Steal this idea: Games Portal as timeline

Idea: take the interface memolane.com (a horizontal timeline) and place games on the timeline as they are added to a site.

For the user, whenever they play a game, the play activity is added to their timeline. The value is that a user will be able to visualize what games they have played or downloaded. Over time additional events could be added (highscores, types of favorites, friends etc.)  This solves the player headache of not being able to find games they have played and gives a more pleasing visualization of games played.

To facilitate discovery, timelines could have text based filters.  Instead of search results, the game timeline would change to show.results.

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Please blow holes through my idea.

I could not be prouder... I married a model. Check out her pics

My wife Lisa, did a one day photo shoot for a old school New York furrier named Hy Fishman.  She did the photo shoot months ago,  but the site just went live.

Lisa and I went through it yesterday.... the results are, well,  astonishing. 

She is in the main banner and promotion... Amazing. Please click through.

http://www.hyfishmanfurs.com/ 

Two important books I think you should read

No, not Steve Jobs biography! If we think of human beings being measured on a bell-curve of intelligence, most of us are in the middle. Steve Jobs is on the far end of exceptional.  Trying to emulate him?  Is likely going to be futile.  However,  we can learn and read about what he did intuitively in two wonderful books.

The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

and 

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail 

Both books are covering the same thing - the fact that innovation andchange in companies need to work under different processes than an existing business.  Existing business and business practices work in a word of known markets and sustaining business.  New business or unknown markets work in a world where those rules and processes do not apply.  

I'll never be able to do justice to either book.  Instead I heartily recommend both books for anyone who 1.  Wants to know how real, new markets for products get built 2.  Understand why perfectly sound companies fail to see there own doom.

Read them both.  It's worth it.

This is the smell of victory (Plus, who doesn't like PopTarts)

Cookie Monster on what a computer really needs to do.

Best line "WHAT WHAT, YOU ALWAYS DENYING ME"

Thanks so much to mental floss.

Why are Online Game Sites Always Just The Same Old Playable Games?

I read a blog post about content curation problem of the web that referred to W.S.Burrough's Cut Up Technique and that led me down a path of questioning why all flash game sites only have games? 

 It would seem to me that the joy of playing quick hit little flash games could be mixed up with the internet memes of BuzzFeed or the image remixing of Moot's canv.as.  Where utter absurdity of content in flash games being chopped up,  split up and made into something new?

Wouldn't it be great if I could mix Angry Birds with Charlie Sheen's head?  Or put LOLCats into a hidden object game?  I wonder if there isn't some great product that can take the fun and wonderful world of flash games and mix it with the creativity and hilarity of internet memes and internet image mixing.

This of course takes me back to,  where the hell is the Tumblr Site with Flash games on it! After all,  there has never been a great platform that didn't have games built into it at some point.

Steal this idea: A mobile version of Addictinggames.com

Here is the pitch - create a mobile flash game, or HTML5 game portal with a handful of games that will work on the small screen. (Kongregate and Mochi Media have done this already) 

The difference in my story is that you borrow from the music business and cache any game that is being played so that it can be stored for offline use.

The reason this is compelling and different from an app of an individual game is that you can have a constantly updated catalog (the way Mochi, Kongregate and Addicting Games do) without being controlled by the draconian Apple Store.

The mobile web is coming and coming fast,  the faster you can replicate what the big established web portals are doing but as mobile experiences the better.

Down with the app tyranny!

Curation is good, aggregation is better

There is a lot of content out there today. I mean tons. So much that your face will melt. With all that content there is a belief that someone out there needs organize it.  Google took a stab at it with search. They succeed for a time.  Facebook is succeeding for now. But folks want more...

Within the internet community a buzz is brewing... we need curation! Someone, anyone, please tell me what the hell all this information means! What do I need to know! Help!

Lots of different sites are taking the stab at curation. What used to be the realm of news women is now problem for all of us. We're all fighting to figure out what is going to be the headline of my own daily
paper? What is the most important news of the day?  Sure we find sites that bring us their headlines but do we trust them? Are they giving us regurgitated news?

For businesses no one is winning on curation. The internet is littered with tiny, little sites all trying to curate smaller and smaller nitches of news. What wins on the internet (so far) is aggregation.  Taking in as much content as you possibly can and letting folks find what they want.  The best sites start with the vision of ALL:
Google wants to organize all the worlds information.
Facebook wants to organize all your friends.
Amazon started with all the books and now wants to sell you all things.
The New York Times sells "All the news that is fit to print".. See the problem there? How do you define fit? What if they just went to all the news!

Get into aggregation and the all business. 

Jordi's Got 99 Problems

via buzzfeed.com

Yes.... your moment of nerd.

The next run on the web is about to begin

Facebook is at it again! This time, the are taking their platform play to mobile.  Facebook recently relaunched their mobile experience as an HTML5 based rich functionality website.

Why this matters?
For the first time (ok not first, but its more dramatic), a major web player is transferring the deep functionality one expects from the desktop web to mobile. This means apps on Facebook will now work on mobile. (at least in theory) This means the way you navigate via mobile will begin to mimic the full browser. We are moving towards more unified experience.

Business impacts
Anything that is on the web helps the established web companies.and supports existing infrastructure. The Googles and Amazons of the world love when things stay on the web.  Anything open, hurts Apple.  Web native apps allow anyone to avoid Apples app store and tax (Apple gets 30% of all app store purchases) and draconian app store approval process.

A new user land grab
Mobile game developers are likely going to flock to the new platform.  Any HTML5 game that jumps on board will likely have free, new eyeballs to check out their game. Facebook is using the same playbook it used on the web to grow its mobile experience - open platforms and free viral marketing.

Get ready folks, we're in for another wild ride, not for a run to Facebook or Apple but for a run from the desktop web, to the mobile web.

Occupy Wall Street stands for one thing. Find.out what it is.

My favorite politcal economist Umair Haque says it the Occupyists stand for one thing: 

Rebellion. 

I wholly agree.  We are living in a world with institutional damage and corruption.  I know the vitrol for the Wall Street workers is a bit unfair (See Fred, I know its not you) but it is about what Wall Street represents. Wall Street represents the power, corruption and our damaged institutions.  We could just as easily have Occupy Congress, or Occupy Health Insurance or Occupy Education.  Wall Street is simply the most visible of the damaged institutions.

I want to sum it up this way for my nerdy-Star Wars-aged friends.
Rebel Alliance : Galactic Empire :: Occupy Wall Street : Big Four Banks

I mean? Who would really support the Empire?

Want to win at your job? Translate this to what you do.

Startup Metrics for Pirates

View more presentations from Dave McClure

The next run on the web is about to begin

Facebook is at it again! This time, the are taking their platform play to mobile.  Facebook recently relaunched their mobile experience as an HTML5 based rich functionality website.

Why this matters?
For the first time (ok not first, but its more dramatic), a major web player is transferring the deep functionality one expects from the desktop web to mobile. This means apps on Facebook will now work on mobile. (at least in theory) This means the way you navigate via mobile will begin to mimic the full browser. We are moving towards more unified experience.

Business impacts
Anything that is on the web helps the established web companies.and supports existing infrastructure. The Googles and Amazons of the world love when things stay on the web.  Anything open, hurts Apple.  Web native apps allow anyone to avoid Apples app store and tax (Apple gets 30% of all app store purchases) and draconian app store approval process.

A new user land grab
Mobile game developers are likely going to flock to the new platform.  Any HTML5 game that jumps on board will likely have free, new eyeballs to check out their game. Facebook is using the same playbook it used on the web to grow its mobile experience - open platforms and free viral marketing.

Get ready folks, we're in for another wild ride, not for a run to Facebook or Apple but for a run from the desktop web, to the mobile web.

Steal this game idea: Flash Game Roulette

This just came to me so be cool. Take a giant flash game repository, something like all of Mochi Media or every single Kongregate game, add all of them to a single game container.   It could be AJAX or Flash, whatever will make game load fast enough.
Add a chat room, a next game spin button and share game with a room button.
Key items will be a cool display while the randomizer runs (this will hide the game loading and some payoff for finding a new game or popular game
Optional items, avatars, graphical representation of the room.

Ok? Punch holes? Why would this not be a fun way to consume flash games and discover new ones?

Brooklyn: Hype verses reality

Dear new jack Brooklyn folks...  STFU already! (look up stfu, or focus on the FU) Its over.  I went to high school in Brooklyn, lived in Brooklyn and have taken my pants off in a bar in Brooklyn.  I get the place. However its is not, will not nor will every be "The City"

The hype:
Its cool
Cleaner
Cheaper
More community
Nicer people
More authentic
Less corporate

The reality:
Its everything you hated about Manhattan, except more pretention because its still fucking Brooklyn.

The fact is what made Brooklyn great was the authenticity of the people who lived there before you got there.  From the Irish working class of Park Slope to the very Italians of Carroll Gardens or the soulful Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy, their culture permiates the borough. Its their honesty of living that makes you feel Brooklyn-y. These very people who created those communities and have slowly but surely been displaced are what made Brooklyn. Can the new jacka replace 100 years of culture? Not likely.

PS.  I am a provential "uptown" kid from Manhattan. Do with this post what you please.

Having Steve Jobs as hero is a mistake

I know, I know I'm an asshole... How could I possibly say that having Steve Jobs, the greatest entrepeneur of the 21st century, as a hero is a mistake?  One word: perfection.
Steve Jobs is the patron saint of all the perfectionists.  He is venerated for his never give in, make it perfect, do it over ideals.  Those who compromised his vision were dispatched, vanquished and left for dead.  We all want to have our great ideas excecuted with Jobsian vision.
Here is the problem, perfection is the enemy of excecution.  If you try and actually drive people to perfection, you will 1. Not have many friends, 2. Be disappointed all the time.  Perfection does not exist.  Not for Apple products, not for life and not in work.
If you try and hold up the perfectionist virture of Steve Jobs, nothing will ever satisfy you, nothing will ever see the light of day and it will still not be perfect.

Things that can never be perfect:
Your marrige
Your kids
Your personality
Your parents
Your siblings
Your power point presentation
A painting
A story you are writing
How you treat people
Your clothes
Your physique
Your weight
How you are doing at work

Be good to yourself, stop trying for perfect.

Question everything you ever learned

I just finished reading "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" and I cannot recommend it more.  I have a degree in history and I am pretty knowledgeable regarding American history but this book is jarring.  We've been taught by a an educational machine that reinforced what boils down to American propaganda.  The feeling that everything you've learned as fact is much more nuanced or in fact a lie is troubling. 

Challenge everything you think you know

Question,  push and find out truth for yourself. Ask questions,  be skeptical about assumptions and keep on learning.  It's very difficult to undo everything you think, but your views on things and the world should be changing consistently.  Your thoughts when you were 18 years old shouldn't be the same as when you are 25, or 30 or 50.  Life should evolve.  Only by questioning your everyday assumptions, either in history,  work or ideas can we change and move forward.

PS.  Reading is fucking awesome!

Getting peaceful to get awesome

Three months ago I moved to Forest Hills, Queens and everything
changed. For a Manhattan born and raised person, this is a shock.
Forest Hills for me, is essentially the country for normal people.
Here's the thing? I needed to go.

While we're not always aware of what we need, sometimes we're able to
realize it after the fact. Living in Manhattan, on the street I grew
up on held me back. I would never be more than what I am by staying
where I was. We need change, challenge and pushing to develop.
Moving provides those challenges and getting into uncomfortable
situations pushes us forward.
My dear friend Jon seems to have always known that. He puts himself
in impossible situations, on the brink financial catastrophe or mental
disaster and finally come out on the other side more radical than
ever.

I needed Queens to get into a more relaxed and capable place. My
weakness is that I have no systems in place to relax. I simply
function with a constant low level of stress, pressure, anxiety or
whatever you want to call it. Staying in El Barrio was not helping.
So moving has been the best thing.

I'm here sitting in a garden and blogging.... that sounds like a
system for relaxing?

Steal this game idea: Tumblr based online Flash game arcades.

I'm shocked that there has not been a Tumblr based arcade of flash games made yet.  It seems to be the Tumblr is a the perfect platform for the viral, silly,  quick-play world of flash games.  If there can be a an entire site dedicated to Girl Games and hundreds of Tumblr sites dedicated to GIF's of the latest Glee episodes then it stands to reason that a Tumblr based Flash game site would be next.  

For the love over all things Glee-k,  someone please build a Flash game theme for Tumblr.