Web 2.0 Service: Anti-Social Networks

As I mentioned in the post earlier, there has been a counter movement to the globalization of personal information. While blogs, MySpaces, and Facebook profiles have had the tell-all to the world, it is most natural to have a feeling of being too exposed. While work-related hirings/firings may be dependent on online information and privacy concerns/stalkers may come into play, it may not be the only reason. Global networks come with a host of problems - they remove a notion of individuality since so many others are similar, it displaces real relationships with fake superficial notions, create a niche culture of its own, and ultimately becomes a popularity contest. So how about "anti-social networks"? Retaining useful information for the sake of keeping constantly updated contact information, socialize with known outside sources, it may be a good idea to keep this private.

A personal private network, complete with all the bells and whistles of modern social networks, may be the next step in networking. With less contacts but with more time invested, it may open up different applications and increased relationship building. More contact may be encouraged through common causes, viewpoints, and even common friendships/enemies. Social games could be played online as a way to enhance relationships rather than replacing relationships. Closer relationships may also lead to increased amount of contact information, which could be utilized in multiple forms of contact - a "contact stream" of text messages, video conferencing, webcams, phone calls, voice messages, and instant messaging could be hosted on the server, accessible at any point from virtually any device. New friends may be introduced by others from a multi-way conversation or a co-op social game. Automatic privacy controls could be implemented as a multi-tiered system of increasing personal information. It may also be great if this would eventually be implemented physically with Microsoft's Surface to be used at bars or even a personalized number to give out instead of a phone number.

Feel free to add/comment.

Web 2.0 Service: Craigslist Remixed

This new redesign mockup of Craigslist by Ryan Sims presented at SXSW and my own frustration with forum classifieds got me thinking. Craigslist hasn't changed much since its founding in 1999. Not that it's necessarily bad, but I feel it might be up for a nice tuneup - not only aesthetically but also functionality. A counter-movement has been arising in response to the globalization of many services. With the advent of social networks, there are users taking shelter in smaller communities, such as forums. Essentially small networks, they would benefit greatly from scalable classified systems. While Craigslist's scope is much larger, it would be great to adapt it to forum classifieds.

Eight years is a long time. There has been much change since its founding, but there are a few relevant behaviors that will essentially guarantee its success or failture. Shopping has grown to become extremely visual, primarily shown by eBay's thumbnails and Etsy's galleries. Thus, it is essential to have an intuitive shop-by-sight design. Though Listpic has implemented a great visual hack for Craigslist, only around 5% of all of classifieds include pictures. Furthermore, people have been spoiled with the ease of online payment such as Paypal and Escrow. So add a few payment options, but also leave room for bartering (probably a separate system of offers/trades). Adding all types of filtering, searching, recommending, and sorting will add greatly to its functionality. Remember the anti-institutionalized movement I mentioned earlier? Try to avoid overt globalization and pushing logos and obtrusive advertisements. Make everything customizable, with only the carefully camouflaged ad (paid to the service) standard.

Checklist:
- Scalable system
- Include API so it can interface with common forum systems, open-source or otherwise
- Make it easy to post (drag-and-drop form, browser plugin)
- Shop by gallery (Require pictures)
- Customizable everything
- Add built in payment options
- Add filtering, searching, recommending and sorting

Feel free to add/comment.

Web 2.0 Service: Final Linksource

We all now have 5 email addresses, 20 memberships to various social networks, and not enough time on our hands. With the advent of OpenID, they tried to confine multiple username/passwords to one login; however, the issue of net anonymity has prevented from widespread use. Likewise, social networks have been created to incorporate other social networks, but it is just as easy to umbrella these umbrella social networks and create more work for the user.

There is a simultaneous draw to provide relevant net presence but also keep an anonymity. A service to provide "linksources" would be the solution - a basic, though final profile to link social network profiles, blogs, resumes, portfolios, etc. Certain options could make information only accessible to friends and contacts, and further checks could divide sections up for business and play. I must stress that this will not be another social network (or else it will be prone to being added), but a list of links linking to all subscribed social networks.

Other ideas:
- incorporate OpenID
- create business cards with USB contacts that automatically link to site when plugged in
- visual links (thumbnails for all the links) on profile site

Feel free to add/comment.

Software Product: Distributed Work Gaming

Whoever figures out how to capitalize work disguised as gaming will be a billionaire. If you look at the game hours spent on conventional MMORPGs, particularly World of Warcraft and Second Life, it is rather disgusting how many hours are wasted on such a type of entertainment. It would be great if there was some design implementation that would create such a draw, but at the same to produce a viable commodity.

One idea - Since most games require top-of-the-line computers to run properly, there is a large processing potential for other work. Due to the fact that though a particular game may require high processing power, usually it is in short spurts which leaves much untapped processing power available for other purposes. Much like the Seti@Home or Protein Folding projects, such distributed computing could be utilized for commercial interests.

Or there could be a complete redesign of the product model, actually paying or offering for free a game that included real work such as design or small form of management.

Free free to add/comment.

Web 2.0 Service: Societal Game

Catch27 looks like it's doing pretty well for itself, besides the frequent server overloads. Capitalizing on the fact that much of the adolescent social life seems to be a popularity contest, it becomes a virtual economy of people. Profiles are rated by "hots", "smarts", and overall persona. Needless to say, the network is populated by the beautiful yet not the brightest (if bright, not the most mature). Neat idea, though rather twisted. It works due to its social networking element; however, it is in lack of a goal to complete. Well, I correct myself. There is a goal, to collect 27 people with some distinguishing characteristic, but to me, that doesn't seem all that worthwhile.

Say remix Catch27. Take the virtual economy and add a few other goals (business, dating, play, etc). Add more elaborate profiles, separated by games, and you have created a viable, interesting social network. Businesses could hire, while getting a picture of the social aspect of their lives. Dating might be more practical - you can rule out all the penniless, Bohemian writers. Interests can be shared, while at the same time seeing that your online poker buddy is actually a CEO of a large corporation. By adding an all-encompassing element, people will have not only an accurate grasp of a whole person, but also a rough estimate of the person in a particular field.

While I'minlikewithyou defines games as short questions, it would be great if the idea was extended. Business "Games" could include competitions for the best design, or the best programming implementation given a problem. Dating "Games" could include witty conversation competitions, friend matchmaking, or an online speed dating session. Similarly, any other type of game could help gauge the person in a particular field and increase/decrease the rating to the most accurate evaluation.

Though trading dates/employees may seem rather insensitive, it may work if implemented slightly different per topic category. Trading dates in the "Dating" goal may increase your dating pool and send those "good ones" to somebody that they would be more compatible with. Obviously, there would have to be some tact, subtly designing the site to have less impact of the rating, but more on the person's characteristics (such as having previous dates tag them as "funny" or "charming"). Obviously, each goal would have to be implemented differently since they call for different social measures.

Monetization could be through ads, links to networks, business competitions, dating features, etc. There could be small fees to some of the games, but the majority of the social network-generated would be buying new packs of profiles.

Feel free to comment/add.

Web 2.0 Service: Design Donations

From a psychological standpoint, symbiotic relationships make for good business. Case in point: Those who make do and those who design - The ones who tolerate bad function and horrible design have to grit their teeth and get constantly frustrated and the designers irked by the lack of fluidity and overall performance of the original purpose. This feeling so strong many times designers will hand out donations of redesigns, which could be utilized for the good of others. (see: One Laptop Per Child, Design for Good, and Design for the Other 90%)

So where do you connect the need and the product? Programmers and Graphic Designers have auctions for freelance jobs, so why not a recognition-payoff forum for charities and the generous? Charities post their need, and those who have the resources and skill make their bid in terms of time and resources.

Obviously, this doesn't have to be confined to design work - it could be applied to volunteers, equipment donations, and various other needs. It would be great if charities could spend less money on organization and streamlining their work and more to meet the need of others.

Other ideas:
- include mashup/collaboration with charity directories

Feel free to comment/add.

Redefinition

I apologize for the lengthy hiatus. I have been working on many projects which call for my immediate attention, but I have been re-evaluating the purpose behind this site. Since my goal is to promote new ideas by the community at large, my future posts will be much more concise, though may include incomplete thoughts which may spark other ideas. Thank you for reading and look forward to a much more casual, community-based idea generator.

Web 2.0 Service: Crowdsourcing Task Connection

While social networks and content-based communities churn out marketable material for free, some company has got to be scratching their heads. I'm going to sound like a money-fueled corporate sellout, but it's fact that people have an incentive of showing their individuality to add to these communities and that companies, very subtly, sell it right back to the masses. Look at threadless - they got the community designing every shirt, they print it and peddles it right back to them. (I'm not bashing threadless, I love them for creating a method for designers to get their designs produced.) There stands this gap for all the remaining products (besides t-shirt and hoodie designs) for somebody to connect the dots. The company need and the community solution can work hand-in-hand to increase quality and awareness. If implemented correctly, a large community may prove better than a set number of hired workers in terms of quality, efficiency and cost.

A middleman company would be great to meet the needs here. The key is to create communities, contests for everything from designing wallpapers to politics, yet retain the creativity, honor, and individuality. Or offer intangible inherent characteristics of companies - fame, fortune, or whatever. This can work in multiple ways - an underground approach and a large streamlined approach. Though it may sound extremely sketchy, an underground approach would work due to the inherent nature of the idea - mask the worth of information to gain a profit, much like how many companies that assemble trend reports operate. (I by no means am trying to vilify this industry - they put an extreme amount of labor into these reports which amounts for the high costs, but many times they receive the information free) A large streamlined approach may receive flak due to a revival in the rebellious stick-it-to-the-man/anti-corporate/individuality movement, but may work well if implemented correctly due to increased interest due to involvement. Furthermore, theoretically-infinite simultaneous task/community solutions can be in process.

Okay, enough lofty ideas, this is what I'm getting at: Motorola says, "I want a product that not only oozes industrial-design sexiness but implements innovative human-factor and has high engineering performance." So Motorola hires Company A. Company A responds by creating a community where Artist A speaks with Engineer B and Psychologist C, whom in the interest of fame and potential job offer, combine their talents to come up with The Product. The difference between this community and just a design contest is not only is judging determined by the public, but every single process of the product cycle has input from the entire community. So after the community kicks it around, and finally decides on a few iterations, Company A takes the final product and packages it with all the process notes, comments, community interactions, and delivers it back to Motorola. Motorola recognizes each member who added input, and gives them an award, adds key members to the product team, and a little compensation monetarily or in new unreleased products. Sales skyrocket due to high quality and high performance and high awareness due to community interaction. Motorola is happy, the Community is happy, and Company A is happy.

So still not morally sound? Well, how about a middleman for non-profit organizations? Design contests for much needed products, writing contests along the journalism vein, community braintrusts for ideals, idea centers for future vision. Same idea, just streamline it into social communities and create subcultures that encourage community service work.

Market: A broad range of people, but specifically college students looking to get ahead in the career market, or high school/junior high students seeking celebrity status on the web, or even the engineer that secretly aspires to be a fashion designer.

Competition: YouTube could easily work with movie studios, and MySpace could easily work with record labels. As mentioned before, Threadless does this well for t-shirts, but there is no product/task-independent system for every single task. Cambrian House creates crowdsourced companies but doesn't work with a specific need of a larger company or organization.

Potential Expansion:
- If a system can be created so that it is general enough to include all tasks/products, possibilities are limitless.
- This could be applied both to general tasks (help plant more trees) or specific problems (design this product with these constraints).
- Partnership with Ning may prove useful since they have a very good understanding of streamlining social networks and have the coding backend.

Other Thoughts:
- Crowdsourcing might just be a temporary trend that is the result of the renewed hipster movement, which encourages individuality through DIY.
- There must always be an even trade between what the community is offering and what the company is offering.

Web 2.0 Service: Multi-Task Manager

New studies are continuously released about how our performance decreases when multitasking (task + email, driving + cellphone). Sometimes, we need someone or something to keep track of our schedule and general information. Adobe Apollo can be simultaneously online and on the desktop, enabling globalization of personal settings. Default settings could be set from a short personal matrix or a global database of typical settings and then be tweaked by the user for preferred arrangement, which could be saved on a server to be accessed at any computer.

Market: A product like this would have a broad market and could be used for practically anything. Companies, schools, and large organizations could utilize this as an individual productivity booster and individuals can use this for their personal lives.

Competition: Traditional organization methods would be the main competition. Cost and ease of use probably would be the main concern.

Potential Expansion:
- Speech-to-text commands and task input (since speech is faster than writing)
- Create a complete company productivity system
- Customized for niche markets

Other Thoughts:
- Many different methods of input are necessary which may prove difficult to streamline. Syncing with particular softwares will have to be updated every time a new device comes out, and handwriting recognition will need to be optimized for writing-to-text recognition.
- Standards might have to be set for emails for assignment and due date if an elaborate analysis algorithm is not written

Web 3.0 Concept: Software Anti-Piracy

Though I'm not a anti-piracy fan-boy, this idea came to me recently. This might sound extremely meaningless, but it has much insight in our piracy battles and state of software: "It is difficult to steal something that is no there." Everything boils down to the physical. In fact, digital is not only an analogy to physical, but also uses it as a backbone (current/voltage represent 0's and 1's) and therefore, digital interaction requires physical presence and connection. In traditional program-cracking and media-pirating, a physical medium is required, replicated usually in a static/semi-static form.

The phenomenon of the internet is that the physical is displaced to that of the servers.
Obviously, the software mantra, "nothing cannot be broken," applies as seen in the full scale server pirating of the online computer game Lineage; however, paired with anti-piracy techniques, it may prove impracticable to pirate. The solution:
- Stream in chunks, given arbitrarily (have multiple versions of each data section which cannot be paired together)
- Make the program so big that it is near impossible to obtain all the data sections and ridiculously impractical to download.
- Make physical form impossible. (create sections larger than common media)
- Decentralize products. Instead of one big product for a large amount of money, create smaller products with proportionate price. Keep product streams separate, have incompatible data chunks in saved form (data chunks from two products deliberately take same virtual memory locations causing data to be overwritten upon running other product).

This probably sounds counter-intuitive, but implemented correctly this is the golden ticket for software applications (which may realistically become Web 3.0 Applications). Seeing traditional desktop products going online [Image Editing, Office Suites, Word Processing] and online products go desktop [Adobe Apollo], this technique could be leveraged to decrease software piracy.

Web 2.0 Service: Online Realtors

Honestly, online real estate sucks. Though I may be in error, my assumption is that most people using these sites are buying to live opposed to buying to sell. Therefore, it isn't the slightest microeconomic market fluctuations and 40 different types of home categories that the user finds crucially important, but look and feel of the home itself. If their goal is merely to cut down on the time spent driving around to get a list of the houses with signs in front, they do it well; however, online real estate has so much more potential. They can do the most mashups, mushdowns, or masharounds, but they are just going to end up with the same product. Instead of eliminating time, they create more information that is not necessarily helpful - Home buying is a behavioral phenomenon, not an formulaic process. Thus, it should be treated as such. More information is not necessarily good; if it is not helpful, it just makes for clutter and confusion. So what's the point of all this? Online real estate should replace traditional realtors.

So aside from my ranting, what is good? Zillow does a mean Google Maps mashup and creates a great "bigger picture" experience through its zestimate 10 year prediction albeit it needs improvement - it had only 21% of homes within standard deviation for my area and was 60% off for my own home estimate a few months back (they apparently took the zestimate accuracy statistics down). Hotpads has a cool map interest feature - it provides options to display public/private schools, colleges, and public transportation in the area. Redfin is heading towards the right direction - it is its own online real estate brokerage.

So the solution. Create an online brokerage that tours the house online, provide the necessary statistics, and stay in sight of the larger market. House-browsing has become a hobby especially growing in the 15-25 age group a la popular TV shows. The new generation of house buyers within the 25-35 age group, categorized as the MTV generation, have learned to communicate through mixed media. Similarly, the 35+ age group has begun to utilize the internet as an essential tool. Thus, video tours based on floor plans, seamless 360 degree interactive pictures with tagged points of interest, interactive special features for highlights [home theater, pool, minibar] are all crucial, essentially giving the buyer the same experience as a house viewed in person. From a statistics standpoint, long term estimates, house history reports of problems/repairs/burglaries/estimates would prove useful, while keeping the classic house statistics to the necessary minimum. Combining this with a well-designed satellite map, house estimates of the area, and toggleable areas of interest [schools, shopping areas, public transportation, amusement parks, subdivisions, gated communities] add crucial elements in home-buying. This may also lead to advertising opportunities with subdivision developers, gated communities, shopping districts, and any area of interest.

This may be enough to sell a service, but home buying includes the payment and paperwork. Loans, credit, comparison global/local lender rates, and closing prices are aspects that are no considered in the current online real estate market. Ideally, the user could run through the entire process online (besides the recommended house-visit). I don't have the expertise to comment on this, but it definitely would be an amazing experience to buy a house without leaving your desk.

By creating a large market, niche services will also benefit. Foreclosures, co-signing, partnerships, renting, short-notice selling, and other such services would be perfect for online form. Such niche services are conventionally done by private agents in local areas, which leads to little market to drive competitive prices for those foreclosing (people receive very little from foreclosing companies) and also for those buying (who pay in large for commissions to these agents).

Market: Even at low volumes, 6.48 million units for 2006 (National Association of Realtors, 2006) is a ridiculously large market.

Competition: Zillow has taken the online real estate market by storm and now reigns as king, Redfin is the the only online real estate agency, and a large variety of sites with maps and a basic description of sites.

Potential Expansion:
- Partnerships with existing real estate agents
- Advertisements for areas of interest
- Niche markets [foreclosures, co-signing, partnerships, renting, short-notice selling, college housing markets]
- Create notices [RSS, email, instant messenger] for customized searches [features, target market, urban/suburban/rural locale]

Other Thoughts:
- This could potentially change the behaviors of the house purchasing, much like eBay changed auctions.

Web 2.0 Service: Dynamic Bookmarks and Customized Web Pages

Client-side bookmarking functionality has been in stagnant for the last ten years and lacked evolution into the Web 2.0 world. There have been attempts to integrate with tagging and social networks, but lack an overall functionality that coordinates with current user behavior instead of creating new systems. It may be argued that del.icio.us, Reddit, Digg, or social bookmarking sites replace the traditional bookmarks, but users have instead utilized these services for new web surfing instead of url saving. Furthermore, there is no offline functionality - the only service widely used for daily (offline) reading seems to be RSS/Atom feeds, yet it almost seems as a step backward instead of ahead, stripping key graphical elements, embedded flash, and essentially all the functionalities of the web site.

A toolbar, gallery, or organizational method with screenshots of all recently updated bookmarked sites would be an easy solution. It could be extremely intuitive to implement AJAX on top of each bookmarked site, highlighting new content, replacing all site ads with personal contextual ads, and synchronizing with current social bookmarking sites. The main goal is to highlight the latest content, but features could be endless - custom page editing, group page editing, keyword watches (notification on keyword), and anything to dynamically augment static pages.

Market: All people that use the computer for the internet.

Competition: Viewpoint uses a toolbar with visual bookmarks, but lacks the "recently updated" capability. Yahoo currently holds a patent on customized web pages, but could work around it (I think it only applies to server side cache). Current RSS viewers are trying to add functionality and layout, but building a generalized graphical layout is extremely difficult.

Potential Expansion:
- Social networking sites can be implemented into/with this service
- Social bookmarking functionality (commenting, tagging, interest profile) can be included
- Integrate shopping feeds (limited product/auction sites [eBay, Etsy], shopping site sales, shopping deals [Woot!, ThingFling])
- Create new aggregate feed standard that includes flash and multimedia links (Atom/RSS)
- The hot new product - Web TV, can be synchronized through checking updates on the newest episodes.

Other Thoughts:
- Customized web pages will be the Web 3.0 if enough developers get around Yahoo's patent.
- Human behavior is key. If a new system is built that does not conform to current behavior to a certain degree, there will not be many adopters.
- Deals with any company that has an online presence would be possible since this is such a general product.
- This type of platform is extremely from a product perspective, because it is client side and in continual use. This can be utilized by marketing, advertising, new feature development, and will weigh heavier against competitiors with services online since it is already installed.
- Money can be made through replacing site ads to more personalized contextual ads based on interests found from bookmarks, shopping referral links, and other ads could be added.

Product Idea: Fashionable Camera Bags

Due to the large decrease in prices for digital SLR cameras, there has been an increasing need for high-quality camera bags which hold extra lenses, bodies, flashes, and cleaning supplies. Conventional photography camera bag companies such Lowepro, Tamrac, and even more recently, Crumpler have been the mainstays of the photographer's equipment carryall; however, the current aesthetic screams photo nerd and would be horrendous fashion faux pas. More recently, trendy photographers have opted for slipons for each lens/flash/body and carried them in large messenger bags / purses; however, this is proves extremely difficult for lens swapping and overall functionality. Furthermore, current camera bags can be categorized in only a few categories: backpacks, shoulder bags, and slingpacks (rare). The functionality can be easily improved through camera-savvy industrial designers and even professional and amateur photographers. Thus, there is a natural need for fashion-friendly camera bags which provides both functionality and form, as many companies have done with laptop bags.

Market: There is an increasing niche market among SLR/DSLR owners. Logically, this would mean approximately one bag for every SLR/DSLR purchase.

Competition: Crumpler and Kodak "Fashion Series" (Womens) both of which are not very fashionable

Potential Expansion:
- Collaborations with High Fashion Brands [Prada, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana], Streetwear Brands [Headporter, Puma], Purse Brands [Louis Vuitton, Coach, Dooney & Bourke], Backpack Brands [Vitronix, Jansport, Eastsport]
- Upon brand establishment, emergence in mainstream camera bag (point and shoot digital cameras) and fashion bag businesses.
- Experimentation with different forms to improve functionality, integrate with human behavior, and create new aesthetics.

Other thoughts:
- Non-traditional materials [tarp, tire rubber, recycled material] will provide brand identity, lower costs, and is part of an increasing trend in hipster/ecofriendly circles.