Someone build this please.

The Idea: A system that acts as a tweet router. The first application; Micro Press Releases.

On one side, Business owners would sign up with their twitter accounts and supply some basic information about their business.

• Name
• City
• Date Founded
• Industry ex. Tech-Web-Social Network
• Stage ex. Pre-seed, funded, established
• Number of empoyees range
• Annual Revenue range

On the other side, anyone can sign up with their twitter account and select the types of companies they would like to receive news about. ex. I would pick all tech startups in Ottawa and Toronto, Digg, Google, and Apple by name, as well as any alternative fuel companies.

Click to enlarge screenshot

Let’s assume this venture is called TwitterWire. The domain is taken, but nothing is hosted there. I already checked.

You would then follow user twitterwire on Twitter and automatically receive all twitter wire news releases that meet the criteria you selected. This makes for a great way to keep up to date with all the happenings in the business/startup world.

To the right is a screenshot with a mockup of how the tweets could be displayed. These two tweets from Devshop and Shopify(1st and 5th tweets) would appear because they matched the criteria I selected, without me having to discover and follow them myself. At the top is how you would submit your own micro press release.

Step 1: Build the site to allow twitter users to submit their business and subscribe to other business’ feeds. Build a system that follows everyone who has registered and upon receiving a tweet from them, fire it off to anyone who’s listening criteria matches the tweeter company.  Twitter wire tweets would be nothing more than a headline and a link.

Getting startups to sign up first would be a great starting point. There’s nobody more willing to share information about their company.

Business’ get to broadcast their news. Everyone gets to easily keep up to date with what’s going on. Everybody wins.

Step 3: Profit

I’ve been on a mobile web kick lately. I’m really starting to see how the mobile/location aware web can unfold over the next 10 years.

To get started, I figured I’d spend five minutes getting maybe5 mobile. I came across MoFuse. They claim a mobile version of your site in minutes. Really? Just minutes?

Actually, it took about 4 minutes, and that’s including the time it took me to add another CNAME entry to my DNS server so you can access it from m.maybe5.com. Even DNS changes are fast nowadays!

At first glance, it seems like a really nice product. The site looks good on my BlackBerry and their iPhone widget(I hate that term) looks pretty slick. Here it is below so you can see for yourself.

Between MoFuse and the wordpress mobile admin plugin, I can manage and view my blog all from my BlackBerry.

The evil Mr. Burns-like figure at Fido is slobbering over the new money they will make from my increased data usage. “Excellent.”

My fiance’s name is Guisselle. She’s a hair dresser at an upscale salon and spa.

An interesting story about gaining a new client via word of mouth.

A lady sees her neighbour’s new hairdo and says “I really like your hair. Where did you get it done?”. The reply is “This girl Guisselle, over at The Spa”.

A couple of days later, the same lady notices a co-worker’s hairdo and asks the same question. The reply is “My hairdresser Guisselle, at The Spa”.

The very same week, she asks yet another co-worker about her hairdo. The reply is “This girl at The Spa, …”. The lady interrupts with “Let me guess. Guisselle?”. “Yes! How did you know?”.

It was at this point the lady decides to make an appointment with Guisselle.

It took seeing Guisselle’s work three times and seeing how happy her customers were before this lady decided to go ahead and try her services out for herself.

How many satisfied customers do you need to have out there willing to talk about your product or service before your reputation reaches that tipping point? This is the point at which all your hard work pleasing customers starts to really pay off. Your reputation for quality precedes you and not just because one person is happy, but many.

This lady may very well not really trust the opinion of any one of those people individually, but after all of them express the same opinion, she can’t help but try Guisselle’s service out for herself.

I’m afraid I don’t think there’s a short cut to reaching this tipping point. There’s nothing marketing or a new software feature will do to build that reputation.

A lot of hard work and making sure every customer is happy. That’s the only way.

Guisselle has put in the hard work and is now at the top of the scale from one to awesome.

“When I die, I want to come back as me” – Mark Cuban

I love it! Words of a truly satisfied person. Full interview here.

This is truly amazing. This text input method wouldn’t take any explanation for anyone to get started. This is so simpIe it should end up being adopted by all phone manufacturers.

My prediction. This will be on an iPhone in the near future. That is, if Apple is smart enough. This could actually be the end to the blackberry qwerty keyboard.

My fiance’s grandfather just turned 86 years old this past weekend. A couple of weeks ago, he purchased a high def camcorder and he’s really excited about using it.

As it turns out, his current computer isn’t good enough to play back the videos the camera records. The solution?
A brand new dual core system with a 500gig drive and a 19″ flat panel display.

Here’s a man that was born in 1922. He witnessed many of the twentieth century inventions like the band-aid, frozen food, quartz watches, the aerosol can, bubble gum and electric shavers. He knew the world before scotch tape, radio, ballpoint pens, and the microwave were invented. Now he’s probably got more processing power on his desk than was existent in the whole world when he was born.

A Ford from the 1930s

When he was growing up, the main method of communitcation was the telegraph. He was in his 20s when television stations started rolling out. He was in his 30s when credit cards were introduced, and in his 40s when the handheld calculator was invented. Fast forward 30 more years and he was in his 70s when I started browsing a text based internet with a 2400 baud rate modem.

He witnessed the introduction of the rotary dial phone, and the growth of commercial flight in the 1930s. Pretty much any technology we have now, he lived without, saw the introduction of, and witnessed become mainstream.

Today, in 2008 he calls Guatemala to speak with family using Skype, and he gets his latin news online, using Firefox no less. He can record 20+ hours of high def footage on an internal hard drive on his new camcorder and produce a DVD in a matter of minutes.

Its amazing to think how drastic technology has changed during his life. I hope I’ll reach his age and be as healthy as he is. I wonder what tech toys I’ll be playing with then.

How much will technology change in the next 86 years?

Starting a company is like running the 100 meter dash blind folded. You don’t know if you’re opponents are behind you or ahead. You don’t even know if they exist.

One thing is for sure. You have to sprint as fast as you can.

On a scale from one to awesome. Where do you rate at what you do? Whether you’re a cashier, software developer, or high priced corporate lawyer, how good are you at what you do?

"Be Tom Cruise in Cocktail..."

I was at the grocery store today with my fiance and our grocery tab rang up to $60 and change. We handed the cashier a twenty dollar bill, $40 in fives, and the change.

Can you believe it took the cashier 3 tries to count it? After the final count she paused, stared at the money for a second, looked up and said “sixty?”. We confirmed it was $60 and the transaction was completed.

I know that’s a lot of fives, but you would think a cashier would know how to count money. That is after all, a pretty integral part of the job. I’m no linguist, but I’m pretty sure the word ‘cashier’ is somehow derived from the word ‘cash’.

If you’re going to do a job, you have to be simply amazing at it. I don’t think it matters what the job is. If you’re bored, find something to challenge you. Do the job faster, neater, with one arm behind your back. Just make sure you do it well.

Be Tom Cruise in Cocktail, Jack Bauer, or House. There’s no point in being mediocre. Be awesome.

“On a scale from one to awesome, I’m super-great.”-Strong Bad

Where are you?

I’m in the middle of watching season 1 of Jericho. In short, its about a small town trying to survive after a nuclear attack on the US. They have no outside resources or help.
So far, I see four or five heroes in this show that are called upon to deal with everything that happens to this town with a population of 5000.

I imagine(and hope) in real life, the ratio of helpers to those needing help would be much better.

In an event as extreme as this or a natural disaster, would you be helping or being helped?

In a perfect world my cell phone, regardless of carrier or manufacturer would know every song that was playing around me over the course of the day. It would let me purchase it immediately and listen to it on the way home or at the very least, I could mark it for purchase or review later.

The Idea

A platform to give musicians circulation in coffee shops, elevators, waiting rooms, retails stores and other public places. This platforms ties to a standard implemented by all phone companies(manufacturers and providers) allowing any phone to know what song is currently playing and providing the means for the consumer to purchase the song.

Money Flow: Consumer -> Venture -> Stores, Carriers & Musicians

Step 1: Develop the platform. Build the standard. Sell the products to the various locations. These are nothing more than web enabled mp3 players with some business logic. Develop the website for musicians to upload music. Handle the sales transactions and take a piece off the top. Musicians and labels earn money and get more circulation. Cell carriers earn a portion of every song sold, as well as benefit from increased data usage. The shops earn a portion of every song sold from their location. Consumers get easy access to an abundant music supply. Everybody wins.

Step 3: Profit