Back from Reboot 10, Completely Rebooted
Posted on July 3, 2008
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Finally back from Copenhagen and settling in again to get back to work.
Overall it was another amazing go around this time as expected. Just as with my first Reboot 2 years ago, it was all about the people, vibe, forward thinking and collaboration. The conference itself is extreamly casual which lends greatly to the overall vibe. You’re not “stuck” in a particular place, there are always people all over and comfy beanba Read more
Tags: Conference, Copenhagen, Design, Free, Innovation, Party, Reboot, Reboot 10, Web 2.0.
Posted on July 3, 2008
Filed Under Art & Design, Business, Design, General, Marketing, Podcasts, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web, WebDev
Reboot 10 Copenhagen, Here I come
Posted on June 17, 2008
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So it’s that time again, time to Reboot (http://www.reboot.dk/) the mind. I was only 2 short years ago I was at my first Reboot, Reboot 8. It was at that time I was floating around this idea of starting a new project, one that involved helping diabetics manage their disease online from any where in the world. As I had already put the idea off for 8+ months with the excuse “It’ll just be too big of a project…”, sharing my idea with others and getting their positive feedback pushed me to persue my idea and get things started. And thus SugarStats.com was born
Even starting part time it was so rewarding to be working on such a project. A year later things had evolved, we had grown and we were ready to launch our public beta pilot. Now it’s a year after that and we have thousands of users in 24+ countries, I love it. I love how we’re utilizing all the great new innovations, technologies and trends in the web space to address real issues in the world and actually improve a diabetics health, lifestyle habits and help keep them informed to make better decisions.
So now, Reboot 10. Pretty fitting as we’re finishing up with a complete rewrite and redesign on our initial launch for SugarStats. I can’t wait to partake in the conversation, disruption and thought process evolution that is sure to ensure next week, June 25th-26th, in Copenhagen Denmark. Won’t you join me?
If you’ll be there, drop me an email. marston@sugarstats.com
Find me on the Reboot website: http://www.reboot.dk/person-624-en.html
Tags: Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, Innovation, Reboot, Reboot 10, Reboot Copenhagen, reboot.dk, SugarStats, Web conference, Web Tech.
Posted on June 17, 2008
Filed Under Art & Design, Business, Daily Thoughts, Design, Diabetes, General, Health & Food, Startup, Tech, Travel, Web, WebDev
Do you have serious privacy concerns about Google Health?
Posted on June 16, 2008
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A recent poll was taken over at TuDiabetes.com and Manny posted the results. Though the poll didn’t have too many participants, I was surprised to see that 43% had “Serious Privacy Concerns” about it.
I have the following reply:
“43% has “serious privacy concerns”? Wow, seriously?I can’t help but wonder how many of the people concerned are so because of specific reasons or simply because everyone says they should be.
I mean we already have pretty much every piece of “secret” info about us stored somewhere on the internet. We access our bank accounts and make highly sensitive financial transactions daily with our online banking but there are privacy concerns with storing info like “Allergies”, “Conditions” and “Age/Sex/Height” into places like Google Health?
If it isn’t Google it will be someone else, which we’re seeing more and more of. In the end if people have privacy concerns with Google specifically then at the least they’ll have the power of choice with all the other solutions. But seriously, it’s quite likely those same people are still using Google services daily for their other needs such as search.”
While I do think privacy is a big issue in certain context and situations, some areas in medical in particular, I think in the context of diabetes PHR tracking and management it isn’t a main concern.
What do you think? If you’re on Ning or the TuDiabetes Diabetes social network check out the discussion or let me know here.
http://tudiabetes.com/forum/topic/show?id=583967%3ATopic%3A161948
Tags: Diabetes, Google Health, Google Health Privacy, Online Health Privacy, PHR, TuDiabetes.
Posted on June 16, 2008
Filed Under Business, Daily Thoughts, Diabetes, Health & Food, Mobile Tech, Quotes, Ranting, Tech
Intruders.tv Interview with SugarStats.com at TheNextWeb 2008 in Amsterdam
Posted on May 9, 2008
2 Comments
Back in April at TheNextWeb I Met up with two great guys, Jude and James, who were shooting tech startup interviews for Intruders.tv.
I was able to do a quick 6min SugarStats.com interview and they were finally able to put it up on their site.
I was able to go over the how we started, the problems with diabetes as well as a little about our technical setup and where we’re going as a company.
Check it out:
http://uk.intruders.tv/Marston-Alfred-of-SugarStats-com-Online-diabetes-management-tool_a410.html
Tags: Amsterdam, Intruders.tv Interview, Marston Alfred, Online Diabetes Management, SugarStats, SugarStats Interview, SugarStats.com, The Next Web 2008 Amsterdam, TheNextWeb.
Posted on May 9, 2008
Filed Under Business, Design, Diabetes, Entertainment, Podcasts, Ruby on Rails, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Travel, Web, WebDev
BrainTree vs TrustCommerce for Credit Card Processing and Recurring Billing
Posted on April 23, 2008
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We’ve been using TrustCommerce.com for a over a year with SugarStats to do the recurring billing/subscriptions and credit card processing. Overall it has been a pleasant experience even though we had a few bumpy bits.
I’ve recently found out about BrainTree which seems to offer everything TrustCommerce does and then some in an all-in-one solution. While I’m a big fan of the “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” saying, we’re considering switching.
TrustCommerce Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Great Rails/Ruby Integration and API
- Fairly good support
- Great security and risk/fraud protection practices
- Decent prices
- Excellent recurring billing/subscription support
Cons
- Support has slowly been going downhill. I even hear sales is non-responsive to new accounts.
- Online Web Portal is a bit lacking and cumbersome for statistics
- Need a separate company to be the merchant
- Can’t combine multiple apps into one TC account
BrainTree
Pros
- Seems to also have a superb API.
- Rails/Ruby integration via a few diff plugins and especially great support via ActiveMerchant
- Active community
- Quickbooks Export/Import
- Good reporting/Analytics tools in web control panel
- All-in-one solution which includes merchant and gateway
- Can have multiple sites behind one web control panel login
- Great security and risk/fraud protection
- Supports both major credit cards AND Paypal/Google Checkout/BillMeLater
- I hear support is great
- Fee’s: ???
Cons
Don’t know yet.
The real benefit I’m seeing is the multiple sites behind one login, Paypal/Google/BillMeLater payment and the active community/ActiveMerchant support. If the web control panel interface is at all better than TrustCommerce I’ll be very please as well.
Tags: ActiveMerchant, BrainTree, Paypal, Recurring Billing, Ruby on Rails recurring subscriptions, Subscription, SugarStats, TrustCommerce.
Posted on April 23, 2008
Filed Under Analytics, Business, Design, Hosting, Ruby on Rails, Startup, SugarStats, Tech, Web, WebDev
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I'm Marston and here you'll find my rantings, rhetoric and other useful info. I dig tech, photography, quantum physics and organic food. I'm the founder of SugarStats.com and thats my days developing.
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