Matt Reich

Widespread Panic

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 22:34:12 -0500

Widespread Panic

Snapclass Blog: Snapclass launches - Helping companies easily bring education and training online

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 12:28:41 -0600

Snapclass Blog: Snapclass launches - Helping companies easily bring education and training online:

We built Snapclass because it should be easier for businesses to bring their training and educational content online.
We built Snapclass because it should be easier for businesses to bring their training and educational content online. Before Snapclass if you wanted to teach or…

explore-blog: A meticulous map of vintage Chicago vice, showing...

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 20:30:11 -0600

explore-blog:

A meticulous map of vintage Chicago vice, showing the names and locations of every brothel, bar, casino and saloon that existed in the Cheyenne and Levee Districts of Chicago between 1870 and 1905, completed by Levee historian Bryan Lloyd.

Second only to Paula Scher’s obsessive hand-drawn typographic maps.

(↬ Coudal)

Neil Kinnish: Mixture: Next Steps

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:52:51 -0600

Neil Kinnish: Mixture: Next Steps:

kinnish:

Over the last few months we’ve been working incredibly hard to get Mixture up to a level that we could start previewing with a small group of users, take feedback, bug fix and move forward.

If you’ve signed up for access, rest assured will be inviting you very soon to download and start…

Indoor run view. Could be worse.

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 13:51:12 -0600

Indoor run view. Could be worse.

Snapclass Blog: Simplicity in Online Education

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:40:57 -0600

Snapclass Blog: Simplicity in Online Education:

snapclass:

Online Education has become almost a buzz word in the startup community lately. And for good reason. Our increasingly interconnected word has opened up some really interesting possibilities to disrupt a gigantic, and seriously old industry. Snapclass came about because of some personal needs and…

Snapclass Blog: The 5 "F"s of Thanksgiving

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:30:25 -0600

Snapclass Blog: The 5 "F"s of Thanksgiving:

snapclass:

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Personally it’s my favorite holiday. Partly because of the 4 “F”s, family, friends, food and football. That’s what Thanksgiving is all about.

But over here at Snapclass, we’re introducing the 5th “F”, feedback and looking for your help. Our users are…

Hey everyone, we’re in need of some feedback. Give Snapclass a browse and sign up for classed you’d be interested in and be sure to send us any other feedback you may have as well.

Snapclass - Online, Live Education

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 13:13:36 -0600

Time for an update. I’ve been in Chicago for a couple months shy of a year and I couldn’t be more excited about how things have gone and about where things are going. I haven’t been too vocal yet about exactly what I’ve been doing, but to clear things up I have in fact been working hard on a web application called Snapclass.

Education is a hot topic in the technology startup space right now and we’re dropping ourselves right in the middle of that mix. In essence want to utilize the amazing technology we have access to these days to expand how we teach and learn. Online education certainly isn’t a new thing, but we feel like there’s all sorts of room for improvement and a serious need for further exploration.

Who is Snapclass?

At Snapclass I’m the user experience and front-end designer and developer. I am also a co-founder along with Scott Mandel and Ryan Nichols. Scott and Ryan started Snapclass and they brought me on to help out with the outward facing aspects of the app. Scott has a business and professional poker playing (World Series of Poker ring winning even) background and is the man on the street talking to folks about Snapclass along with running the day to day operations. Ryan is the man behind all the technology we utilize. He’s a language agnostic programmer and has been doing it for most of his life. He’s a smart chap, I’ll vouch for that. And that’s it. Just the three of us.

What is Snapclass?

We’re still very early on, but our intentions are fairly simple. We feel like a lot of the solutions that are in this online education space are bloated and to daunting to use and lack some core functionality. We wanted to simplify the entire process and classroom experience and just make it better for everyone. With Snapclass you can either teach or join a class and be in your classroom with in seconds. You can also schedule classes and register for classes in the future as well. All super simple.

There is, of course, a financial component to all of this (which is another area in which we see room for improvement in the industry). As a teacher you have the ability to charge for your time. You set the price for your class and we’ll handle the rest. Teachers can also set hourly rates and choose to meet with students one on one in a timed scenario. We want teachers to be able to charge what they are worth.

By taking this route we encourage high quality teachers to use Snapclass. You might think that this will shut out some students, but the opposite is true. Because Snapclass provides an online classroom the geographic barriers are completely erased. A student in rural South Dakota can take a course from a University of Chicago professor tutoring in his spare time at whatever time works for them. We aren’t under the impression that online can fully replace in person, but we do feel like the overall cost to this education will be less and thus students that normally wouldn’t have access are now suddenly able to connect with high quality teachers at prices they can afford. Online education can be supplemental to in person education in a lot of situations and it can also be a replacement in the right scenario as well.

Online education is tough. We can attest to that. But it’s a problem that can be solved. Or at a minimum it can be better. We want to provide teachers and students with the tools they need to both expand their reach and their knowledge. We want to offer the core set of features needed to do that and nothing past that.

Where Are We Going?

We’ve gotten the point of being able to offer a stable product. We know it isn’t perfect and you’ll be seeing improvements and tweaks nearly daily, but it is usable and it does work. We have a pile of classes listed right now and are gauging interest in a wide variety of categories. Browse our listings and sign up for the classes you’re interested in. Also, don’t hesitate to suggest class topics to us as well. Any input is greatly appreciated. (matt at snapclass.com or @snapclass)

We have a couple features coming down the pipe as well. We’re putting the finishing touches on a “request time” feature. This will enable students to browse our user directory and send requests to connect with specific teachers. We’re also working on a white-labeled version which would allow for groups to brand the classroom and overall experience as they wish.

Final Thoughts

I suspected this post would get a bit lengthy, but I wanted to try to convey as much about what is going on with Snapclass as possible and encourage folks to check out what we are doing. We see all sorts of wonderful use cases and we will be encouraging those as much as we possibly can. We’re in a continual loop of iteration and improvement and we see some legitimate potential with this application. Again, please sign up for Snapclass and let us know what you think, and if you’d be so kind, spread the word about what we are doing. This is a big idea and we need your help.

For more information about Snapclass follow along here (I’ll be writing more in the future) as well as our blog and Twitter and Facebook pages

Grillin’ Beans.

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 17:25:38 -0600

Grillin’ Beans.

Photo

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 01:01:02 -0600

And there he is.

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:37:18 -0600

And there he is.

Waiting for the President.

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 00:13:15 -0600

Waiting for the President.

See the end down there?

Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:29:07 -0500

See the end down there?

Pre-XX

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 20:07:12 -0500

Pre-XX

No filter foliage.

Sat, 20 Oct 2012 14:21:36 -0500

No filter foliage.

TREY!

Fri, 19 Oct 2012 19:30:25 -0500

TREY!

#beerogram (Taken with Instagram)

Fri, 05 Oct 2012 18:33:59 -0500

#beerogram (Taken with Instagram)

Hazy moon. (Taken with Instagram at Gethsemane Garden Center)

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 20:42:52 -0500

Hazy moon. (Taken with Instagram at Gethsemane Garden Center)

Snapclass Blog: Become Rich as a Byproduct

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 15:34:13 -0500

Snapclass Blog: Become Rich as a Byproduct:

snapclass:

Rodrigo

Eight years ago in the summer of 2004 I studied abroad in Shanghai. While I was there I met another student named Rodrigo. Rodrigo was from Spain, spoke marginal English and always had a smile on his face. Rodrigo loved to have a good time, he’d party all night, explore all corners of…

Priceonomics Blog: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles?

Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:25:20 -0500

Priceonomics Blog: What Happens to Stolen Bicycles? :

priceonomics:

At Priceonomics, we are fascinated by stolen bicycles. Put simply, why the heck do so many bicycles get stolen? It seems like a crime with very limited financial upside for the thief, and yet bicycle theft is rampant in cities like San Francisco (where we are based). What is the economic…