By Andy Grignon
I’m happy to announce that I’ve become an official advisor to DabKick, a Cupertino-based startup which has developed a live media watching experience for any media on any device. From the moment DabKick founder Balaji Krishnan gave me an in-person demo, I felt a pretty immediate personal connection to the technology, and what his team is building. And just as important, I think that it serves an untapped need in our mobile ecosystem.
Launching soon on iOS, DabKick enables users on different devices to enjoy all forms of digital media (like music, video, and photos) together, and at the same time. It’s a completely different experience from what exists in the market today, and (thinking back to the start of my career) is exactly the kind of product I wanted to help build for over two decades.
When I started at Apple in 1995 as an intern in the Advanced Technology Group, I worked with a team experimenting with video-conferencing, and multi-user sharing of 3D models and virtual whiteboards over the Internet. That work eventually turned into a product called Quicktime streaming. In Round 2 at Apple, I helped make iChat and the iSight camera, which would go on to become FaceTime for the iPhone. After Apple I joined Palm, and helped start a new mobile OS called webOS, running on the Palm Pre. One of the things we experimented with was a project that would enable people to watch a streaming service like Netflix together from separate devices. The commonality in all these projects is connecting people — and not just through videoconferencing, but through a variety of content and experiences.
So when Balaji gave me his DabKick demo, it brought me back to those intern days, and all the exciting ideas we had for sharing media. Now that smartphones and wireless broadband have become pervasive, I believe the time is finally right to see them realized.
For instance, DabKick has an instantaneous photo sharing feature that’s really neat, and could easily (alone) become one of its killer apps. Something like what I saw would not have been possible to pull off at scale a few years ago.
I think the timing is right for where the market is going — we actually do need a new communication protocol which fits today’s mobile lifestyle. For people who have families, and know the logistical nightmare of getting friends to hang out together in person, DabKick could become a fun impromptu hangout place. We don’t know yet how people will use DabKick, but when they start to figure out everything they can do with it, I think it’ll change the way people communicate.
Many more announcements from DabKick coming soon — follow us on Twitter, and request early access on the homepage.
Andy Grignon is a Partner at Siberia, and previously, founder & CEO of Quake Labs. As VP at Palm, he led development of webOS applications & the webOS platform, and at Apple, drove production of Quicktime, iChat, and the iPhone. Follow him on Twitter at @pre_me.
