Chrisoula Kapelonis's Profile

Fantastic post! I had never heard about Pymetrics before. Seems like quite a fascinating concept. I wonder what the data points it uses though for each game, and if it compares metrics between games to make more complex assessments.

Great post! I have a friend who uses Stitch Fix, and I’ve heard really interesting things about the service. I wonder though how they obtain the supply of clothes, and if that has an effect on the types that they ship to customers. Are they partnering with stores or are they sourcing their clothing directly from the large suppliers?

Great example of network effects. I think though what’s interesting is the shift this year that Bitcoin has had from being an underground currency, to announcements from large institutions like Nasdaq (blockchain and stock trading with chain.com) and Citi Bank (the development of Citi coin) that they are pursuing innovations and utilizations of the system. This might start to indirectly affect its adoption by adding trust into the system, and directly affect it if financial hubs like banks or the NYSE start accepting it in some form.

Great post. I think the fact that you bring up the “buy it” button is fantastic. What’s different about Pinterest as opposed to other social media (like Instagram or Facebook), is that its content is linked to the native hosting website, as opposed to being embedded within the post or linking to a business profile. Which probably makes it much better for advertisers to have a direct channel to their merchandise (as you noted above). I didn’t actually know that they had implemented the “buy it” button, but it seems to be set up well since the content is so directly connected to its window in Pinterest.

Would be an interesting switch if major banks start to adopt these services as mediators. I wonder though if it would make sense for them to have home-grown services though. Chase had Quickpay as a way to pay other Chase members directly, but once Venmo took off, its interoperability allowed anyone to pay anyone. That’s like Verizon customers only being able to call other Verizon carriers. I wonder what the hesitation is for that trans-network transfer.

Thank you for that reference! Didn’t even realize Facebook decided to implement its own system. Shows the weakness of bad interfaces for sure. Thanks again!

Yes! Absolutely! I think they lack the transparency of some of the newer apps that offer much simpler terms of use. They don’t seem to have a grasp on the way that users exchange transactions today, your frustration being a fantastic example of that. Their entire model feels antiquated, and exactly as you said, not really fitting for today’s millennials, but for the older generation that holds on to interface because of the sheer resistance to learn a new one.

I wonder though if in some time, they’ll become irrelevant though. Currently they operate as a mediator that holds your payment information, and relays it to the website that accepts it, almost like a digital payment messenger. But if there happens to be a shift where you can directly pay a website, or a business directly, the same way you could tag someone in a Slack message, or on Facebook, then their entire value dissipates, and apps like Venmo or Square could possible dominate.

You bring up an excellent point that PayPal is still dominating the online payment world, and it makes me wonder why Venmo or other pay services haven’t tried to innovate in this territory yet. But on the other side of that, I think it’s such a missed opportunity for PayPal not to enter the digital person to person transaction space, especially with such a large user base. And now that other players are coming into the world of Ebay since their “divorce,” perhaps this momentum might start to slow faster. Thanks for the comment!

Thanks Ximena! Great point. I think you’re right to ask your question about developing countries and access to capital. I wonder if Square’s hardware offerings could help or hurt them in these economies. Because the largest part of their business currently is through the hardware used to process credit card payments, in countries where people don’t have credit cards, this model seems useless. If they head in this direction of direct payments, and provide cheap infrastructure for that, then maybe they have a chance against the bigger names in person to person sales, especially since Amazon and PayPal are still predominately only online transactions. Thanks for the comment!

Thank you! You bring up a fantastic point about the perks of credit cards that currently seem to be missing in the landscape of other payment interfaces. I think that companies like Square and Venmo have such a good opportunity for tapping into really specific data collection and offering much more curated rewards, points, discounts etc. because if they can really start to serve as full-stack payment methods, they might be able to make connections between merchants and vendors that weren’t otherwise possible. Plus, the ability to tap into the organic relationships we have with our phones, instead of laying dormant in a piece of plastic could give them even greater digital real-estate to utilize for the benefit of both the customer and merchant; rewards as advertising perhaps? Great thought Anndrea!

Fantastic that you mentioned that actually….http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/square-apple-pay/

I think what’s happening is that Square is realizing exactly that, and trying to be as invisible and inclusive as it can in the payment process. And if that means the addition of incorporating Apple Pay, might be a good move. I think what’s interesting is that they’re viewing other payment processes the same way they do credit cards; additional interfaces to be processed and interpreted by their software and hardware. So I’m not sure how their payment services will take off (seems like they’re struggling a bit now actually), but they seem to be trying to set up the web from now regardless.

Thanks for the comment!!

YES! Absolutely. I think you nailed it with this “PayPal appears to be treading water and living off of inertia.” They’re stagnant…

And I think you’re right, that the other payment methods are less prevalent in digital spaces where PayPal is, but I think their introduction and the slight traction they’ve been having shows that PayPal no longer has reign over the market like they used to. But, they’re slowly coming in. Square just launched a new piece of hardware that reads the NFC chips and accepts Apple Pay http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/08/square-apple-pay/ so, we’ll see where that takes them…

Thanks for the comment!

It’s funny that after using Slack, I’ve been wanting tagging capabilities in every single one of my other messaging apps. I think the utilization of “tags” really makes Slack so useful. It’s one of those things you didn’t know you needed until you used it; can’t be unseen. That being said, do you think that Slack has the capability to knock out the typically assigned “work email?” Because in its current capacity, email is fragmented communication, whereas Slack becomes a hub of communication…Thoughts?

You bring up a great point about the current definition of “television.” It seems like today, what’s happening with the visual media revolution is reminiscent of the shift that happened with the music revolution; where the content was no longer locked by the hardware (CDs, tapes, etc.) but divorced to live between devices (iPod, Desktop…). Makes sense that something like the Chromecast then would allow that fluidity of interface that we crave so much, and allow us to bounce content between different interfaces. So I think Google is right in eliminating the separate, clunky, on-screen menu interfaces that other streaming devices utilize. And the screen responsiveness is on point with that. But, what bugs me about Chromecast is its inability to be completely interoperable. Right now it’s locked into the specific apps that support it, and isn’t utilizing the opportunity to be the fluid interface for screens we need.

I think the fact that you pointed out LinkedIn’s ability to expedite the hiring process at a much lower cost to the company is fantastic. It also begs the question though, why LinkedIn isn’t utilizing its pull as a hub for qualifications to start verifying credentials. Currently, National Student Clearing House is the aggregator for verification of educational information, and uses an antiquated process of verifying records that take up to a week. In the same way that other social media sites (like Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest) are verifying their users, I feel like LinkedIn could start doing that for important moments of qualifications.