nextNY Archive

We’ve written about coworking many times here at CN and today we are excited to post that the New Work City coworking location in NYC now has a home. The new space will be located at 412 Broadway which is basically next to all of the subways that stop at Canal St. It was just about two years ago we wrote about the first official space for New Work City at 200 Varick Street.

NWC co-founder Tony Bacigalupo has an overview of the steps the team took to find and secure the location along with how the space will be organized. Important dates related to New Work City include:

• August 27 – launch party
• September 1 – official launch of the new New Work City space
• September 10-12 – Startup Weekend will be held in the space

You can pre-pay to secure a space at New Work City. The team has also launched a Kickstarter donation drive – currently at $9,665 of a $15,000 goal with 24 days left.

I wish the entire New Work City team the best of luck with the new space. If I was still located in NYC, I would definitely be there for the big launch.

NY-based appointment planning and physician review service ZocDoc has announced a new Series B round of funding today. The round of $15 million, was led by Founders Fund and previous investors Khosla Ventures also participated in the round. The company notes that the new funding will be used to, “help ZocDoc expand its network of practitioners and accelerate its nationwide growth.”

ZocDoc is one of those services that doesn’t receive press on a daily basis like some mobile services are currently receiving however ZocDoc provides real world value and time savings. You select your insurance provider, location and specialty (dentist, psychiatrist, derm, etc.) and ZocDoc spits back a list of available appointment times. For me it’s saved a ton of time calling around to find available appointments that match both my insurance provider and my availability.

You can also view the ratings for a doctor – similar to ratings on a television on Amazon. It’s great to read reviews of a potential practitioner versus only receiving the recommendation from another doctor or friend.

ZocDoc currently serves NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, DC. They allow their potential users to vote on which city should be next for expansion. Upcoming cities might include Miami, Houston, Boston, Philly and Seattle.

ZocDoc generates revenue by charging fees to the doctor and provides the service free to users.

Check out all of our ZocDoc coverage including my real-world test of the service.

If you have ever wanted to check out the apparently awesome Google cafeteria at their NYC HQ, there’s an upcoming event you might want to attend. Google staffing has announced an open house on June 29th at their headquarters office in Chelsea.

From the announcement, “We are excited to open our doors to you and share a bit about what keeps us busy here in New York, and specifically, highlight how Front End Engineering and Engineers are impacting some of our most exciting projects. The evening will include presentations from four of our key New York Engineering leaders on products being developed locally as well as the opportunities available at Google.”

The speakers include:

• Tim Dierks, Software Engineer
• Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Director, Software Engineering
• David Nagle, Director, Software Engineering
• Elizabeth Hamon Reid, Director, Engineering

If you want to attend, complete the registration form.

Before we discuss new NYC-based startup ZipGigs, I want to take you back to an earlier time. A time when I was living in Atlanta and delivery service Kozmo had just hit the scene. I loved and hated Kozmo. I loved it because they would bring me a box of Entenmann’s donuts and a movie anytime I wanted it. I hated it because, before Kozmo, I would have to get in the car and drive to the 7-11 or Blockbuster to get junk food or a movie. The service had a very loyal following – a good number of my friends had used the service on a semi-regular basis for food, drinks and movies. Their ability to deliver Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in just a few minutes turned many on to the delivery service.

A couple of years later Kozmo was gone and all I have left to remember the service are the orange fridge magnets they put in my deliveries. Kozmo delivered items that they stocked in their warehouses across the U.S.

ZipGigs is a new delivery service based in NYC that officially launched last week. Their model works differently than Kozmo. With ZipGigs you can place an order for basically anything (no prescription drugs or alcohol) from any merchant in Manhattan and they will deliver it to you. ZipGigs charges a fee for each delivery – the fee ranges from $10 for short deliveries to $30 for longer trips.

Continue reading “ZipGigs Delivers Manhattan To You” »

We first wrote about NYC-based taxi sharing app CabEasy nearly two years ago. The concept of taxi sharing is pretty simple: you post a request noting the departure time and your travel plan (e.g. from 125th and Broadway to Canal St.). Other members of the service can view all available travel plans and select one that is close to the trip and time they plan to take. You meet the other party at the designated location and share a taxi to both destinations.

Last month NY-based CabCorner announced the acquisition of CabEasy. Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. CabCorner also provides a taxi-sharing service.

Back in March we wrote about CabSense which took historical taxi data to create an application that shows you the best place to hail a taxi based on your current GPS location. Last month CabCorner signed a deal with the parent of CabSense, Sense Networks to integrate their location finder into CabCorner.

Last month we wrote about a new taxi sharing app, FareShare. They will be providing a demo of their mobile app next week at the NY Tech Meetup.

As a public transit fan, I’d love to see taxi sharing take off but I fear that the combinations just make it too hard to complete enough rides to make it a sustainable project. These services will need massive marketing efforts to get enough riders into the system to find potential matches. I actually think that “time” will be more difficult to match than location.

This is a short week with the Memorial Day holiday on Monday and Internet Week beginning next week. Here are some of the exciting tech events in NYC that I thought were worth highlighting. Check Gary’s Guide for a comprehensive list of events in your city.

The first Hacks/Hackers group get together will take place on Wednesday evening. Looks like it will be an intro to the group plus the sponsor Patch will provide details on how their organization works and a discussion of their current job openings.

One of my favorite NYC groups, Ultralight Startups, will focus on how to finance a lean startup. The panel discussion will be held on Thursday evening at Microsoft’s NYC office. The group also allows startups to pitch to the group in a rapid-pace fashion.

While I am a customer of public transit, some of my friends use taxis on a regular basis. NYC taxis are some of the least expensive even after the new 50 cents surcharge to help pay for transit. Are there ways to reduce the cost of using a taxi and, at the same time, reduce the number of cabs needed to transport people around the city?

FareShare is a new startup launching this week that aims to answer both of those questions. FareShare allows you to enter, the desired time, where you are going and where you are located and find others who are looking for similar trips.

Continue reading “Share Your Taxi With FareShare” »