user anywhere in the world without revealing mobile phone number.  With Next 2 users assign geodata to their private phone number and use that data as network identity for their home/personal contacts with key word being “network.”    As success of moble2mobile delivery of more powerful handsets delivering move massive amounts of entertainment and services are encouraged lets not forget fact 90% of market is not there!   The rest of world uses SMS text messaging on cheap handsets as their computer.  The market for the other 90% is astronomical.

 Since Next 2 works by sms, brower or desktop Next 2 takes desktop message and converts it to text message with real-time delivery between users mobile and desktop.  Farmer in sub Saharan Africa could text which would appear live on everyone desktop visiting http://next2.us and anyone could talk and he (or most likely “she” since most small farmers in Africa are women) could reply via text message.

Next 2 is built for just such bottom-of-pyramid (BOP) application of technology for connect urban and rural youths, small business, farmers, NGOs, NFP and GOV around common place and identity.

Next 2 api allows participates to utilize geo/ID technology in own efforts immediately and at no cost to them.

There are many worthwhile platforms and earlier entrepreneurs such as Ken Burns at FrontLineSMS and White African at Ushanti are at the forefront in applying geospatial/community data but what is needed is a network effect where data can be traded like currency, a open free rolling marketplace where NGO and others can put together real services like t-banking (already huge) t-government, t-health and many other applications and populations

 

 

why is google lame

I am posting comment at Google Blog about Latitude and you have to have google account to post.

Google Latitude is desk-top application and has been forever.  Map badge,  Next2 does that using sms to update location.  Here's hoping Marissa can shake things up a bit.  Good for users ultimately helping all.

Examples of working #m4d #mobile applications in #africa

The Next Billion has interesting article on application of mobile in Africa with many examples.

With the advent of new mobile technologies like smart phones, and an interest in creating sustainable businesses in the developing world, there's a vibrant and growing market for mobile-based businesses that serve the Base of the Pyramid. At the 2010 Social Enterprise Conference at Columbia Business School, five innovators sat down to discuss their work and the prospects for the BoP.

There is lot of talk about building apps for Africans by Africans.  Its appears to me the opportunity for right applications of technology are bearing fruit.

I liked this quote from social entrepreneurs "they all agreed that their clients were very receptive to the new technologies."

A delight to hear . .  go read the article

Working on new Blog Design and Name Change

I am getting ready to change the name of Hungry Garden to Next2.Us.  Hungry Garden has been great name and the email will stay help@hungrygarden.com but I am moving on to broader focus on food security, specifically, and heck Next 2 us is just a better name.

So . . .  good bye Hungry Garden, 

 

and, Hello  . . . ..next 2 us

Trading McDonald #Monopoly pieces using #SMS

 
So I don't ever eat at McDonalds, but my children love it so I take them once in awhile.   While we are eating a server comes around and hands us some monopoly game cards.  I ask my children what they are and they show me how the game pieces come off the food containers.  So we won 2 medium fries and some game pieces.  I have nothing better to do so I look at the games board and the pieces they won and I see one piece is Park Place with a prize of $1 million dollars IF you also have Boardwalk.

I kinda of do a double take and yep, seems like you win $50,000 per year for 20 years (no interest) if you come up with both Park Place and Boardwalk. Of course, I start walking around the restaurant seeing if anyone has Boardwalk (no such luck). Then I start thinking on way home, its just a matter of figuring who has what game pieces then putting them together to win.  

As I spend all day thinking about geolocation and social networks I turn to Twitter and of course there are tweets #monopoly, #boardwalk, #parkplace.  I even find a two guys on Twitter that claim they have boardwalk.  Upon further inspections one claims he has bRoadwalk; slightly amused.

According to the official rules there are only two, get that 2, 1 million prizes available.  I doubt the guy or gal that has Boardwalk is tweeting about it.  Nevertheless there seems to be some reasonable cash prizes

We'll I've been working on a SMS system for use in Africa and I have it working here in the United States with a free phone call.

The irony of promoting a McDonald's game to test my SMS software is not lost on me but I need testers and its very hard to get people to try new things.  So if you want to help me test new software AND text about the McDonald's game cards you #need, #want or #discuss please go ahead and give it a try. 

So here is what you need to trade McDonald monopoly pieces using SMS.

• Text "Next2 name and location to 95495"

Next2 will return a text message to you confirming your account.

• Text "Next2 srad 3000"

Next2 will return a text message to you confirming the radius around your location within which you text messages will be share with other users.  Want to make your circle larger of smaller just Text "Next2 srad" with the new number and Next2 will confirm the change.

Want to exchange your Monopoly Game pieces with other users.

• Text "Next2 addp want (or have or discuss) boardwalk (or other word or name of Monopoly piece) and up to 160 characters of text.

Next2 will confirm your message.  Next2 will also match and exchange your text message with another user who's location is within your privacy circle and uses the proper word of phrase to match your text message.  To match messages have and want match each other and #discuss matches with discuss.  The word or phrase after have want or discuss must match exactly with the word or phrase you use after want have or discuss in your test messages.

Matched text messages will be sent to your mobile phone.

You will be able to text with other users by sending text "Next2 @ user" so you can text with other users without having to reveal your mobile phone number.

You can read complete details and instructions at the Next2.Us SMS page at right

 

 

Trading McDonald's #Monopoly Game pieces on Next 2 us

McDonald's is running its popular Monopoly Game where you can win free food and prizes. I am not a big fan of McDonald's but I am a big fan of location based social networks and I thought trading Monopoly game pieces and prizes on Twitter may be a good way to introduce people to Next2.Us (formerly Hungry Garden).

It looks like from McDonald's Office Game Rules the number of smaller cash prizes are in the thousands (with chance of winning in the millions and hundreds of millions for the grand $1 million prize.  See table below).

I thought it would be interesting to see if social media and specifically location based social media like Next2.Us and Twitter could be used to let game players connect to each other by listing and trading game pieces using Hungry Garden.

The cool thing about Next2.Us is its easy to use

ere is what you need to do to start using Hungry Garden and Twitter to trade Monopoly Game pieces.

1. Sign-up for Next2.Us at http://next2.us by creating and account name.  You will immediately have access to the software.  If you want to get matches to your pieces on your mobile phone send free text "next2 reg name/location" to #95495 by text message.  You'll get any matches as new text message plus free password to http://next2.us

2.  Save your location (don't worry you'll be able to hide your details) using the PRIVACY settings.

3. After you save your location SELECT PRIVACY and set your privacy radius to large enough circle so your tweets will match with other users.  You can always change your privacy settings later.

4. Select the RTV tab then Add Blog and post your pieces.

 

We've added all the Monopoly Game pieces.  If the piece you add matches someone elses you messages will be exchanged.  If you have a SMS account it comes as text message to your phone.  Matches also appear in your Message Tab Inbox

 

 Below are the official chances of winning from McDonald's.  G

In-Store -- Collect & Win Prizes:

QUANTITY	PRIZE DESCRIPTION	PROPERTIES NEEDED	ARV	ODDS	AVALABLE
5,000	Fifty Dollars ($50) Cash**	Mediterranean Avenue (#750) Baltic Avenue (#751)	$50	1 in 601,735	Territory
1,500	One Hundred Dollars ($100) Cash**	Oriental Avenue (#752), Vermont Avenue (#753), Connecticut Avenue (#754)	$100	1 in 6,797,351	Territory
250	Two Hundred Dollar ($200) SpaWish® Gift Certificate	St. Charles Place (#755), States Avenue (#756), Virginia Avenue (#757)	$200	1 in 36,950,005	Territory
250	One Thousand Dollars ($1,000) Cash**	St. James Place (#758), Tennessee Avenue (#759), New York Avenue (#760)	$1,000	1 in 36,950,005	Territory
122	Beaches Resorts – The Luxury Included® four (4) Day/three (3) Night Family Vacation for two (2) adults & two (2) children fifteen (15) years or under	Kentucky Avenue (#761), Indiana Avenue (#762), Illinois Avenue (#763)	$7,000 (including air travel)	1 in 23,683,033	Territory
8	EA SPORTS Trip	Reading Railroad (#772), Pennsylvania Railroad (#773), B&O Railroad (#774), Short Line (#775)	$7,000	1 in 1,200,022,974	Territory
5	Twenty Five Thousand Dollars ($25,000) Cash**	Atlantic Avenue (#764), Ventnor Avenue (#765), Marvin Gardens (#766)	$25,000	1 in 568,154,634	Territory
4	Fifty Thousand Dollars ($50,000) Cash**	Pacific Avenue (#767), N. Carolina Avenue (#768), Pennsylvania Avenue (#769)	$50,000	1 in 704,260,028	Territory
2	One Million Dollars ($1,000,000) Payable $50,000/yr for 20 years, no interest	Park Place (#770), Boardwalk (#771)	$1,000,000 at maturity	1 in 273,825,959	Territory

New geosocial SMS network for African farmers please help test by signing-up!

 This tweet reflects exactly what we hope to accomplish with Hungry Garden's new SMS service in Africa.  We have developed a geosocial network that will allow small farmers to connect to each other and to their suppliers and buyers via simple text messaging.  Farmers may register for the service mark their location on a map and set a privacy radius around their location within which their content is shared with other registered users.  By sending a text that starts with want, have or discuss and a topic word of phrase, the service exchanges text messages based on the use of keywords.   Once connected individuals may use the service to exchange text messages without revealing their mobile phone number.

We hope to roll-out the service within the next four to six weeks under a pilot program in East Africa.

If you are located in the United States please help us test the service by following the instructions at Next2.Us SMS  The page contains information about the SMS service and instructions on how to use the service.

We could really help testing this new geosocial network via SMS to make sure it works properly prior to our roll-out in Africa.