Srcasm

As Bart and I were walking into a networking/mobile information event, I started talking about an idea I had. People have done something very similar to this in the past but I think there are a few key steps missing in the process.

Virtual/connected business cards

The idea is simple, instead of handing out a card that has your name, phone numbers, emails, web sites, address, and more on it, why not hand out a Moo card with a short set of directions (Send a text to 84782273 (VIRTCARD) with:) and then a unique username (SRCASM). That’s it. When you meet someone new (and they best have a cell phone), you simple either tell them these steps (and save the environment) or hand them a tiny set of instructions. They can text that at their earliest convenience and be hooked up.

Now, this is where it gets a little better. After sending that text message, a few things happen…

• If the person sending the text has an account:
  • Your information is added to their online account (this includes all of your social networking links, email, contact info and any other information you wish to provide), AND
  • They then receive a text message with your pertinent immediate contact info such as name, phone number and email address, AND
  • They receive a text message with a vCard (or whatever compatible format works for their specific phone) attachment to add your info directly to their address book.
• If the person sending the text does not have an account already:
  • They receive a text message with your pertinent immediate contact info such as name, phone number and email address, AND
  • Next, they receive a text message with a vCard (or whatever compatible format works for their specific phone) attachment to add your info directly to their address book, AND
  • Finally, they get a specific activation ID that can be used on the web site later to both activate a new, free account, for them and with your info already included in their profile.

There is so much more that could be added to this service, I am only beginning to scratch the surface. Tie it in with Brightkite for location specific info, Twitter for updates of the people you know and add it into my aggregated address book idea for even more contact power!

Today it seems like there is a never-ending supply of social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), contact relationship sites (Plaxo and Salesforce), email address books (Gmail and Yahoo) but what about when I need to reach Alex from my cell phone and I forgot to put his number in? What if I never even had Alex’s number? What if he’s available via IM right now and doesn’t want phone calls? These are all great questions and I think I have an idea or a solution…

Aggregated address book system

On the top level, it’s simply a way of pulling in contacts from all over the globe. Bring your friends from Facebook (with their IM name, email and phone numbers), your business contacts from LinkedIn (with their title, company, email and website) and your main homeboys from Gmail (with their emails, phone numbers and whatever else you’d like to include) and pull them all together into one simple, online and offline-capable address book. Add the ability access this service via SMS or WAP site and you have yourself an always-on address book system

To sweeten the deal, add the ability to not only have presence detection (such as if the person is on Gtalk, AIM, Yahoo Messenger or simple available via text message) but also allow masked-communication with users. This could use a service like Jajah to connect the two parties.

On top of these amazing features (which are already out there, they just need to be mashed together), offer both natural language search (i.e. call Joe Schmoe at home) as well as opt-in and opt-out communication methods. For example, say I am “friends” with Joe on Twitter. Twitter knows that Joe’s phone number is 555-1337 (this would take some work with Twitter to allow this in their API with an opt-in option) but I don’t know that Joe’s number is that. I text 232665 (ADBOOK) or visit m.addbook.com from my mobile and type in “call Joe Schmoe’s mobile”. Within seconds, Joe Schmoe is notified that I’d like to get in touch with him. He can simply reply to a text message with Y or N as to whether he’d like to talk and voila, with a Y response, Joe and I are connected (neither of us know the other’s phone number).

See how helpful that could be? Now get out there, and someone, set this up as I have a lot of contacts I’d like to reach.

I was perusing the interwebs the other day and decided to search for the best ways to cut an onion. A quick Google search and I came across this video — And it works! I was able to cut an onion, from start to finish without crying. I can’t believe no one has ever shown me this before but I have used it three times since yesterday and I’m not even a big fan of onions.

Cut An Onion Without Crying - The most popular videos are here

StatShorts.com - Keep the community informed

I think we’ve all learned over the past couple of weeks, with Twitter being down, the importance of notifying the customers with what’s going on. This idea stemmed from a few things, GetSatisfaction (with their communication to the end-user and the need for status pages (like status.twitter.com). Simply put, status pages that are both replicated and hosted around the globe. Take a server in the US, one in Europe and on in APAC and replicate the sites and databases and allow companies and/or organizations to get sub-domains off of the main site.

These “company status pages” would take their information from a multitude of sources. During setup, the company could choose accounts to follow on Twitter, Friendfeed and any other information source (even SMS based). These accounts could be owners, evangelists or employees of the company. Anytime the company status page needs to be updated, it can be done from anywhere on the world wide web or beyond. Say Twitter is having issues? Alex Payne can text to 47783 (ISSUE) with an update to the world.

Because these status pages are both replicated and hosted around the world, there is very little chance of the users being unable to access these very important status pages. Twitter can have twitter.statshorts.com reserved just for them.

I seem to come up with ideas left and right and I think it would only be fair to put them out there for the community to mull over and possibly implement. I am opening these up to anything you would like to do with them. You owe me nothing (although if you’d like me involved I’d be more than happy to help) if you use them and I wish you the best of luck — in fact, if you roll it out, I’ll probably review and write about them on one of the many blogs I currently write for. So please, this new category on my blog will be for simply putting the information out there and starting a conversation.

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Text 2 Drink - You want that drink and you want it now.
So, during a late night drinking trip at National Mechanics with Bart (and later had Alex’s input as well), I came up with this interesting concept. There have been similar tries with regards to SMS based advertising and coupons but this takes a little bit different approach.

The idea is that bars would get a system installed. This would be a small computer (think Eee PC) and a receipt printer. When someone sits down at a table, the waiter (or waitress) would take a credit card to open a tab, would then click a button on the computer and it would print a slip with instructions and a generated serial number. The table would get this slip and the waiter would be off to the next table.

Whenever a drink was needed by the table, anyone there could simply send a text message to 37465 (DRINK) with their special ID and the type of drink they desire. This information would pop up on the special computer behind the bar, the bartender would see it, make the drink, set it up for the waiter with information about which table it goes to. This not only saves time but also allows the waiter to reduce the number of trips to each table and allows the drinker to get their next beverage that much faster.

On top of this idea could be built in a sponsorship mode. Instead of drinkers being able to order any drink, they send a text to 37465 with their special ID only and the “drink of the night” is brought to them. Think of Coors, Bud, Philadelphia Brewing Company or any others sponsoring their beer of the night. The bar gets a discount on beers and the drinkers get the savings passed on.

This service could be setup for trial with simply an iPhone at the bar and system setup with TextMarks and a simply API being built. So go ahead, what do you think? Doable or not? If so, do it.