The Latitude idea has been floating around for years, but … it’s very hard to do well on one model of cell phone; there are actually hundreds of different kinds; there is no obvious revenue model; cell phone and Internet companies cannot agree on how to split the non-obvious revenue; and privacy advocates think the whole idea is insane. Google has cut through all of this by ignoring revenue for now, spending a fortune to build clients for many different kinds of phones as well as systems that can figure out the location of those phones without the help of cell phone companies, and promising to do no evil.

It works really well. If you connect to me, I can see where you are at all times. No more “I’m here - where are you?” phone calls. At a sprawling conference in Barcelona, the Skydeck team were able to keep track of each other and co-ordinate meetings. And my wife knows when I am on my way home.

But I don’t want or need to know where all my friends are all of the time. I’d just like to know when they are one block over. Sometimes.

Right now I can only share my location with other users of Latitude inside Latitude, and that gets old, fast. I want to share my location with lots of other applications and people from time to time. When I call a cab, I’d like to show the driver where I’m standing. When I’m late for a meeting, I’d like to show the other person how far away I am. I’d like to log my location in a calendar, so that at the end of the year I have a diary of all the places that I’ve been. When I arrive in a new city, I’d like to update my status automatically, and I’d like to share my location with other applications on my phone.

As it happens, Yahoo has built a terrific platform for sharing location information called FireEagle. FireEagle controls who sees what when, so that the cab driver can know exactly where I am but only for the next 10 minutes while my friends on Facebook can always know where I am, but only the city. Right now there is no way that I can report my location automatically to FireEagle; I have to update it by hand. And that gets old, fast.

So Google and Yahoo, please connect Latitude to FireEagle. That won’t get old at all.

UPDATE 5/4/2009: I must not have been the only person who wanted this. I have added the new Google Latitude widget to this blog.

(Originally posted on the Skydeck blog)

I wish we could say that we saw lots of cool new phones and applications at MWC, but they were few and far between. As many people have pointed out, some of the most interesting companies in the industry were not exhibiting in Barcelona at all (Apple), or doing invitation-only demos (Palm), or making cameo appearances in the booths of other companies (Google).

Most conspicuously absent? You, the consumer - someone who might actually want to buy a cool new phone or application.

In theory anybody can attend a show like MWC, but prices start at €600 (almost $1,000). To get into the venue, we had to present photo ID along with our conference badges, and signs posted at every exit warned us to conceal our badges before leaving. Why? Because interest in MWC is so high that people get mugged for their conference badges.

This is a trillion-dollar industry; more people own mobile phones than own TVs, computers, or cars. So why doesn’t the industry’s largest trade show have a day dedicated to consumers?

Because for handset manufacturers like LG and application developers like Yahoo - yes, Yahoo, when it comes to mobile - the consumer is not the customer. The carrier (or ‘operator’) is the customer. At shows like MWC, ‘vendors’ meet with ‘operators’ to tout products that will ‘resonate’ with ‘consumers’. If your operator buys in, you the consumer might get to see the thing a year later. If not, you may never get the chance. Many of the most interesting applications can’t be offered directly to consumers for technical reasons. New phones that aren’t picked up by an operator may be sold ‘unlocked’, but not all.

It’s changing, but very, very slowly. You’ll know that you the consumer are in charge when you get to see new products first.

While we were in Barcelona I was interviewed about Skydeck by Mobile Industry Review:

Jason Devitt of Skydeck from Mobile Industry Review on Vimeo

(This post first appeared on the Skydeck blog.)

For-side.com Stock

What remained of my first company, Vindigo, shut down yesterday. 30 people lost their jobs. It was a sad end for a company that built some of the first popular applications for PDAs and cell phones in the US.

I sold Vindigo to Japan’s For-side.com four years ago, and left a year later because I disagreed profoundly with them about what the company should do next. That year (2005) Vindigo was on track to do over $10 million in revenue and our sister company Zingy, which For-side had acquired at the same time, was heading towards $50 million. The plan was to combine the two US companies and take them public.

Six months after I left, most of my executive team had quit too. Vindigo and Zingy merged. The company went through four CEOs in three years, all of whom disagreed with For-side about what the company ought to do next.

It wasn’t just the CEOs. Of the 30 people who lost their jobs yesterday, only two were part of my original team.

And in three years, somehow $60 million in revenue fell to zero (or close enough to zero that the company had to shut down).

In June 2004, when For-side acquired both Vindigo and Zingy, the stock peaked at 231,000 Yen. Today the stock closed at around 1,400 Yen, down 99.5%.

My wonderful wife Summer is taking part in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer in San Francisco next month. "Walk" makes it sound easy; it’s almost 40 miles, spread over two days.  Breast cancer is a terrible disease that has touched our family and, I know, some of your families too.  Summer wants to raise $3,500 towards research and she’s 75% of the way there.  Can you help?

Just click here to donate.

Your contribution will help to support medical research into the possible causes of and cure for breast cancer, education and early detection programs, and clinical care and support services for women with breast cancer in communities across the country.  There is a special focus on helping medically underserved women, the poor, minorities, the elderly, or those with inadequate health insurance.  And much of the money granted by the Foundation goes back to the communities where it was raised, supporting everything from local grassroots programs to national organizations.

But I’m glad to say that Skydeck is no longer a secret. Today announced that we’re working on an online service which will help consumers take control of their cell phones and their cell phone bills.

For more, check out this blog post and the rest of our brand new site.

More about how we got here and what we plan to do next when I get the chance.

At the end of August I realized that everyone I was trying to reach on the phone was on vacation, so I figured I may as well go myself. Summer and I took a week off and flew to Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands. For the first time since we returned from our long honeymoon we went scuba diving, and Summer decided to try her hand at underwater photography. She spotted this turtle on our second dive.   

Summer and I learned about the Balang Dam from Tobias Rose-Stockwell. Just 23 years old, Tobias is a one-man NGO who has spent the last three years working to relieve poverty in Cambodia. At dinner one night in Siem Reap we overheard Tobias talking about his work at the next table and butted in. America’s reputation abroad may be at an all-time low, but not in that corner of Cambodia, thanks to Tobias.

Ten days ago we saw Tobias again, at a charity dinner in the Napa Valley. That evening he raised the balance of the money necessary to repair the Balang Dam, and more. Just thought you’d like to know.

I was genuinely honored to be invited to testify before Congress on some of the issues surrounding open access and the 700 MHz spectrum auction in the US. More thoughts to follow when I have time; for more context on this piece, visit SaveTheInternet.

Update: more about this on the Skydeck blog.

I believe that we’d all be better off if wireless carriers were required to let us use any device on their networks, so long as it causes no harm and we pay for the bandwidth. It’s a very simple idea that has applied to landline networks for years. Without it, many inventions would never have come to market because the telcos weren’t interested or it didn’t fit their business models: the fax machine, the modem, the Internet itself.

Today on Skydeck’s blog I wrote about a useful mobile device that does not exist, because of the rules of the industry. I call it the xPhone.

I recently filed comments in support of the Skype petition, together with my friend Ram Fish. He’s written about that experience here and here. The xPhone was inspired by those conversations, as well as conversations with Tim Wu and Brad Burnham.

More urgent than the Skype petition perhaps is the battle over the rules for the 700 MHz spectrum auction. This is the most valuable chunk of spectrum that has gone on sale for years. If you support the principles described in my xPhone post, please sign the MoveOn petition.

Last October Michael Arrington wrote about his experience buying a car with minimal exposure to car dealers. I learned a lot from that - not from the post itself, but from the comments, where many people pointed out that he could have done much better. Having just bought a car myself for the first time in my life, I humbly present my five-step process for painless auto purchase.

1. Decide exactly what you want.

All of the information you need is online. Find friends or colleagues who have bought the models that you are interested in, ask them whether they are satisfied, and see if they will let you test drive their car. (Thanks Ted and Rhiana!) Consider renting the models you like for a day or two. As a last resort, go to a dealer for a test drive. Do include the dealer when you are ready to price your car, but this is the extent of your moral obligation. Decide make, model, colors, and options, but do not get fixated on one particular combination. If there’s only one car in the world that you want, you can’t bargain for it.

2. Pay $15 for a new car buying kit from Consumer Reports.

You could spend a few weeks researching dealer incentives, holdbacks, and invoice prices for the models that you care about. Or you can trust Consumer Reports to figure it all out.

3. Wait until the last day of the month.

Seriously. Dealers have quotas to meet. Selling one more car to you - even for zero profit - may trigger bonuses for everyone on the lot. If you’re fixated on one combination of model, package, and color, they may not have it that day. But you are not.

4. Call four dealers and get the best price.

Bid the first dealer the Consumer Reports ‘bottom line price’ plus 2%. Take his best offer to the second dealer. Repeat.

In my case, the first dealer accepted my bid. The second beat it by $100. The third sounded genuinely surprised, and said he could not come close. The fourth matched the second and was nearer to our home, so we bought from him. I asked him to calculate the price including tax and registration over the phone so that there could be no ambiguity.

5. Buy the car.

Sign papers, listen patiently while they explain all optional extras, decline all optional extras, drive car off lot.

I can’t advise you on how to negotiate a lease, because we were fortunate enough to be able to pay cash. But the same principle applies: get at least two quotes. Ask your bank or credit union to pre-approve a loan for the amount that you expect the car to cost. If the dealer can offer better terms, fine.

What has this to do with starting a company?

The same basic rules apply to all negotiations, with new employees, investors, vendors, partners, and customers. Know exactly what you want and what you are prepared to compromise on. Always have an alternative and know what the terms are. Try to do deals when the other party is under pressure to close and not when you are. Never agree to anything that pops up at signing. And if there is no ongoing personal relationship, do not let a salesperson trick you into feeling obliged to do business with him or her.