When evaluating an idea, and considering making a serious push for it, we’re always told to focus on validating the idea. Who says it’s solving a real-life need, and not just a solution in search of a problem?

I looked everywhere for validation on my idea. Of course I felt it was needed, as did a select few entrepreneurs. But I received rejection from everywhere. VCs I met with said it wasn’t really addressing a specific need. An entrepreneurial advisor who had himself tried out a similar idea, said I would probably not succeed. I knew rejection would be part of it, but I kept getting frustrated by the dearth of Eureka! moments as I explained the concept.

The other day I was unloading excess computer equipment from my car, a dozen obsolete CPUs and monitors from my parents house. A construction worker approached me, and started asking for advice about resolving a virus issue on his kids computer. I happy gave him some advice, and he walked away.

A few minutes later, he came back and asked “Hey, can I hire you for a couple hours to come help me out?”

Unfortunately I had to decline.

He then responded “Too bad. I know a ton of people who could use help with their home computers and TVs. The big services are way too expensive, but we need it.”

Validation comes from the most unexpected places.

A while back I had posted my thoughts on the future of television. Other people, such as Jeff Pulver, have also had this in their crosshairs.

While others are entrenched in how we will watch TV, and where it’s coming from. I’m more interested in what we do while watching TV, particularly integrating the social element that we have when watching a show with other people.

Looks like CBS is doing it. Here is a shot of their Social Room product. It looks like it’s made by a company called ClipSync.

First off, I love the idea.
The interface needs a ton of work. Chat seems to be an afterthought, instead it’s throwing up a whole lot of junk on one screen, with a lot of wasted space. And the primary interaction is really, really annoying.

Besides the under used chat and the quiz element on the right rail, you also can interact using one of the six icons (including the branded Intel logo). Whatever you do shows up on everyone’s screen, and there’s no way to turn it off! I spent a good 10 seconds pissing everyone off by blowing kisses all over the screen.

I urge you all to try it out. I feel this is the future, but it could definitely use some improvement.

Tom Friedman, author of The World Is Flat and From Beirut to Jerusalem, was on Meet the Press promoting his new book and gave a great and inspirational interview. Posting here because it’s definitely worth watching.

“100,000 people in 100,000 garages” – great line.

A little over two years ago, in the summer between graduating and starting a “real job” I spent a good amount of time at the gym, brushing up on my various web skills, and building cool apps. I didn’t necessarily want to get rich off them, they were more exercises in taking my ideas and actually doing something with them, rather than letting them linger in the netherworld of unrealized dreams.

One of the ideas I had come up with was a tool called YesterdayI. YesterdayI was based on a simple purpose: just write a short passage about what you did the day before. Meant as a lifestreaming tool, you would end up forming a series of small blog posts, a daily journal of sorts. Microblogging.

I built it, but, as is so common in the world of small web applications, I did a half-assed job at launching it (I’m a rockstar designer/developer, not a marketing guru), no-one used it, and by then I was already on to the next cool idea. So here it stands, frozen in time, lingering on some web-host I have set to auto-renew.

Then Twitter came, followed in suit by a dozen copycats, and made microblogging a household term. Now of course, Twitter serves an entirely different purpose, and has a whole host of features I never had thought of. But it’s always interesting to see how I was on a similar track.

I’m not complaining that someone stole my idea. I may have missed the boat on this one, but at the same time, I am well aware that ideas alone don’t matter. It’s about execution, marketing, positioning, and being in the right place at the right time.

It would be interesting to rebuild this, and see where it could go from there…

Also interesting to see how much my skills have changed since then. From the elementary javascript to table-heavy design (not to mention a generally ugly design), it’s always great to take a look back at past work and critique it, just like an author may look back at an old text or an artist look at one of their earlier works.

I touched on this before, but Marc Andreesen’s essay about careers and creating and accepting opportunities rather than having a definite plan really resonated in me.

I believe a huge part of what people would like to refer to as “career planning” is being continuously alert to opportunities that present themselves to you spontaneously, when you happen to be in the right place at the right time.

And with that in mind, effective May 2nd, I will be Chief Technical Officer of JESS3.



I couldn’t be more excited. Jesse has already built an amazing team, a huge and exciting client roster, and has the passion and drive to realize our dreams.

Plus I get to play on the web all day. Who can beat that?

Jesse had posted about this the other day, but I wanted to give my current employer proper notice before I started talking about it.

People often trash working for large companies, especially anything government related. I loved it. But, in the end, I knew where I wanted to be, and a stepping stone formed around it.

Real World, Stage 2.

I’m thinking about starting an open source project, based on a need I see. I’m working on fleshing out the idea a little bit more, and recruiting some local PHP developers I know to help me. I don’t have time for this, but who does?

One of the great things about developing third-party applications on Facebook and other platforms is that everything related to user authentication is handled for you.

$user_id = $facebook->require_login();

All a developer has to do is toss in that one line of code, and all user authentication is handled for you.

When building web applications, I’ve spent way too much time dealing with user authentication, profile registration, logging in, logging out, etc. There are lots of tutorials for this, but in the end, you always have to figure it out yourself.

I want to start an open source project that will create a dead-simple user management system, so all a developer has to do is call one line of code, and everything else will be taken care of for them.  I’m calling it the Picket Fence Project.

I also want it to be easily configurable, and it to allow you to log in (optionally) with:

• OpenID - which is way too complicated to implement on your lonesome
• Facebook - If they can log in with their Facebook account, great
• Anything else – whatever other auth systems become available.

Of course, if this is already out there, great. Just tell me

And if you are a PHP rockstar with some extra cycles, let me know.

Let’s pretend for a second that the writers weren’t on strike, and we had decent TV on.

Watching TV is enjoyable, right?

It’s also fun to watch it with others. In college, we’d always get together to watch the latest episode, talk about it, etc. A shared experience is always better than sitting alone on your couch. But nowadays, I come home from work, and by the time I’m done with the gym, dinner, etc, the last thing I’m going to do is haul over to a friend’s place.

TV Chatrooms is my idea.

That sounds so AOL 1.0, but hear me out.

You’d go on, select your show (off of TV Listings), and be put in a chatroom (or you can set up private ones with your friends). So while the show is running, you can talk with others who are watching the same show.

Have to have some kind of on-demand watching capability for DVR, web video, etc.

Monetization: Advertising. Media networks can use it as a live focus group on their shows. Could be used as a way of interacting with your viewers (you could have writers + actors watching with them).

It looks like TV listings aren’t a free dataset (WTF?).

Whaddya think?

As I mentioned in a previous post, new avenues of communication complement, not replace, older methods of communication. There are a ton of ways to get in touch with me. How do you choose which one to contact for each person?

My idea? Create a system where you can sign up for a special e-mail address that connects to all your different social media accounts. Any e-mail to that address will get forwarded on to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, GTalk, AIM, etc.

You could set rules for what e-mails get sent to what address when.

And it could handle replies.

Open it up so anyone can build their own connector via your API. yay platforms!

So who’s going to make it?

Since the Facebook Platform has been launched a number of months ago, allowing anyone to write an application that can interact with Facebook users in any number of ways, thousands of such applications have been released. While many startups are forming (and existing ones) focusing solely on Facebook applications, a viable business model for a web app existing solely within the walled garden of Facebook has not appeared yet. So, even though developing such an application may be easier than developing a stand-alone version, it should not, at this point, be considered as the focal point for any startup.

Instead, think about producing a Facebook application to complement your main application. In this post, I’ll show you what elements I’ve implemented in a Facebook application I’m about to release that was developed solely to draw traffic and attention to the primary application, Localnik (If you’d like to know more about the service, stick around for a future post).

1. Function
   The primary function of your application (what users “do” on it) should be the same, or similar, to your main site. You want visitors to use your Facebook application in the same way as they would use the primary version. This will ensure that, your user demographics match up. For example, if you have an image-editing site, your Facebook application should also be an image editor. But…
2. Provide a limited feature set
   What?! Did I just say limit what users can do? I think I did. And here is my justification: If your Facebook application is a mirror image of what your full application is, why should users convert? Finding the right cutoff point is tricky… provide too much functionality, and users won’t bother with your primary site. But provide too little functionality, and your application is worthless. But whatever you do…
3. Advertise your main site. On every page.
   
   At the bottom of every page, I have a advertisement for the full site. Not too intrusive, fits in with the Facebook style, but it is something users will notice. The spin of the ad is focused on telling users how the Facebook app is a demo, and what else the main site offers. This is where enumerate all the features you tearfully omitted out of the Facebook application, as per #2.
4. Entice the users to check out the main site.
   
   People are lazy. Why should they even clicking on a link, registering another account, and exploring something else? You must have something in addition to an advertisement to draw users. Since my main site is in private beta right now, I decided to give each Facebook user an invite code that will give them access to the application before it goes public. This adds the element of scarcity, and gives the user the sense that they are in some way special. Plus, as the founder, it gives me an initial user base . Other ideas: Allow them to register for an account within your Facebook application, or generate an account for them automatically, or have some sort of discount/bonus for joining the main site (points?).

These are what I have implemented for the Facebook-specific mini-version of my main site. You could also use Facebook to boost your business by:

• Testing an idea – Facebook apps are easy to make, with a built in viral user base. Keeping demographics in mind, see if your idea holds water before spending time making the full-blown version.
• Advertising – Since you can put whatever you want into your application, make unrelated, heavily viral, applications, and put an ad for your site at the bottom of each page.

Further Reading
If you’d like to know more about Facebook development, check out the platform home page. Once you get your feet wet, the associated wiki is an invaluable resource.

For ideas on how to grow your Facebook application, AllFacebook is a great resource. The Top 5 Viral Facebook Techniques is a must-read.

Also, I am more than happy to help you (zvi AT zviband DOT com, or post a comment below)

I’m 99% serious about this.

Get a bunch of smart hackers with open source experience together, with the sole goal of keeping Firefox’s memory consumption under control. I can guarantee you will get funded be richer than your wildest dreams within a matter of hours.

Personally, I almost never pay for software (I stick with open source, older versions I have, or software given out by school/work), but I would throw down $100 if I never had to restart Firefox, losing all my tabs/sessions every few hours due to Firefox suddenly taking 50% of my processor and 200+ megs of memory.

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