CollectiveLab

Ideas List: High Five Machine

I'm thinkin I need a rubberized suction-cup desk-mounted hand to slap when I've done something worthy of a high-five, like when I've composed a great E-Mail.  Possibly mounted to the door-frame so I could really haul off on it.  Possible audio component, ie., I record a positive phrase into the thing so that when I slap it, it hollers somethin super upbeat back at me.

I created the above years ago.  Note the rear-view, tensile properties afforded by paper-clip and cardboard-engineered assemblage.  Yeah okay it didn't work so well.

Was thinkin of posting this notion to AliBaba and see if I can get some cats in China to make a proto.  Eh.

Mobile + Holiday + Local Product Visibility = ?

 
The news today that eBay's mobile sales for this Holiday season reached $230M, up 166%, is pretty tremendous for the mCommerce geeks out there.  Especially with highlights like this past Sunday's mobile sales of $13M, up 13% over their eBay's Cyber Monday sales.

An article in Mobile Marketing Watch breaks out the "global mobile shopping moments" of 2010:

1. Holiday Spending focusing on High-End products
2. Major Sporting Events driving mobile purchases
3. Mobile Gaming, especially around Valentines Day
4. Must-Have gadgets like the iPad and iPhone4
5. The Clothing & Accessory category

This list will be different next year: it will include the impact of Local Inventory Visibility.

One thing we don't see (yet) from these wonderfully accessible infographics and reports is an analysis of how the recent Milo acquisition has impacted this Holiday's Mobile Sales.  It was reported last week that eBay was quick to launch GiftsNearby.  Surely this service brought in only a small percent of the whopping 166% increase in mobile sales - but exactly how it was used by consumers (ie., to what degree did it drive in-store traffic?) is still yet to be unpacked and shared.  

That's the mobile story I look forward to most in 2011.

My (Apple Fanboy) T-Shirt Design

Given an unfortunate predisposition toward Apple I threw this design together. If it's not abundantly clear - the point here is that 326dpi is the resolution for the much touted Retina Display on the new iPhone 4, and potentially upcoming iPad 2.

Ideas List: Hip Hop + Children's Books

The notion is simple and I've got to believe it's been done or being done or basically in the works.

There are certain hip hop artists who combine amazing flow with a ridiculously personable, accessible voice.  We should deploy these cats to read children’s books for a whole slew of ages.  From Goodnight Moon to The Velveteen Rabbit to James and the Giant Peach.  Obviously they'd crush any Shel Silverstien or Dr. Seuss.

Man what I'd give to hear these books read by Posdnuos, Pete Rock, Grand Pubah, Chubb Rock, MF Doom, Eminem, Ludacris.  And, needless to say, this wouldn't be a bad thing for the kids either.  

Ideas List: PDA + College

This notion came about when the Handspring devices were all the rage, sometime in 2000 I believe.

We figured it could be sold as an inexpensive add-on to the purchase of your college computer, the sorta thing your parents buy when you start school, and would plug into an as-yet-unheard-of university extranet.  Some features that we were excited about:

1. A tabbed / layered calendar feature, so you could see your coursework in a seperate but overlapping view from your other activities
2. The ability to download the course catalogue and play around with how various courses would fit into your calendar
3. The ability for professors and libraries to "beam" you reading material, or at least a link which you would follow once you plugged into a desktop.
4. Mapping features that would be particularly helpful for new students
5. Ability for local services to advertise within the application 
6. Updating of the application done through a work-study program in the Computer Sciences department
7. Potentially building the system in conjunction with my alma mater

A buddy of mine made a rough prototype of a couple screens - we reviewed it once at Spring Lounge, and decided not to pursue the idea, partially because we believed that the Palm platform was losing favor.  And partially because we generally made a lot of questionable decisions at Spring Lounge.

Ideas List: Video Game + QR

Some arcade versions of Buck Hunter have internet connectivity and a loyalty-card swipe which allow players to keep track of their records and their standing against other players.  

They could accomplish the same thing using 2-D barcodes / image-recognition software - accessed by a players cell phone camera and then posted online.  This way players could update and track their scores on non-internet enabled arcade games.

Ideally - and Buck Hunter doesn't feature this - your cell phone could unlock bonus stages.  Furthermore, in any scenario where the arcade is internet-enabled your friends could assist you to unlock stages and bonus stages.  Rather than a lengthy log-in / authentication sequence via the arcade's interface, a player's phone is the simplest way to access your social graph.  Just like friends can cheer you on from Facebook using Nike+, friends on Facebook could impact your gameplay as you churn through the Serengeti capping off endangered animals - something I once enjoyed quite a bit.

I'm not sure when Arcade games will start to integrate with smartphones, but it's about time they level up.

Word Lens: Let the Epicurean Adventures Begin

 

 
The brand spanking new Word Lens App translates Spanish to English (and English to Spanish) in your camera without internet connectivity.  They're using their own dictionary - which evidently works ell enough (integrating with Google Translate or Bablefish would require an internet connection).

But, ideally, expanding their language options would be in their next build, even if it requires a connection.

Because when that happens - imagine how boldly you could dive into even the scariest menu - deep within the restaurant meccas of Flatbush, Astoria, etc..

 

Person of The Year: It's Not You

TIME's managing editor Richard Stengler was on the Today Show this morning announcing that Mark Zuckerberg is the magazine's newly crowned Person Of The Year.  In explaining how TIME made their selection he said that, although it was his ultimate decision, it was based on conversations with his editorial staff, past Person-of-the-Year selections, and the TIME's Reader Poll.

Sounded funny to me - so I looked into it.  Going backwards over the past decade, the Person Of The Year winners are Ben Bernanke, Barack Obama, Vladamir Putin, "The Good Samaratins," George Bush, The American Soldier, The Whistleblowers, and Rudolph Giuliani.  I'm not sure Richard spoke with any of these folks.  Wait - I left out one past winner: You.  And Richard didn't listen to You either.

In 2006 "You" were Person of The Year, "represented as the individual content creator on the World Wide Web."  And if you look at the Reader Poll (above), "You" voted in droves and you placed Mark a distant 10th.  In fact Mark received 4.8% as many votes as the winner, Julian Assange.  Who, coincidentally, is a fairly vociferous defender of free speech.