Author: Ian Lotinsky

I am a leader with experience in product management, product design, and software engineering for B2C, B2B, EdTech, and B2NGO.

Catching Up to Video Games

A little over a month ago, Yahoo’s Douglas Crawford gave a great presentation on “The State of Ajax.” His opening was brilliant. He started with a brief history of computing ending with some of the incredible things being done in the video game industry, including current real-time 3D rendering of hair, light, reflections, and the like. Then he pokes fun at the web development community because of their excitement over rounded div corners. Clearly, we have some catching up to do.

Although I have been opposed to the use of Flash for regular web sites for years, Office Max came out with a nifty Flash application last Christmas called “Elf Yourself,” which they’ve upgraded this year. Not only can you skin the dancing elf with your own face, you can call a 888 number to record your own message to viewers. Very clever and very funny. Take a look at what my little brother, Nate, pieced together and then elf yourself.

SandwichBoard

SandwichBoard manWe’ve finally told the world what our startup is all about! See the video announcement of SandwichBoard and our entry in Intuit’s Just Start competition. (I’ve also shown the world that I desperately need to fix my camera conversation skills and just talk naturally.)

If we make it past the judges and into the public voting phase (only five will make it to that round), I’ll write another post begging for your votes.

Building Something That Matters

If you read TechCrunch or any other news site focused on startups, you have noticed that there is a lot going on. However, the majority of the startups mentioned are focused on one of two things: social networking and media (music and video). He is why I wouldn’t touch one with a ten foot pole:

  • There is too much competition. Unless you’re a well-rounded genius, you’re not going to be much different than those competing in the same space with the same ideas.
  • Their business models are weak like all the startups that went belly-up in 1999. Most rely on advertising revenue. Although revenue is based on click-throughs instead of impressions, the same ads shown on multiple sites will become noise and people will stop clicking.
  • They are based on fads. Don’t get me wrong, I love Facebook and I love YouTube, but they can be an incredible time sink. The first two or three months I was on FB, I generated a lot of activity, as did my friends. I would have to visit FB at least twice a day to not miss anything. Now I see two to three days worth of activity on the homepage. The novelty of “Josia is eating gummy bears” is wearing off.

So what’s a budding entrepreneur to do? Solve a current consumer or business problem. Find a niche market or monopoly that you can beat at their own game because they’re just too big and bulky and outdated and used to doing things the old way. Create a novel device with BUG. Just don’t do what everyone else is doing because they’re all doing it.

Fandango and Facebook Just Violated My Privacy

I just bought tickets from Fandango to see a movie with my girlfriend later this week. On the order confirmation screen, I noticed a Facebook-looking message peek its head and then quickly disappear. I whipped-out one of my clever hacking tools and made it appear again:

Fandango Publishing Facebook Story

Yes, I see the “No Thanks” link, but the whole dialog was visible for no more than two seconds. Definitely not enough time for me to read it, process what was going on, and act appropriately.

Instead of defaulting to publishing a story in my Facebook profile, Fandango should default to asking me if it can do such a thing and wait for an explicit confirmation either way. After confirming, then maybe it could play this trick again the next time I buy a ticket without me wondering what just happened.

I’m afraid there are going to be more grievous misuses to come.

Update: this new Facebook feature has been getting a lot of press and backlash. So much so that Facebook has now changed the design from opt-out to opt-in…sort of. See my Google Reader Shared Items (via the right-hand navigation) to follow the story.