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When I grow up, I want to create a start up and get bought out.

Congratulations, BillMonk. I’m not an investor, just a fan and occasional user.

Hi there,

We wanted to share some exciting news with our BillMonk users: BillMonk has been acquired by Obopay, Inc. What does that mean? The site stays the same, plus you can now instantly settle up your BillMonk debts using Obopay if you’re in the US. What’s more, we’re offering our loyal BillMonk users $25 if they join Obopay in the next few days - use it to pay off a BillMonk debt, or buy yourself a treat.

Obopay is the first comprehensive mobile person-to-person payments service in the US. We think you’ll love Obopay because it’s an instant way to send money, it’s easy to use from your phone or from the web, the fee for sending money is only 10 cents, and if you ever have a problem the super-nice customer support folks are there to help.

Sign up to Obopay now and get $25!

Click here: http://www.billmonk.com/signup_to_obopay

Our commitment to your privacy remains the same, with Obopay offering the same privacy policy terms as before. This email serves as one-time notice about the change in ownership.

Thank you for using BillMonk, and for all your feedback that has made it the great site it is today!

Cheers,

The BillMonk Team

I checked out the Redfin Seattle web site as a new approach to selling and buying a home.

I was last in the real estate market doing a transaction a while ago. It was just….okay. That plus the book Freakonomics has soured me on the current model of “assisted” real estate transactions. There’s gotta be a better way to get fair value for your home besides including “corian countertops” in the ad (read the book to learn more).

One thing I really like is the Redfin Blog, where there’s a Web 2.0/social network spin on houses. At some level, the housing market is fun, and homes are great things with stories behind them. We like stories. I like the stories plus the helpful stats with every blog entry. In a real estate market that’s booming as much as Seattle is, this approach is especially interesting. It’s worth an addition to the RSS Reader of your choice.

Not that I am looking to sell my home, but I would be tempted to give this model a try if I was going to.

While on the subject of Eudora, I realized I hadn’t posted about the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit (aka MacBU) blog, which has been in service since about August, 2006.

I am highly interested in the idea of corporate transparency in the era of Web 2.0 and so I think a blog like this is a good thing. Sure, the inner workings of the Mac for Office group at Microsoft are not as life changing for as many people as the moves McDonald’s makes in its coporate responsibility (see that blog here). However, I have an interest in what’s going on with what the MacBU is doing, since I use a lot of the stuff they produce. The thing I notice when reviewing it are the comments, which allow a frankness not allowed previously on a Web site. I don’t know if the comments are censored or held at all, but there’s some fairly possibly inflammatory stuff going on. Letting it lie there is a good thing. Builds trust.

One thing I might suggest is a little more information about the things that aren’t going well, with specifics. There’s a thing on there about how they made a mistake with Messenger for Mac 6.0 but never say what the problem was.

Mac Mojo : Office Delay? Ya Don’t Say.

This posting is 2, 2, 2 reviews in one.

First, Google Docs : This is the new Google-ized Writely wordprocessor. The cool thing about it is that it posts to Blogs, in additional to doing all of the the other standard stuff, like saving to Word, etc. It also allows for collaboration, in a sort of Wiki like way.

I really like it. Like Google, the interface itself, it’s clean and doesn’t have the bloat of even the best wordprocessors, like Microsoft Word for Mac. The other thing about it is that it doesn’t have the psychological overhead of a computer based word processor where you have to go and figure out where to save that document on your hard drive so that you can find it later to e-mail to someone. I’ve never understood that. It has just about everything you need, plus it saves to any format, plus PDF. I know that Word is the standard in the business world, but this definitely gives Microsoft a run for its money.

Only slight complaint is that it can be sluggish when doing things to a document, like inserting a URL, or saving. However, it is completely tuned for Web 2.0, with tagging, posting to blogs, and other stuff that Microsoft should have done a long time ago instead of focusing on pretty tables. Is there hope that the Microsoft Mac Office in 2007 will be able to post to Wordpress?

This posting is too long already, so I’ll talk about Nike Free another day. I like those, too.

Update: The tags and title didn’t come through when posting from Google. So it’s still in beta…

Billmonk (http://www.billmonk.com): This is a system for tracking informal loans. Daniel and I used it when we traveled to Chicago recently, to keep track of expenses for each other. At Cheesecake Factory (one of the many times we went), you could hear us saying, “I’ll pick up the check and Billmonk you for the rest.” When I was feeling particularly generous, I would say, “I’ll get that pack of gum and I won’t Billmonk you for half of it.”

I would say it was a stress reducer, and the whole idea of sending an SMS somewhere that magically keeps track of things for us was pretty cool. A great example of an extension of the Web using SMS. When we got back. Daniel was able to print out all the charges, write me a check, and we were done. I suppose in the future, they could have PayPal integration, so all of that could be handled. Prior to Billmonk, I would have had to go into Quicken, run reports, and send long narrative flowing descriptions of the charges and then politely ask for money. No more! Billmonk will do that for us!

If I were to extend this service to a broader audience, I would use it for corporate expense tracking. I thought to myself that I might create a dummy identity for my employer and Billmonk them for expenses on the road. When I got back, they could all be formatted nicely so that I wouldn’t have to go back and write all of them down. I realize that a lot of employers are using Web based or other automated expense tracking. Hmmm…maybe one of those vendors will latch on to this concept. Regardless, it’s good to have a running tally of expenses relative to daily per diems, you know?

The thing they seem to be getting into now is lending of hard assets like CD’s and books. That’s not going to appeal to me. I pretty much refuse to borrow anything from anyone because I tend not to return it. Doesn’t matter if it’s a Des’ree CD or a white BMW (who, me?). I say focus on dollars and cents. That’s where the action is.

These days I am fascinated with anything and everything Web 2.0. More than ever. I can’t believe it, actually. I started out with blogging, oh, about 2 years ago (time flies), and ever since then, I have been watching other technologies and lightweight communication engines crop up. I think there’s something here. Something that could actually improve lives.

I am starting a new topic on here. I’m going to review Web 2.0 services I’ve been trying out. If there are ones you think I should try, let me know and I’ll post my review.

Now, as I describe, what I’m doing is discussing what I “think” these services do. That may not be their intent, so forgive me, and then try them yourself. Also, everything out there about Web 2.0 says, “go find a 25 year old to explain this stuff to you.” I am not one of those, so I’ll be a little bit more “GenX” in my commentary, with an eye toward enterprise uses.