Overly Ambitious or Genius?

Ever since I was a young child I have had ideas.  Some of my ideas are novel, others impractical, while most of them are hardly noteworthy.  The problem is, not much has ever been produced from my ideas, other than the ideas themselves.  In the end, all I am left with are more ideas.

Take, for instance, an idea I had as a Freshman in High School in 1997, the same year the Nintendo 64 gaming system was released.  The idea began brewing long before then, but I know for sure that I began imagining the particulars during that first year of High School.

My idea really took off that year because we got our first glimpses of what some of our favorite games could be like in a fully three dimensional world.  Playing Mario 64 I was impressed with the level of freedom the extra dimension offered, but I still felt limited.  So I began imagining my own version of the perfect game.

It began with my version of the perfect Mario 64 game.  In stead of levels limited at the edges by invisible walls or impossibly steep hills, why not connect all of the levels?  There could be extra terrain blending the different environments that each level contains, and the whole thing could be one massive world.

On that note, my logic continued, why not make the whole thing into a giant planet?  It could be the Mario 64 world.  A whole planet filled with Mario levels.

Then we got a new game, Mario Kart 64.  This, being another Mario game, instantly began crowding its way into my already busy imaginary Mario world.  In the Mario Kart game, one track takes place in the same setting as the beginning of Super Mario 64 - outside the Princess’s Castle.  I thought it would be cool if you could get out of your race kart and enter the castle.  Of course, in my imaginary 3D Mario world, this would be possible.

The next game I remember getting and loving completely changed my imaginary game forever, and that was Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.  This game allowed me a visual companion that took my 3D game into new galaxies.  Of course, it didn’t happen so fast.  At first, I saw the opportunity to have other planets and space ships that could fly around in space, allowing you to land on other planets.  Then, another game (this one for the PC) got me thinking even more.

I just spent the last half hour researching and trying to find the name of this game I used to love playing, but found nothing.  I have no idea where I got it, but it was a shareware game where you controlled a small ship and tried to conquer a galaxy.  There were two or three star systems, each with planets in orbit.  It was a simple, 2D game but I loved playing.  You used the up arrow key to fire a single thruster, left and right to rotate and orient the craft (like Asteroids) and the down arrow key to fire your weapon.  The physics reminded you that there is no friction in space, and gravity can pull you off your course.  The planets weren’t all that much bigger than the orbiting landing platform you began on.  You moved out from your planet and found unclaimed planets to make your own.  All of your planets worked on upgrades for your ship such as new weapons, shields, etc.  There was a complicated system for colonizing and developing your planets, but it seemed to take care of itself in the background as long as you kept flying around claiming more planets.

The trouble was with your opponent, who was constantly trying to attack and conquer your planets.  Anyhow, there was a little more to it that that, but I think you get the point.  I decided my game had to have aspects like that.  You could either play around on the surface, or you could go from planet to planet and try to gain control over as many of them as you could.  Then I got to thinking about other jobs, tasks, and so forth that could keep a person busy in a universe like this.  People could play the game to race, to run around on missions like in Golden Eye 007 or Perfect Dark, try to save people like the Star Wars game, fly people from planet to planet, compete for money, use the money to buy ships, cars, and other things…  The list kept growing.

Eventually, I realized this sort of thing would be more fun with other real people if they could be connected over the Internet.  In a recent letter to a loved one, I wrote the following (this person is still using a dial-up connection to the Internet):

Too bad you’re on dial up still.  I was just remembering dial up this week when I was recalling my first experiences with the Internet.  My dad’s place of work had supplied him with a  notebook computer and he had some responsibilities online.  He subscribed to AOL for Internet service at home, and I remember hearing about websites and pages from friends, on television and at school, and wanting to check them out online.  So, I would occasionally ask my dad if we could go on the Internet to look at one thing or another.

Every time we went online it was an adventure.  Not from the discoveries, learning or witnessing of new technology as one would hope.  The experience was an adventure because our connection would get refused a couple of times, then we’d get on with a painfully slow connection speed, and lose the connection five minutes later, only to repeat the whole process again and again.  I remember my “last straw” was when we decided to try filing our taxes online for the first time.  It took many, MANY hours.  Again, not because it was confusing or difficult, but because our connection was unreliable and slow.

A few of these “adventures” and I was convinced that the Internet was a useless, frustrating fad that would pass before I graduated high school.  That was one of my last wrong predictions.  As soon as I heard about “T-One Lines,” “Cable Modems” and “DSL,” I realized that the Internet didn’t have to be a slow, unreliable pain in the rump and a whole flood of possibilities became apparent.

Among that “flood of possibilities” was the idea that the Internet could connect gamers so they could interact in the same virtual world or universe.  Little did I know, but online games were already in existence, and at around the same time as I was developing my ideas for an online multiplayer game, MMOG’s were also developing into the 3D worlds they are today.  Now, games very similar to the final version of my idea exist (and they are making their creators a lot of money), but they lack the personality and flavor of my imaginary universe.

Spore and Second Life are two examples of ideas like mine that were capitalized on rather than sat on.  In Spore you get something more complicated than what I imagined but more centralized and less ambigous.  However you get the same level of scale and interactivity.  In Second Life you get the social networking, interactivity, creativity, ambiguity and freedom, but you still don’t have the video game style play.  I just think the themed worlds would be fun (imagine a Link and Zelda world).  I also think playing as your favorite video game character should be an option, as well as the traditional creation of an avatar.

In the end, though, my idea is still an idea.  I’m writing about this because I am once again faced with an idea that keeps escalating.  If I don’t squelch the proliferation of ideas soon, my idea will once again become too impractical to create.

Once again, my idea is for a game.  It is a simple game this time though, one for children or adults.  At first, while designing the code on paper, I realized that a modular approach would be easier to work with and make the whole project more flexible.  Then I decided I would like the program to help create the code for the game, making the game easier to edit and change.  I thought it would be good to make the game files separate from the code so it wouldn’t be hardwired into the actual program.  Then I decided to integrate the editing function into the final product so users could create their own games like mine, telling their own story.  Then it just got more complicated and more intricate until I realized I was going to have to back some of the features out if I’m ever really going to program this thing.

Only once did this tendency of mine to escalate ever pay off.  I was in High School, designing a program to help decode some encrypted messages for a contest I was working on in the evenings (instead of doing homework at home).  It worked out because I started getting the extra ideas while I was actually executing the project.  I started with a simple program that helped count characters and plot a graph to help me decode substitution ciphers by character analysis.  Then I got involved in a harder, multi-alphabet substitution cipher that required yet another function in the program to facilitate its decryption.  Eventually I got it to work, and it did its job beautifully.  I was very proud of this program, and to this day I regret the harddrive crash that wiped away every last line of its code.

The dilemma I am faced with is one of practicality.  Is it better to cut off an idea before it gets out of control to keep it feasible, or is it better to dream big, aim high and resign myself to a life full of ideas that I will never bring to life?  I like dreaming big, I love my ideas, but they are too big to execute.  This world we live in moves so quick that if I don’t do something about an idea fast enough, someone else will think of it and do it before me.  I have had numerous ideas that became big a few years after I dreamed them up.

Am I an overambitious, lazy and unrealistic dreamer or am I an under-ambitious genius who lacks the necessary gumption to do something about his ideas?  What do you think?

Person Mario 64

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Ultimate List Handler

Ultimate Intelligent List Handler for People Who Love Lists

This is a quick outline of the features and organization I think belong in a good list handler. I love lists, and sometimes just assembling a list of things I want can make me feel as though I have received what I wanted. It’s like getting a craving for Mexican food, then collecting pictures of Mexican food items and having the craving satisfied. That’s what lists do for me, and I know there are other people like me out there.

I shall now use this description as my model and go out looking for the perfect list handler to meet my needs. If I can find nothing close enough, I may have to create my own program (which I am capable of doing given enough time). I have found one online wishlist handler which almost does what I want it to do, but it lacks some simple ideas which would make it more useful to me.

So, here is what the perfect list handler should be able to do:

List Groups
An individual list can be a part of one or more list groups. Group specific image and icon options would make these a good basic organizational level. Groups are like categories, in that you can have a “Wishlist” group and several different themed wishlists could belong to that group - “My Christmas WIshlist,” “My Spouse’s Wishlist,” and so on. A wishlist for video production equipment that is in the “Wishlists” group could also be a member of the “Future Purchases” and “Expensive” groups.

Lists
Each list can have a description, representational image and icon, and a list of creators & benefactors. Additionally, the list can be tailored to meet special needs. A list can be started by just adding items to it, or a more complicated list can be begun by outlining item types that would be needed. A more complicated list formed on a frame of “types” could give a variable, flexible budgeting plan with options to help organize what item would do best in what slot in the list. Lists can be ordered or unordered, based on priority, price, alphabet, date added, etc. You can simply put one item above another item because you like it there if you want, or you can assign priority values and have the list grouped by priority. You can even have phases, where the list is grouped into items that need to be purchased first, second, third, etc.

Once a list has been made, it can output HTML, Documents, perhaps even Spreadsheets with the items, costs, descriptions, images/icons, etc. using options made possible with the item types.  These outputs could be tailored to fit in budgets, show a time line of when to purchase what, and so many other possibilities.

Item Types
Inside of a list, several options could be variable. To help organize the variables “types” would become important. For example, if I am creating a list of things I need for video production, I can have requirements (specified at the List level) such as camera(s), light(s), microphone(s), and so forth that would be types. Each item I add to the list would then be grouped into a specific type. Each type can have characteristics associated with it that would specify how many of each item I need. Perhaps I find three different camera models I like, but I only plan on needing two cameras. My “Camera” item type could be programmed to know that only two cameras need purchasing and that any of them could fill the spots. Then, when I am outputting a cost breakdown, a range of camera prices would show based on combinations of the prices of the cameras filling that type position in the list.

Items
Items can be associated with more than just one type or list. Once the program has an item inputted, adding it to another list can be achieved easily by pulling the item up in the new list or from another list and adding it. Items can have more than one image associated with them, one as the main image, and they can update pricing and get new images easily within the program. Links to different vendors and prices could also be retrieved within the program.

Keywords & Tags
Sorting, organizing and browsing items, lists and groups would be handled primarily by tags & keywords. By searching one or more keywords an item could be found easily to be added to a new list.

If you know of anything that does all of this, please let me know in the comments. If you have any other ideas of what a list handler should be able to do, also leave a comment!

Call to Arms

I propose that the whole idea of an operating system that needs to restart in order to update or fix errors is fundamentally flawed and has its roots in the days when processor time and memory use were drastically more limited and more carefully budgeted in programming than they need to be now. If we continue to hold on to programming habits and traditions formed in those early days, future progress may slow or even halt when our technology begins demanding more efficient, dynamic infrastructures on which to think and perform calculations. When such a day comes, we might be left scratching our heads wondering what the big holdup is - unless we are ready.

For what reason do we have files in our systems that the operating system needs to protect from change while running? I believe that this may have originated in the days when the first two digits of the year were dropped to save space in the memory. The programmers didn’t consider that eventually the year wouldn’t start with a nineteen, or that such savings in memory would be trivial in just a few short years. I think that in order to keep the processor free to run programs in the operating system, programmers avoided having to reference certain system files more than once while the operating system is running. By reading them once at startup, then deeming them “untouchable” during operation, they avoided having to read the same information several times while running. Whether I have this particular detail correct or not, I think the basics of the idea are based in processor usage or memory management somehow. Either way, programmers did not realize that one day computer processors would be capable of performing calculations several times faster than most users would require of them and memory would be measured in terabytes rather than kilobytes.

In order to clearly see a need for change, we can travel into the future. Imagine a robotic surgeon performing an emergency surgery in a remote area of the world. This robot may be completely autonomous, or it may be remotely guided in some capacity by a human surgeon. The operation begins, the first slice cleanly revealing the innards of our poor, doomed example subject. A few cuts later and a major organ will be in jeopardy. There will be a thirty second window to take needed precautions to prevent this patient from being seriously injured or even killed. Our multi-limbed machine is fully capable of performing this task in under ten seconds, but suddenly, as the thirty second window opens, a fatal error occurs in the operating system code. A blue screen of death shines in the background while our patient is beginning to die in the foreground. A redundant system realizes the problem and restarts the main computer. Backup processes would have been able to carry out the instructions necessary to save this man’s life, but the data has been corrupted and needs to be restored. Luckily, this is the future, and our system restarts in just under ten seconds. The local data is restored by logging into the robot’s online data cloud and reconstructing the damaged areas. Finally, nearly fifteen seconds in to this critical countdown the surgeon begins saving the dying organ. Unfortunately, the process takes twenty seconds, and fatal damage has already been done. The patient dies.

Admittedly, even more redundant systems would probably exist on such an important machine, several of which redundancies would be fully capable of accessing uncorrupted, collectively managed data and completing the surgery without incident. My point wouldn’t be made quite so clearly though if redundant systems had saved the patient. The question is, why should our systems need to restart when an error is encountered? Shouldn’t proper, modular programming techniques be able to circumvent the need to completely reboot the whole operating system? It is both expensive and impractical to simply give every important computer system several redundant iterations of itself.

With processor speed so high and memory so freely available, I don’t see why we can’t have a certain amount of built-in redundancy for every individual computer without having to install physical clones of the computer. Systems exist that will add redundancy to data storage (like the Drobo), but even these techniques cannot prevent your system from needing to restart after certain errors. In a modular operating system, a fatal error should only require the affected module to restart, not the entire system. If the module that encounters the error is a critical system module that would cripple the entire operating system while disabled, then a redundant module should exist to prevent the user from being affected by the error.

For another silly example from the future, let’s visit the computer system that handles traffic movements. This system monitors traffic needs and controls traffic flow in an entire city. It networks with traffic computers in other cities to gather data about movements between the two cities. It connects with individuals’ calendars to help them get to appointments on time. This computer is a very busy system. Once a week, though, at three am (on Wednesday), it logs in to its manufacturer’s website to check for updates. If it finds any updates, it stops traffic for ten seconds while it reboots.

Ridiculous? Yes. If a computer is controlling traffic, the vehicles may be moving at amazing speeds. Ten seconds holding still, rather than moving at five hundred miles per hour, could mean big financial loss for businesses that rely on the quick movements of goods or people. Ten seconds not moving might seem like an eternity to a mother in labor on the way to the hospital, or a young man who has swallowed his iPhone and can’t breathe.

The traffic computer should be able to make changes to its system files without needing to shut down and restart. A modular system that isn’t afraid to reference itself dynamically should be able to make changes on the fly without exhibiting the archaic behavior of our current computers.

Why should we wait for such changes in operating system philosophy to become necessary? We are ready now, we have the processing power now, let’s do this - now. I call on operating system programmers everywhere (and anyone else who wants to help) to organize and begin redesigning the operating system from the ground up to be modular, redundant, resilient to errors and dynamically capable of updating without ever needing to restart, reboot or shut down.

Web-Enabled Community Spell-Checker Dictionary

I want to share with you a web-enabled community spell-checker dictionary idea I had this morning.

The technical details may bore you, but the simple description should help generate interest. How many times have you written a word that you knew was spelled correctly, like “blog”, and had your spell-checker tell you it’s wrong? What do you do? You can either ignore the “error” and leave it there, with the squiggly red line under it, or you can add the word to your user dictionary (and in a lot of cases, like new Internet words, that means hoping you didn’t spell it wrong).

The user dictionary, I’m sure you know, is simply a database of words stored on the local machine (your computer) that is compared against each word you type in that program. A separate user dictionary is generated by each individual spell-checking program you use (the word processor, the web browser, etc.), and there are no safeguards in place to prevent you from adding a wrong word to one of your user dictionaries. Have you ever tried to go in and remove an incorrect word from a user dictionary? I have. It’s not any fun. Plus, adding a word to one user dictionary doesn’t add it to another one so if you frequently use a new word, you’ll end up being told it’s spelled wrong by all of your spell-checkers until you add it to all of their dictionaries.

What if you could download one program that would check all of you spelling in every program and website? What if that program was linked to other computers running the same spell-checker so it could collect data on misspelled and unknown words from a large number of people and figure out which words belong in the dictionary and which ones really are just spelled wrong?

Such a program could easily exist with current technologies, but as far as I know it remains only an idea in my head. Just imagine a dictionary that maintains itself updated with all of the newest, correctly-spelled vocabulary! A service could be offered to export the master dictionary to other spell-checkers’ native formats as a download on-line for people who don’t want to use the actual spell-checker program but want updated and accurate dictionaries to check their spelling. Periodically, fun statistics could be generated and shared via RSS, including the most frequently misspelled words, most popular words of the day, and a yearly list of new vocabulary generated by progress and technology.

Here is a more technical description of how the program could work:

First, the main functions, in order, would be:

1. Track and monitor all spelling in all programs on a user’s computer.

2. Use that data to calculate a score for the user, giving more weight to situations where more people use correct spelling and less weight to situations where less is expected (like chats).

3. On-line, the program allows users to endorse words that are not in the dictionary but frequently marked as correct. The higher the user’s score is, the more weight his/her endorsement will have.

4. Words endorsed by enough trusted users are incorporated into the dictionary.

Locally, the dictionary integrates with all programs and tracks user spelling habits, counting each time he/she misspells a word found in the dictionary (the user writes the word, the dictionary says it’s wrong, and the user corrects the spelling) and each time he/she writes a word not found in the dictionary (the user writes the word, the dictionary generates suggestions, and the user selects the option to ignore the misspelling). The particular words misspelled, spelled correctly and unknown to the dictionary are stored in a database on-line.

The program calculates, then, certain statistics for the user based on these numbers. For example, a user may have an overall spelling accuracy of 70% but frequently misspells the same 15 words, though the misspellings only represent 3% of everything the user writes.

The program also tracks where and in what situations the user is using correct spelling, punctuation and structure (capitalization, etc.), giving less weight to the chat sessions with poor structural performance, greater weight to e-mail writing, and the greatest weight to blog entries, Wikipedia articles, local word processing, Google Docs, etc. If a high percentage of people use correct punctuation and spelling in a specific program or at a specific website, the program knows to give a higher weight to the performance of other users in the same situation. If the spell-checking program is unsure of a situation (there is little data about a program’s weight, for example) the weight of the situation is calculated based on the length of the written material. This data would be stored on-line and be incorporated into a central algorithm for calculating a user’s spelling proficiency.

Words frequently not found in the dictionary but deemed by users to be correct (i. e. modern terms) can be reviewed by users with a low frequency of misspellings of known vocabulary, high number of words written per day, and high total proficiency score. Words endorsed by enough trusted users are then automatically added to the central user dictionary database. Admittedly, this is a difficult calculation. How much endorsement would be needed and what percentage of the endorsements would need to be from users with a high score? What constitutes a high score? An algorithm would need to be developed that would permit words to be added to the dictionary without too much delay, but not without first receiving enough endorsement to ensure the word is proper.

I believe that a dictionary maintained by such an algorithm would be invaluable to society. Even current institutions such as dictionary publishers could benefit from such data being collected. The idea could be applied to dictionaries in other languages. This idea represents the movement of dictionary maintenance techniques from the 20th century into the new 21st century era of community efforts and social data.

I think it’s the next logical step. What do you think?

As a final note, I was doing some searching and digging around to see if anyone else has done this or written about it, and I stumbled upon a great way to handle the dictionary database. I also found that programs to check spelling in any application also exist, but I found no mention of a community enabled program collecting data via the Internet to append the dictionary rather than trusting the user when he/she decides to “add to dictionary.”

New Project Underway

I’m going to be working, for the next few weeks, on a new writing project. It’s a kind of character study that involves real, beautiful people. I’m really excited about doing it, and I hope you enjoy reading them. After I get the initial essays written, I’ll launch a website you can visit for more information or even to see if you can get involved. Because of the artistic nature of these essays, I’ll be posting them here and on DeviantART as well. In the meanwhile I’ll probably be posting much shorter submissions here and less frequently. Finally, I just want to throw it out there that I wrote this on my cell phone (and it’s my first time doing anything but text messaging on this thing). Aren’t those little communication devices great?

A Good Idea?

I was recently reading some tech headlines and came across some news that brought me back to some old ideas I once had. There was this article about Google’s and Yahoo’s failed attempts at getting in on the social networking scene and their future plans to make up for lost time, as well as a few others.

Well, these articles got my little gears going and I started thinking about what the next big thing in social networking might be. I thought about how there are three basic kinds of people that use the Internet, and everyone either falls into one of these categories, or they are somewhere close to one or two of them.

The first kind of Internet user is the near-addict (or even just straight-up addict). These are the guys who edit Wikipedia, have accounts at all the major social networks, blog, probably use Twitter, and find themselves spending more time on line than off. I’m close to this category, but I really try to spend more time off line with my family than on line, though some days I’m on line quite a bit. This group is mostly satisfied with current social networks, but they will always welcome new ideas and developments. They follow news on line, and know when something new is happening so they can get in on the action.

The second group of people is, I think, the largest. My wife definitely falls into this category. This is the group that uses the Internet casually; for news, to keep in touch with friends and family, and for limited entertainment purposes. If they have a social networking profile, it’s because someone talked them into it or asked them to, but they don’t really see the point in doing so much on line social activity when they can spend time with people in real life in real, physical ways. These people are largely uninterested in new on line trends unless some kind of curiosity is sparked or the new trend appeals to one of their special interests.

The final group of people is slowly dying off from natural causes. No offense to anyone, but these people are mostly of the older generation that just doesn’t see the point in all of this Internet business, or they simply don’t like computers and technology (some of these people may not be that old, but they are old fashioned nonetheless). These people probably wouldn’t even sign up for a social networking profile even if begged and bribed. If they finally set up a profile, it would never get updated again after they first set it up.

Current social networks appeal mostly to group one, and a little to group two, but they are full of people who fall somewhere in between the two categories. Interestingly, there is the Opentext enterprise network that is designed for people of the third type that don’t want to design, maintain and use a social network. I know someone somewhere is going to read that and say, “no it’s not, you’re wrong.” Look, I know what Opentext is, but its ideas hint at a future social network built on similar principles, that would not require constant attention by its users - you create an account that automatically updates itself based on your activity in the real world via your planner. I know that’s not exactly what Opentext is, but we could see something similar soon for everybody.

So this got me thinking. What if a social network didn’t require attention from the user, but if the user wanted to updated it they could? Basically, it came down to a question of how to appeal to all three groups rather than just one or two of them. The perfect social network would allow users to participate to a degree of their own liking rather than only appealing to those willing to edit and update all the time.

That’s when the idea of wikis came into the mix. Wikis are popular among users of highly diversified levels of involvement in the process. Many users simply read the information and never add to it or modify it. People who want a deeper level of interaction with the site/information can have it, and nobody is left out (except group three, but we’ll get to that).

What if we somehow married the features of a wiki with the features of a social network? I worked out a lot of the details last night while I was trying to sleep, and this morning I did some looking around to see if anyone else has had the idea. It seems it has been and is being tried by some, but they aren’t doing it the way I would. If what I am about to describe already exists, please send me the link so I can sign up.

For me, the biggest benefit of this new idea is the ability to include group three. Keep in mind, group three doesn’t really want to interact with the Internet. When it comes to social networks, that means there are holes in people’s networks where their group three friends and family members would be. How many times have you looked at your friend list and thought, “Man, I wish I could add [so and so], I feel like this list of friends would be complete if I could add them.” I know I’ve got friends who avoid the Internet (or are just bad at keeping up to date with their communications) and I’ve got lots of family who will never sign up for a social network.

Who doesn’t use e-mail though? How many people are there out there who truly don’t use e-mail? Not nearly as many as those who don’t use social networks. Even people who try to avoid the Internet are likely to have an e-mail account of some kind. Even if they only know someone who has an e-mail account, somehow, almost everyone can be contacted through e-mail. Especially if they have a respectable job, there aren’t many large corporations that don’t set their employees up with e-mail.

So lets say you’re a group one Internet junkie who already has a bunch of social networking profiles and you hear about my new service (which isn’t really a reality yet, as far as I know) called WikiSocialNet (wikisocial.com is owned by some strange corporate social networking solution, and WikiSocial is a mostly traditional social network by Wikipedia - obviously I would need to think of a cooler name than WikiSocialNet). My service, which we will continue to refer to as WikiSocialNet, would be based on the OpenSocial infrastructure which is supported by MySpace, Google and Yahoo, but it would have the added features of a wiki.

In the article I mentioned before about an attempt at mixing social networks with wikis, the author mentions that the site has the user profiles locked down from editing. WikiSocialNet would not require such action, but instead be based on the principle of community editing withing a social circle. It’s all about privileges.

Here’s how my idea works. First of all, I’d be willing to bet that just about everyone on Earth, whether they be a group one, two or three Internet personality, has friends from all three groups. So, someone who is from group three and hates the Internet, probably has friends who fall into (or closer to) groups two and one, even if most of their friends are also from group three; and people in groups one and two have friends from group three who are not in their friend lists. This is an important aspect of WikiSocialNet. The goal, then, is to use this idea to build social circles that are 100% complete rather than filled with the holes created by our group three friends.

To illustrate how the site would work, I’ll use myself as an example. We’ll look at it from my perspective, my wife’s perspective (she’s from group two) and one of my childhood friends’ perspective (he’s a group three). I won’t share my friend’s real name, but we’ll call him Bill.

In this incredibly simplified social circle, I’ve got only two friends. One is my wife, the other is my best friend from grade school, and we’ll say I work with him now so he’s a coworker (which he is not in real life). Since I follow Internet news pretty regularly, I heard of this new site called WikiSocialNet (anyone have any better ideas for a name?) and I sign up. Signing up is free and requires an e-mail address that works, my full name (though I can choose a different name for the public profile or just go by my first name), and my full date of birth (again, I don’t have to display the whole thing on my public profile, and it would not be encouraged). There will be an additional set of optional information that I can fill in at the time I sign up, later or even never.

I can upload a photo (or more than one) and chose one for my profile photo, or I can skip that. Since the site is a wiki, anything I don’t do now I can do later, or one of my authorized friends can do it for me.

The site can access my e-mail address book to look for additional friends on the network, but before I can add them to my friend list they have to approve it. From my address book, we’ll say there were two e-mails that had already registered with the site. One was my brother, and the other a good friend from college. So, next to their e-mail addresses, I choose the relationship based on groups they have already set up (family, friends, classmates, coworkers, etc.) or I can create a new group and apply to be in that one (best friends, for example). I can chose more than one group for each person, then submit the application.

They then receive an e-mail and a message in the site that I am applying for the relationship(s) and they can approve or deny individual aspects of the application. In addition, they can decide how much editing power I will have for their profile by allowing me the basic rights they’ve already assigned to the group I will be in, or adding me as an administrator of their profile so I can edit, and approve other aspects such as their friend requests and who else should be allowed to edit their profile.

Both my brother and this friend from college are close to me, and they have their close friends and family approved for editing their profiles. So, I notice that my brother doesn’t have a photo of himself on the site, and my college friend didn’t put any additional information about herself when she signed up. I can do that for them. I am from group one, and I spend more time on line than they do, so this type of behavior is normal and fun for me, even if they find it annoying to be on line doing that sort of thing. So, over the course of the next couple of hours, I decide to update my friend’s profile and add some photos of my brother to his profile. Then I remember some photos I have of my friend from college, and upload those as well. My brother’s changes show up immediately, but my friend requires that she approve all changes to her profile information, so those won’t show up until she approves them.

If any of my college friend’s other friends end up making similar changes to the ones I made before she approves them, the changes will be displayed to her side by side, and she can choose the one she likes best or integrate them to her liking. The point is, most of the work has already been done for her. She likes that, because she just wants to use the social network to keep in touch with people, not to sit around typing about herself and uploading photos.

Once I’m satisfied with what I’ve done to those two profiles, I check my watch and see that it’s only ten at night. Still early. So, I decide to invite my good friend from grade school and my wife to the site. To do this, I need, as a minimum, their full name and an e-mail address they actually use. I search for them using the name and e-mail address. If they don’t already have profiles on the site, then an invitation will be sent to their e-mail address. I have e-mail for both my wife and Will, and I know their full names. I also know my friend, Will doesn’t check his e-mail very often. The good thing is that when I invite him to the site, a privately viewable profile page (only for me) will be created in Will’s name, which I can edit to my liking until he approves it for public viewing, or just for viewing by friends or friends of friends, and makes his own changes if he desires.

I can also create a profile for my wife when I invite her. If I choose not to spend too much time doing this, the profile will only contain the information required for inviting them (full name and e-mail address). So, from my wife’s perspective, here’s how it will work from here.

The next day she will check her e-mail and see the invitation. The mailed invitation will not simply contain a link back to the site, but will display some simple options for how to react to the invitation. Too many options and most group two and three people will shy away. The e-mail might read something like this:

Dear [Wife] (real name goes here),

Your [husband] (relationship of the person who submitted the invitation), [Brian] (name of submitter) has created a profile (link takes them to their newly created profile) for you on the WikiSocialNet social networking site. This is a site where everyone can be part of their friend’s, peer’s and family member’s circles without having to do all the work involved in other popular networking sites.

You can do as much customization as you want, or do none at all - you choose. If you want to fill in information about yourself, you can. If you don’t feel like it, you can let your friends and family do it for you. If you’re interested, you can even edit the profiles of those friends and family members who want your help maintaining their profiles as well. Our goal is to bring everyone together without forcing anyone to do the work of maintaining a profile.

You are in control of who sees and edits what. Please select one of the basic options below in response to this e-mail, or log in to the site if you want even more control over your account.

Sincerely,
The WikiSocialNet Team

Below the text a few links with some basic options will be displayed:

• Approve my account and take me there so I can get started!
• Approve the creation of my profile, and allow [Brian] (name of inviter) administrative privileges to handle my profile for me.
• Approve the creation of my account but keep it private for only the friends and family I approve.
• Deny the creation of my account - I don’t want to be part of anyone’s social network on the web.

I believe the above four links would provide enough control over what happens with respect to the profile for each of the three groups to be satisfied, and discourage the flat-out refusal of a profile’s creation. My wife, then would probably click on the first or second link (depending on how fun the graphics are in the e-mail and how interesting it looks) and her profile would be approved based on those settings (in the link she clicks). Either way, she’ll probably add me as an administrator to her account and I will have control over who is approved or denied as her friends, relatives, etc. in addition to being able to edit her profile, set security settings for which groups can edit and what kinds of changes need approval, as well as deny or approve those edits to her profile.

As for my friend, he probably won’t get back to me for a month or two. In the mean time, I will be the sole owner and administrator of his account, and other people who search for him will be notified that he does have an account that has not been approved yet. They can ask to be his friend, but the notification will be sent to his e-mail address. When he logs in to check his e-mail he will see the e-mail alerting him of his profile’s creation, as well as a bunch of additional e-mails from other friend requests showing him how popular he is. Hopefully, this will encourage him to get involved or at least approve his account.

By the end of that first evening, I will probably have found at least one other classmate to add to my friends, as well as a couple random people who wanted to be my friends. I will have created, then the following groups with the following people in them (most of which will be pending approval):

Administrators (can approve/deny friend requests and edits for me and edit the profile) -
[my Wife, my best friend Will]
Family (can edit my profile) -
[my Wife, my brother]
Best Friends (can edit my profile) -
[my Wife, Will, friend from college]
Other Friends (cannot edit my profile, can see full profile) -
[other classmate]
Coworkers (can edit the parts of my profile that I allow them to see/edit) -
[Will]
Random People (cannot edit my profile, can only see what I want them to see) -
[the two people I don't really know but wanted to be my friends]

You’ll notice that some people are in more than one group, and that each group has different privileges. The person will have the privileges of the most privileged group they are in. For example, my wife is in three groups, but she will have the privileges of the Administrators group because the other two groups have slightly fewer privileges. Will is in two groups, but will have the privileges of the Best Friends group which has the higher privileges. This aspect of the social network has a lot in common with a previous post of mine about the future of social networking and how it will integrate with cell phones and the rest of society. Then, however, I couldn’t figure out a good way to include everyone from all three groups. I believe I’ve got the answer here though. What do you think?

Well, looking back I see that this post has gotten quite long. I hope it was justified (I feel it was). This is something I tend to do when explaining technical details - I include ALL of the details. If I have forgotten any aspects of this idea, I will update this post and include a new post with the details of the update.

If you actually read all of this (and understood it) I want to know what you think. If you are a web developer and are interested in bringing this idea to life, go for it. I really should try to make money on my ideas, but I’m more interested in seeing my ideas become reality than dealing with copyrights and programmers. However, if you decide to do this and you become rich, I ask that you remember me!

The Future of the Internet

I found this and wanted to share it. It’s a nice summary of what we can probably expect to see the Internet do for the next few years.

There is a presentation there that I hope you will brows through, even if only quickly. The presentation outlines a possible progression from our current, socially oriented Internet to an intelligent Internet, passing through various stages. The next step, according to the author, is for information to get smarter. According to him (and I completely agree) it would be too much work to continue trying to program our applications that handle data to be smarter. That requires a lot of code, a lot of complicated algorithms and a lot of headaches.

We’ve had this idea since the beginning of computing that data is just data and programs need to handle the data. What if the data helped the program by doing more of the work of categorizing, tagging, tracking and associating its information? Intelligent data is the first step toward an information net that is better and more advanced than the one we have.

Of course, more speed never hurts. There is, in existence, another “Internet” of sorts that will continue to grow unti one day it could replace our slow, archaic network. Granted, many advances and changes have and are taking place to help our current information superhighway keep up with the times. However, this one was built from the ground up to be faster, smarter and better in every way.

Other emerging technologies like virtualization, cloud computing, quantum computing, advanced data storage and new human/computer interfacing techniques will eventually turn computing and the Internet into a wild, exciting new place where so much more will be possible than today. All of this will eventually become part of an idea I love called augmented reality.

Augmented reality (AR) is a wonderful thing, in my opinion, because it means computers, the Internet and the vast stores of information and computing power they offer are used to enhance every day life. In my vision of AR the setup is biologically integrated into the individual. Perhaps breakthroughs in nanotechnology and quantum physics could one day lead to quantum computers built, maintained and run by bacteria or bacteria-sized nanobots. Such a system could easily dwell inside the body and get its power from food we eat, heat we generate and any number of additional, available power sources inside the human body.

With a faster, smarter Internet at their disposal, these super-fast quantum nanocomputers would be able to deliver important information directly to our brain. Driving directions could be delivered straight to our very own central processing unit and we would just know how to get where we were going. Visual information could be integrated directly into what we are already seeing. A concept model car or proposed construction plan could be delivered to our visual cortex and be inserted directly into the scene we are looking at. Repair instructions for your vehicle could be delivered to your brain, and virtual arrows would point to the part that needs attention next. This is AR in the distant future.

Before we get there, if we ever get there, there will be many other ways AR will play a significant role in the future of computing. With virtualization, for example, having the computers locally (the bacteria) would be unnecessary. The computing power would simply be delivered over the net. More and more we will see things like this be delivered as a subscription service rather than something you own. Computing power, data storage, applications, etc. will all be subscribed to, delivered and handled over the Internet.

I know I wrote about much of this before, but I wanted to focus more specifically this time on the computing aspect, especially after seeing that presentation and the associated article. Please leave comments and feedback - I want to know what you think.

Looking for ideas…

Well, either you are or I am. I’m in this strange little cloud right now where all I can safely think about is my future. Never fear, I’m still focusing on maintaining a healthy presence in… the present, but my mind wanders often, and its favorite spot to visit lately has been the future. I think about the technology of the future, mostly, but occasionally my mind ponders ways I might be able to capitalize on my talents and earn a living doing something other than working for someone who owns my soul (on paper).

Ultimately, I am aware of many of my talents, but unable to figure out how to make money with most of them. Obviously, if I could become a writer of any kind (fiction, nonfiction, magazine articles, whatever) I could get paid for it. However, of my other talents, how can I make money? I often know what technologies will be important in the near and distant future, beyond just recognizing what is popular. Microsoft’s Mesh was no surprise to me, nor is virtualization, or the movement for online/offline access for web applications (Google Gears, Adobe AIR, etc.). The moves large companies make concerning social networking and other social/technological decisions are simply expected developments toward the future I already know is coming. How in the world does one capitalize on this type of foreknowledge?

If anyone has any suggestions, please share. Otherwise, expect me to figure something out just a little too late and miss the boat. I shall consult with a few other close friends and family members to see what they have to say. If I could put my talents and knowledge to work making money for me, I wouldn’t need to slave under the oppression of bureaucracy any longer…

That’ll be great. Until then, I’d better get to sleep so I can get up in time to avoid arriving late to work.

A Kindle for Authors

Where is the Kindle’s sister product?

Despite valid criticism of the Kindle’s obtrusive page flipping buttons and other seemingly thrown-together hardware features, the Kindle is a great product for avid readers, and I am looking forward to purchasing the next generation Kindle (if there are sufficient improvements and a good drop in price).

What I want to know is, where is the Kindle for authors, not just readers?

I have been an aspiring author for quite some time now, and one of the challenges I struggle with is the hardware I use for writing my material. I tried an old typewriter, but most of the writing I was doing needed to be prepared to go digital, so paper was out. Then I tried using my laptop, but that is far too expensive and heavy a tool to be practical on the run, with strict requirements for ventilation and a heavy drain on the battery while the screen is lit up.

I looked far and wide on the internet, and found that NOBODY is producing an inexpensive, digitally oriented word processor for authors who need a portable, digital writing tool. There is a new generation of UMPCs and Linux laptops that range in price from $200 to $400, and I am thinking of going with one of them, but their battery life is still only three hours or so, they still require a back light for the LCD screen, and they are so compact that the keyboard is useless for long periods of typing.

Part of my specialty is my familiarity with current technologies. I learned of digital e-ink long before the first products began popping up with the technology. I am familiar with its numerous benefits (especially for products like the Kindle) as well as some of its drawbacks (like a frustratingly slow refresh rate). It’s main strength, though, is the fact that it only requires a charge to change the display, not to display content. I have also been an avid follower of OLED technology, which will one day replace all portable device screens because it offers all of the advantages of our current LCD screen technology, without the need for a back light, so it draws considerably less power, and displays crisper, more vibrant images.

I bring this up because I think bloggers and authors of all kinds in our digital world would benefit from a power-sipping device like the Kindle for use in a variety of environments and situations without fear of having to quit writing in three hours because the batteries will die, or fear of overheating the processor because it’s sitting in their lap.

The main features an author would look for in such a product would be:

* battery life (the screen technology would play the largest role in such a product)

* portability (full sized keyboard, but smaller than an average laptop, and well built)

* simplicity of use (no 30 second boot up time, not too many complicated features)

* cost (less than a full laptop - the cost of the Kindle, $400, would be permissible)

Obviously, the product would need to have a well developed word processor on board (check with the folks at www.openoffice.org for a free, Microsoft Office compatible office suite with a very good word processor and other tools, or a partnership with GoogleDocs could be considered), with a built in and extensive dictionary and thesaurus. Some additional features could include:

* access to and compatibility with Amazon’s CreateSpace and Digital Text Platform for formatting and publishing completed works directly

* access to Wikipedia.org and other research sites

* access to popular blogging sites to post to the users’ blogs directly

* ability to receive images/text from an e-mail account and/or SD card for inclusion in the document

* ability to send to an e-mail account or save to SD cards for transfer to another computer for further editing/formatting

* Whispernet AND WiFi compatibility, for ensured connectivity and enhanced features in WiFi hotspots (like connecting directly to another WiFi device to transfer documents)

* ability to run on battery for extended use or run while charging, plugged in

* USB connection to computer for file transfers, charging, and perhaps even to become a peripheral component (it could become an external keyboard with an external display to search dictionaries and other resources thus freeing up screen real estate on the computer)

I understand that these are lofty expectations, but even at its most basic form, the digital, portable, simple word processor is an untapped market. There is no product currently meeting the unique needs of those of us who simply want to type on the go, anywhere anytime.

Amazon embodies everything there is about books and media. The CreateSpace service is a wonderful tool for authors, just as digital books are a wonderful feature of the digital, internet world for readers. Amazon stepped up and brought readers a simple, direct, unique and innovative product for taking their hobby on the road in an “anywhere anytime” kind of way. If Amazon were to deliver a similar tool for authors, both the reader and the author could rejoice. There would be a surge in content for the readers, and increased sales for Amazon.

If such a product were to become available, you can bet that I would buy it. I might even buy two. And I’d probably give them as Christmas gifts to my writing friends and family.

Just an idea.

The Future of Social Networking

The Future of Social Networking, Cellphones and Your Credit Card

I love future technology, and I try to follow current trends in the tech world. I follow what is happening, and (to the best of my ability) what is about to happen. Sometimes, I get good ideas; and this is one of them.

Though I see this as simply a “good idea,” I’d like to think that it is also the inevitable outcome and product of current activities, trends and technological advancements.

I’m unsure how it will be implemented, but we’ll talk about that later. There are several options, all of which are viable and possible; but it won’t make much sense to talk about implementation before describing WHAT we’d be implementing.

So, how to describe this… This is the blending of cellular phones, the internet, commerce, personal data assistants, data management and social networking - all in one, easy-to-use, neat, customizable and (hopefully) open source web application.

So, now that we have it outlined (details will follow), let’s talk about implementation. The thing is this: It is an internet suit, dependent on internet functionality; but I think it would be all you should need on a cellphone handset. So, most likely the cellphone would not be a “cellphone” but rather an internet access device, about the size of a cellphone, and with the main purpose of accessing and interacting with the features of the site I will describe below. Because of this, you would also be able to access the site and do everything you can do with your “cellphone” (that little internet device I described above) from any computer (preferably equipped with speakers and a microphone).

On to the site. What will it be like? The features I am about to describe are all existent today in one form or another, but many of them have not been successfully married together by anyone. And NOWHERE (that I am aware of) are all of these features found in one place, especially not with a cell-like device as I expect it will be some day. Yes, even though I describe this as a future idea, the fact is somebody else has probably already begun creating something like it. I know European cellphone services are beginning to resemble some of this, but NOBODY has it all… yet. I believe it will happen soon though, perhaps in five or ten years.

Here it is! The site would at first resemble a social networking site (much like Facebook). You would have a profile, along with everyone else who wants to sign up (I think it should be free to have a profile, while some of the features would probably require a monthly subscription). The main difference is that businesses and organizations would have profiles (like Virb and MySpace), and you would actually add them to your contacts.

Basically, from here it becomes a little like an address/contact list/book. In stead of having all of the profiles you want linked to you as “friends,” you could put them in “circles,” or categories. Depending on the category, the group/individual will have more or less access to your personal information. Some sample “circles” could be as follows: Friends, close friends, family, coworkers, schoolmates, church/club members, neighbors, services, businesses, etc. So, you would search for a listing (your friend’s name or the business name/phone number/address) and then drag them into a circle or into several circles (or, in a less “touchy” interface, you would check boxes by the “circle” names) and they would be saved in those circles.

Maybe you look up a close classmate, who also happens to live by you, and you are good friends with him/her. So, you look up their name, let’s say “John Doe.” (I know, cliché, right?) John Doe’s EXTREMELY basic profile would appear showing his name, maybe a photo, and any other information he chooses to show everybody at his discretion. Then you would check boxes by the circle name(s) you want him to be a part of (or, in our ultra-cool iPhone-esque scenario, you would drag his photo onto each label, one at a time). Each circle would have a different level of security associated with it, and thus you would only be able to add him to some categories with his approval (like doing a friend add in Facebook).

Each circle represents the relationship you have with this person. Some relationships are very simple, and thus you do not need access too much of the individual’s personal information, but you still might need to have them in your contact list. So, you add John Doe to each circle. Let’s start with classmate and neighbor, which are similar relationships.

For this, each individual sets preferences for how they want them handled (depending on how secretive, paranoid and/or protective of personal information they are). Let’s say John allows people to add him as a neighbor and/or classmate without him having to approve it, but the only privileges associated with this relationship with John are the ability to send text messages and make phone calls. Or maybe classmates are only allowed to send text messages to John through the service, but neighbors are permitted to make phone calls and send text messages.

As for the “friend” relationship, John has set his security preferences to prevent people from adding him as a friend without his permission, so after adding him to these three categories, he will only show up with basic contact capabilities in your address book in the classmate and neighbor circles until he approves your request to add him as a friend, at which time you will have as much access as he deems necessary for his friends, and you will be able to see his full profile. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to wait until he logs into the internet - a text message is sent to him immediately, notifying him that you are waiting.

Now, remember that this service is married to your cellphone? Because it’s an internet service, the phone calls are handled as voice over IP (VoIP), and thus video conferencing will be possible too (though the handsets might be a little awkward for this, it’s not unfathomable). The text messages would not be limited in size, thus they could be considered full messages or even e-mails and would be received into an “inbox”.

As for the text message you sent him… Social networks are difficult and slightly annoying for some people. They can’t be scheduled, they can get very involved and if you’re always carrying it around with you, you’d probably get interrupted a lot unless you just turn it on and off throughout the day, right? Check this out - like an instant messenger (oh, did I mention the service includes IM? It does) you can set your status. And in case you’re worried you might forget to set your status to busy or unavailable, this service is combined with your schedule. You tell it when you’re in class, at work, in meetings, in church, etc., and it keeps silent during those times - you can even tell it to stay quiet for another ten minutes or so (you set the time) after the scheduled event, just in case the meeting goes a little late, or class lets out late.

And if the future is as cool as I hope it will be, you won’t even have to worry about inputting your own schedule. When you get a new job, register for school classes or even arrive at church or the movie theater, the local computer system will automatically connect with your profile and either input the new scheduling information (work will send your weekly schedule to your cell service, which you will be able to view online and on your phone, AND the schedule work sends you will include phone quiet times and break times so you don’t have to set your status - it’s in the schedule), or the church or movie theater will detect that you’ve entered their facilities, and change your status to quiet mode (busy, unavailable, etc.). If you have some kind of urgent, pending business, you can make that known on your profile and even the museum’s computers will understand that certain contacts (which you associate with the emergency situation, like your spouse or the police) will still need to be able to get through to you.

OK, just two more main features before I wrap up by quickly describing the interface.

Part of the aforementioned functions are facilitated by the actual device’s global positioning system capabilities. The system learns the device’s physical location by way of GPS, and this information becomes part of your profile, and is updated in real time while you are logged in with a GPS enabled device. The main service includes mapping capabilities, to display this information. It shows the locations of everything in your contact list on that map. Some relationships or circles will limit the ability to see the location of particular profiles (based on security preferences), but any business you have listed will show up, and the map will provide directions to anything you see on the map.

Finally, the service will include a function similar to that of PayPal. You can transfer money to anyone in your contacts, from any circle, without exchanging banking information. The hand held device will function like a credit card or bank card allowing you to make purchases at stores, and the online service will allow you to transfer money to businesses with which you conduct online transactions. Even donations will be handled in this fashion.

Basically, just imagine if Facebook, Skype, PayPal, Google (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Calendar, etc.), and a high speed wireless internet service provider (like WiMax) all merged together and started a cellphone service. This is what you’d end up with, and I think that the popularity, functionality and practicality of these services point to one thing - they’ll all be the same thing in the near future.

The service’s main page when you log in will be very customizable. I am hoping that this will be an open source project, and third party applications will be a large part of it (like here, at Facebook), allowing users to add widgets, gizmos and applications to their profile and homepage as well as adding additional functionality to the phone. Similar to Facebook’s home page, there will be news feeds, that you can customize, from your family, friends and business contacts, as well as actual news items, weather, etc. Businesses you save in your business circle will display small ads and special offers for you for items and services you would be interested in. You can customize the look of the page with colors and images or even your own coded formatting through CSS, HTML, or whatever else you like.

At the top of the page there will be tabs. You can create your own to hold content you chose, and there will be tabs for your favorite circles. Each one will have specialized news feeds from the contacts in them, and you will be able to view these contacts and their profile pages through the navigation tools. Contacts can be ordered by time you’ve known them, distance from you, alphabetical order, how often you have contact (phone calls, text messages, etc.) with them, and even preference (who you like the most, which business/restaurant you like more, etc.).

Placing a call would be as simple as selecting the contact and pushing the “call” button. There would be a video call button, a send message button, a send photos or files button and perhaps (though third party applications) other buttons could be added as well for interaction with your contacts (anyone up for a good poke fight?).

The actual hardware would HAVE to use OLEDs to save battery power and provide richer images. There would be a speaker, microphone, jack for external components (maybe), bluetooth and other wireless connectivity, USB (or whatever else we’re using then) for a keyboard or something, a multi-touch screen big enough to actually read all that stuff people write on their profiles but not so big you can’t carry it around with you, a camera hidden behind the screen for natural face to face video conferencing, and a couple other things like battery charging accommodations (though that might be wireless too by then) and an on/off mechanism (though you probably won’t use it all that often). It would need to be small enough to fit in a pocket, but not too small. Data entry could be through a slide-out keyboard, on-screen keyboard or even through speech-to-text technology (which is getting better every day).

The internet site that runs your phone might be reformatted to fit the smaller screen, ditching some things to save space and make it fit. When viewed online from a larger screen, this would not be an issue, and the site would have no limitations. The free account would include a profile and all networking functionality. If anything were to be charged, it would be a monthly fee to have high quality VoIP calls with video, though I don’t know why a free subscription couldn’t offer the same VoIP that Google Talk offers today for free. If all goes well, when you sign up for this service, you should be able to tell it the URL and login information of a social networking site you’ve already been using (such as MySpace or Facebook), and it will go in and import all of that hard work you’ve already done there into this new service. That way you won’t have to enter all that personal information AGAIN! After all, who wants to type out all of their favorite music and interests for ANOTHER social networking site? Not me!

One of the coolest features of a service like this would have to be the ability to share your handset. Say you have a friend who signed up and got a profile, but didn’t buy the phone, and he wants to call his mother. You can hand him your phone and he can log on to the site through password verification just like we do on any other social networking or banking site today. He uses your phone as though it were his own, then logs off and you log back on. It’s that easy.

Finally, and I know you’re about to give me the”run-on sentence-king” award and “diarrhea-of-the-mouth” award, I truly do believe that this is all just a couple years away, once someone decides to do it. There are patents to be considered, as well as the availability of high speed wireless internet connections, but overcoming those hurdles, this service is already available, you just have to piece it together and make them talk to each other. If anyone out there is interested in actually doing this, and they have the ability to get things done (find programmers, designers, engineers, manufacturers, web hosts, etc.), I don’t mind if you steal my ideas. First of all, they probably aren’t unique, and second of all, I think it’s going to happen whether I do it or not. The only thing I ask in return for taking my idea isn’t credit, but a piece of the pie. Not a percentage of the earnings, but a handset! I just want to be able to use the service I’ve dreamed up without having to pay for it. Is that too much to ask? I think not!

Happy dreaming, and until next time.