Dogpatch Labs Expands to Boston, San Francisco Lab is Growing & More

Whew, we were busy laboring over Labor Day weekend, and so Dogpatch Labs we has news to share:

Dogpatch Labs is expanding to Boston

Dogpatch Labs has expanded and officially opened space in Cambridge, Massachusetts. TechCrunch has covered the announcement and we are thrilled to make the effort truly bi-coastal. If interested in being a Cambridge resident, please email us at dogpatchlabs @ gmail.com (our official announcement is here):

In San Francisco, there’s a nice big space right on the water where startups can go to enjoy a place to work, Dog Patch Labs. Polaris Venture Partners refers to it as their “frat house for geeks,” as it’s a place for entrepreneurs to come and work/hang out while enjoying free space, connectivity, coffee and food. Now Polaris is taking that idea east, closer to their homebase, with Dog Patch Labs Cambridge.

The new lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts will be located at 222 3rd Street in Kendall Square. And it won’t be meant solely for technology startups, Polaris is welcoming startups from all sectors. The idea is the same as the San Francisco wing that was opened in 2008, to help out really early stage startups, that may not be quite ready to look for investments to help out their projects just yet. More on TechCrunch

Dogpatch Labs San Francisco is Expanding

Dogpatch Labs San Francisco is expanding and has a limited number of open desks for new residents. Desks overlooking the Bay at Pier 38, in an open, high-energy environment with 100 other entrepreneurs; wifi; lunch; unlimited coffee; all at an unbeatable per desk per month rate . Alumni of Dogpatch Labs include LOLapps and Thing Labs, and current startup residents include EtherPad, Mr. Tweet, Umamibud and a few other as-yet unnamed projects. Other startups with us down at Pier 38 include Automattic, Threadsy, Social Gold, SuperSecret, Poken, SitePoint/99Designs and CoTweet. Space is limited, so if you are interested in making a home at Dogpatch Labs San Francisco, please email us immediately at:

dogpatchlabs @ gmail.com or rspoon @ gmail.com

Dogpatch Labs Has a Logo & A New Website Coming

That's right - the lab is official. We have a logo and our website (DogpatchLabs.com) is undergoing its own facelift and will be available shortly:

Dogpatch Labs is Now on Facebook & Twitter

You can now find us on Facebook and Twitter (@dogpatchlabs). To stay abreast of the latest news, photos and events, we encourage you to become a fan and follow us.

Dogpatch Labs on Facebook

Facebook Widgets: Full On-Facebook Promotion & Fan Page Widgets

Last week, Facebook unveiled their new Facebook Widgets suite with badges and boxes for profiles, fan pages, and photos. It is yet another indicator of Facebook focus on pages and off-Facebook.com activity. The widgets include light customizations (I assume more will come) and can be installed directly to Blogger and Typepad or via javascript. For brands and bloggers who are promoting their Facebook presence (and trying to grow a Facebook community) - these widgets are powerful additions to blog sidebars or footers. You can tell that widgets are strategically important to Facebook because they are using their most valuable real estate to promote the new tools: the header of the logged-in user homepage:

Below are examples of a few of the new Facebook widget formats. You can also find a few in my blog's sidebar:

Facebook Photo Badge Widget

Ryan Spoon | Create Your Badge

Facebook Fan Box Widget

Dogpatch Labs on Facebook

Facebook Fan Page Badge

Dogpatch Labs

Promote Your Page Too

How to Go Viral - Step #1: Have a Great Product

In the days of social media, marketers and brands are continually focused on 'going viral' - gaining enough momentum on the web that it begins to spread organically and quickly. There are several ways to virally market (Facebook, Twitter, widgets, SEO, etc)... but the most important method is also the most obvious: have a really good product! In July, Polaris hosted a "customer development" workshop at Dogpatch Labs and one of the focuses was reaching product / market fit (coined by Sean Ellis). It is a great, straightforward exercise that drives brands to ensure that their product or service effectively solves a need AND resonates with its users.

... And if you do both of those, you will go viral regardless whether you have integrated all of the social hooks. Of course you can accelerate virality - but a good product speaks for itself. Two good examples: 1. I purchased an Incipio Feather Back iPhone case for myself and also got one for my sister. Over the weekend, we were both asked about the case countless times (what is it? where do you buy it? how much does it cost?). In a 72 hour period, I am confident that we virally sold 10 Incipio cases simply by 'wearing' the product.

2. FlightTrack iPhone App: it is common for iPhone users to ask for application recommendations. That's how I came across FlightTrack Pro - a terrific paid app that monitors flights, arrivals, gates, etc. It is great and when asked what new apps I use (which happens multiple times a day), I now mention FlightTrack. People then go to the app store and spend the $4.99 to download it. It is viral because the app is tremendously useful and the recommendation comes from a social, trusted conversation:

Facebook Launches Direct Response Facebook Ads

Facebook is testing several new Facebook Ad formats - recently rolling out surveys and 'become a friend' buttons inside the ad units. These are additional ways to brands and marketers to engage with their audience on Facebook - either directly (ie by collecting polling data) or in an ongoing basis (by converting them into Facebook Fans). Remember, not long ago, almost all of the ads on Facebook took users offsite... but Facebook's marked growth and the increased usage of Facebook Pages has made on-Facebook marketing more effective and attractive.

Facebook is now testing another advertising format: direct response units. InsideFacebook has screenshots of an integration with Chick-Fil-A where users can "get a free chicken biscuit" by signing up for a coupon via Facebook. That action is then viral as users are encouraged to share the event with their friends (like the Starbucks Free Ice Cream giveaway) and it shows up in their feed. Over time, it makes sense that Facebook will allow bundling of actions: sign up for a free sample and 'become a fan'.

These ad units are win-wins for consumers and brands. When Starbucks broke the 3,000,000 fan mark - they asked their fans what they wanted to see from Starbucks on Facebook; the resounding answer was coupons, offers and new product news.

Images from InsideFacebook's Facebook Testing New Direct Response Home Page Ad Unit

Using Multiple Images in the Facebook Feed (Zynga's Farmville as an Example)

Facebook's newsfeed is a powerful lever to message users / fans, reach larger audiences and drive traffic. Like any marketing efforts, positioning and timing are important elements (a good reason to use services like Bit.ly and to carefully monitor referral traffic).

Publishers and application developers are well aware of this are getting more creative - and aggressive - with how they utilize the Facebook Feed. One of the most important changes is the inclusion of more imagery in the feed and through Facebook Connect - instead of publishing a single photo, developers like Zynga include multiple images to create a much-larger, more attractive one. Zynga, who is always at the leading edge of understanding and capturing virality, does this very well with their new hit (and fastest growing game yet): Farmville. The images are bold, great-looking and represent achievements related to the players' most recent activity.

Similar techniques are being applied by other application developers and to blogs (posts often have multiple photos). Considering that the feed updates in real-time and your network might post hundreds of times each day, standing out is as important as it is difficult.

Also of note, Rails Rumble competitor FastFeud.com employed similar techniques: when a user posts a matchup to Facebook, the feed contains an image for each item and a "vs." sign.

Yelp's Augmented Reality Easter Egg: An iPhone App First

While you might disagree with Yelp's method of getting their new iPhone Application upgrade through Apple's review process - the fact remains that Yelp has innovated and pushed the boundaries from a consumer, development and process perspective.

To access the Yelp's Augmented Reality mode, download the new application version and shake your iPhone three times. The "Monocle" mode will activate as an easter egg:

Once Monocle mode is enabled, the application combines the iPhone's camera, compass, GPS and Yelp's content. So depending on the direction of where the camera is pointed and where you are located, Yelp overlays the camera with nearby restaurants, bars, stores, etc. It is an interesting experience that is as much a novelty as it is useful... but there are applications of this experience that certainly do make sense: social, commercial and informational. The challenge will be threefold:

1. Simplicity: the user experience can be overwhelming. Presenting it in a clear, user-friendly (aimed at more than early-adopters) is critical for adoption and sustained usage.

2. Content: presenting the right content in the right format is challenging considering the screen size, the actively changing background and the need for geographically relevant content.

3. Technology: The battery, screen and device-size all pose various issues.

Meebo's Share Functionality on TechCrunch: Drag & Drop onto Facebook & Twitter

If you have visited TechCrunch today, you likely noticed the Meebo chat integration in the page footer. The Meebo bar allows users to connect via Facebook, AIM, and other popular clients. It also acts as a carriage for rich ad-units (similar to VideoEgg's roll-over ads). I accidentally happened upon a different, equally interesting component of the Meebo integration: you can share images and content directly onto Twitter, Facebook, email and instant messaging. Simply hover over an image and then drag it into the header's drop down icons. Very slick and an obvious value-add for the publisher: one click viral promotion.

Facebook uses the "Facebook Share" functionality to post to the feed (I imagine Facebook Connect would be the next version). When posting to Twitter, it populates your Twitter.com speech box with a "short" URL (go.meebo.com/techcrunch.com/uid) and the article's title (I imagine the next version will have a bitly-encoded URL):

http://go.meebo.com/techcrunch.com/8n Right Before Facebook Bought It, FriendFeed’s Real-Time Stream Saw A Flood Of Usage

FastFeud.com Launches out of Dog Patch Labs & Rails Rumble 2009

Rails Rumble 2009 concluded yesterday at 5:00pm pst. About 250 teams submitted their 48-hour projects and the early results look great (here's an excellent write / thread on Hacker News). Judging for the event begins tonight.

Dog Patch Labs hosted a team of four (see roster below) that created FastFeud.com: a social way to create viral match-ups. FastFeud is integrated into Facebook (via Facebook Connect) and Twitter - allowing users to share content through their social graphs.

Member and designer Rob Abbott gives a tour of FastFeud and its Facebook integration:

About FastFeud.com: This or That: it is an age old question that pertains to people, ideas, sports teams, and so on. FastFeud.com allows users to quickly create match ups that can then be shared virally through Facebook (using Facebook Connect) and Twitter. The experience is visual, exciting and fast-paced - allowing users to rapidly interact with numerous feuds.

Each match up includes a question, two contestants and images. Users are then encouraged to vote on the match up - on FastFeud.com, Facebook and Twitter. Votes are collected and winners are presented.

When shared via Facebook, users are able to post the match up and images of the two contestants directly into their Facebook feeds. When shared via Twitter, users are able to promote their match up and voting preference to their Twitter following.

Developed for the Rails Rumble 2009 contest in 48 hours by the Browseology Team and friends from Lijit and Egg Haus with the support of Dog Patch Labs.

The Team

Joe Pestro (@joepestro) - Developer for Yardbarker.com and Co-Founder of Browseology, LLC Art Chang (@kineticac) - Developer for Yardbarker.com and Co-Founder of Browseology, LLC Kevin Olsen (@kevinrolsen) - Developer for Lijit.com (flew in from Colorado to the SF Bay Area to work on this) Rob Abbott (@abbott) - Founder and CEO of Egg Haus

Rails Rumble 09: 8 Hours Remain, Project Snapshots

Rails Rumble 2009 has eight hours remaining - all sites must be checked in and working by 5pm pst. In the last hour, nearly 600 commits were checked in as teams race to get finish their projects: You can view and access a variety of screenshots (and in some cases, working demos) of what teams are working on: