Something Cool: BillMonk

When I was in high school, my friends almost completely consisted of a tight-knit, super-functional band of self-proclaimed nerds known as the Mock Trial team. We prepared hard for competitions over most evenings and weekends of junior and senior year, and acted in many ways like a family. Whenever someone bought stuff for the group, or spotted for a short-changed teammate when we bought coffee, we didn't much fuss over the financial details. "The way I figure, we spend so much time together that it evens out in the end," is what Corey said.

Given that we were too young to go out for drinks, and anyways too poor for that or any other big-ticket diversion, Corey's reasoning held true. However, living in a house with three other college graduates brings in many more shared payments to keep track of. Rent, utilities, fun stuff-- suddenly "it evens out eventually" can no longer apply.

To keep track of loans and shared payments within the house, my roommates have been using an online product called BillMonk. Having recently joined their house, I've added myself to their account. Within, you can enter payments that one member made and keep track of who owes money. For example, Dan pays the ComCast bill with his card every month. Whenever he gets charged, he logs in his account that the cable was shared by all household members, and that he was the one who paid. Soon afterwards I'll get an email notification of the payment and can see my debt to Dan when I review my account.

Earlier this hour, I logged my first payment, which was for the Harry Potter movie tickets from last Thursday. (We had been running late for the 10:15 showing, so I weilded the credit card.) I hadn't had a BillMonk introduction, but the website is absolutely intuitive to the average computer user.

In my account, I first selected the "New Shared Payment" button. Next, I was prompted to enter the description, date, and amount of the transaction. Lastly, I was directed to two drop-down menus. The first asked, Who Paid? I selected myself. The next asked, Who Participated? I selected my roommates and myself. And that was it; BillMonk divides the payment among all us moviegoers, and now we have a record of the debts. And the neat thing is that the program keeps track of all debts within the house, so when I review my own debts, I see that my ComCast debt to Dan has been lowered by the amount of the movie ticket.

Wondering whether the folks that run BillMonk are connected to Google, I read their "About" page. It looks as if the two co-founders used to work at Amazon and are in fact based in Seattle. BillMonk has been acquired by a mobile money-transfer company called Obopay; now the product has a feature that allows people to enter payments from their cell phones. Quite neat! Google isn't involved, although the Mountain View campus did have the founders over for a Tech Talk.

Introducing AdWords

My primary job at Google will be to help companies that advertise on Google manage their accounts and improve advertising results. Those results may mean: a) raising the number of times their ad shows up on Google, b) improving traffic to their website, or c) increasing actions like purchases or sign-ups that viewers make on the site). AdWords, as this advertising product is called, is designed to make clients self-sufficient; the campaign summary displays the performance metrics mentioned above, and clients can register or cancel their account online. Seeing as clients have their own websites and were able to set up an AdWords account, I'd assume that they are more web-savvy than average. Still, when they need help with their accounts or advice on improving performance, they contact Google. That's where I come in-- or will, after my training is done.
This morning, I've been "studying" for work by looking through the AdWords page as if I were a client. Google gave new Account Associates (as my position is called) an AdWords account to learn and play with. It's referred to as our Sandbox Account :) I've linked mine to my friends' website, Recipe Tango. Chris Doyle and Sutee Dee, graduates of Olin College, are working on a site to teach people how to cook and have fun in the kitchen. It's an awesome business-- more on them later.
So I set up the account and used keywords like "cooking supplies" and "learn to cook" and "pad thai recipe." Keywords are the terms that people will have searched for when they see the ad. Apparently, my ad has shown up four times! Twice under "learn cooking," once under "learn to cook," and once under "lasagna recipe." It's, like, eighth on the list of sponsored links, which is pretty awful since people tend to pick the top ads if they click at all. Hmm. Good thing I have twelve weeks of training ahead of me. So now I'm reading up on how to improve my ad position. Meanwhile, one of my roommates is meditating in his room and another is making blueberry muffins. It looks like this is going to be a good Sunday.

From the dining room table at the Yellow House,
Renee