I am not saying I am bored at FON because there are tons of exciting things going on, but let’s say that I have a hard time keeping my creative impulses under control. So after drowing FON Madrid with development projects, I created FON Labs in Barcelona to continue developing crazy ideas, one after the other. Some we developed on our own, others we found and modified. We started with Gspace. Gspace is a Firefox extension that creates a mirror of your hard drive on the internet using Gmail for storage. This was one of the “found and modified” type of projects. I found it, bought it, and we have developers improving it. This extension is hugely successful, we are getting around 7000 downloads per day. In the last week we added 2 more. GmailUploader a web site that collects your emails from other accounts and sends them to Gmail. This started as a personal tool I needed to upload my old emails into Gmail. I was amazed to see that Google did not offer a tool like this since the key to Gmail is search, but there’s nothing to search when you start a new Gmail account as your old emails are not there. Another tool we just deployed is Fon.gs. Fon.gs is like a TinyURL whose URLs you can remember. Fon.gs is a way to create domains that are memorable and more importantly, Free like www.fon.gs/empirestate. We also created APIs so other sites can use the Fon Get Simple too,l as we call it, to work in their sites.
Another tool that has been very successful is the FONspot. We have had over 5000 downloads of this software that turns a Mac or a Linux PC into a FONspot. This is good for people who have flat data plans or are connected to an ethernet cable and want to give WiFi access to others for free or in order to partly cover their connection costs.
And soon we are releasing Fonwit. Fonwit is a tool that we will put out shortly that blends Skype and Google capabilities. More to follow.
Follow Martin Varsavsky on Twitter: twitter.com/martinvars
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rsm on May 17, 2007 ·
Martin,
Can I suggest a little simple addition to fon.gs: Just add one more optional field for a keyword (or secret word), so if you make a mistake when creating the tinyurl you can come back and rename the same url later. Right now, once it’s done, that’s it, it’s forever with no chance of fixing it. With this simple extra field you don’t need to create userids/accounts, none of that bloated stuff. Good tool.
Fred on May 17, 2007 ·
Salut Martin,
j’ai commencé a traduire en Français Fon_Macspot,pas de probleme pour l’interface de l’application en revanche les scripts sont verouillés ….impossible donc de les traduires… 🙁
Je te file un lien du debut de traduction:
http://www.francofon.fr/modules/mediawiki/index.php?title=Localisation_de_FON_Macspot_en_Français
Si tu peux faire quelque chose pour le scripts… 😉
Salutations.
David on May 18, 2007 ·
Martin,
Your never stop creating new services. You are a REAL entrepreneur. That is sexactly why I want you to participate to our next conference we will organise in Paris in the beginning of july.
Your ideas are so convenient and so simple that I want us to share this point of view with all the french entrepreneurs who will be invited.
You czn answer me directly at d.bourgeois@altik.com or ask your secretary to confirm the last contcat we had.
Sincerely
David
Martin Varsavsky on May 18, 2007 ·
Thank you rsm!
Albert on May 18, 2007 ·
Fred,
Just translate all the strings contained in the /etc/fon_hotspot file and you’re done
David on May 18, 2007 ·
Sounds great! Can’t wait….
Oh, is FONspot using the same chillispot sources as the la fonera or have you made other modifications?
In a previous post, you mention cooperation with other open-source companies on projects – “… we are working on managing our relationship with many other open source companies and doing projects in common. These will be announced in the next 30 days”… is this that update? Are Skype and Google those “open source companies”?
Thanks,
David
rsm on May 19, 2007 ·
Very, very clever Martin. I belong to a community of over 10,000 people who read a blog daily (some of them very powerful people). Probably none of the people there had ever heard of FON, not they all have since I posted two fon.gs URLs… Very smart.
The idea of the keywork/password was really out of necessity, because I created a bad tinyURL and could not fix it.
Another idea for you: notifyr.org, good tool, but lacks some simple controls (specify frequency of emails, max emails, etc.)
Cheers.
dehy on May 19, 2007 ·
And what about making FON services better before making new services ?
FON wants to expand. Why not ? But why “basic” services are not fully functionnal ? Why bugs aren’t solved ? Why login page can’t display line returns in the personnal message ?! Why connected history display is bugged ? (for many months !) And so on…
I’m not sure expanding will add stability to FON… even more with services not very in relation with FON…
FON does not look like professional for me… It looks like more a “lab” that make beta softs (then forget them) than a serious company… FON has potential… but for me, this is not the right way… For me, users satisfaction has to be the #1 priority, because with statisfaction, users are faithful. FON has to be the next google. But google searching was strong before they expand. Today, FON basis looks poor…
We ear about FON everywhere, but i’m not sure FON users are very statisfied with service provided… Maybe a survey will show you this problem…
Martin Varsavsky on May 21, 2007 ·
Thank you RSM. Indeed that´s the idea, that the word FON will be used in all this URLs. And that people will prefer to have say “fon.gs/wifi” for free than try to get http://www.wifi.com and spend $100K.
Martin Varsavsky on May 21, 2007 ·
Dehy,
Thanks for your constructive criticism. We have over 40 engineers working on these issues.
dehy on May 22, 2007 ·
great to hear Martin 🙂
Sorry for being so negative, there is also postive things 😉
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euronerd on May 17, 2007 ·
OK Martin,
I see what you want, so I’ll ask! :
What is FONwit ?
Blend Skype and Google….: I call FONwit with my Skypewifi, I say: “fon kissmyass” and a voice responds: “http://fon.gs/kissmyass” ?
Or I use http://fonwit.com and type “Martin Varsavsky”, my Skypephone rings and it is you on the other end of the line ?