Demo Camp

May 10th, 2010 View Comments

So apparently people use these “Blogs” for writing or something and not just leaving them alone. I thought I would use this opportunity to talk about Demo Camp exactly one week late. For non-demo campers, demo camp is a place that people with projects/things they have created (often small companies) go to demo the cool things they are working on or building.

So who demoed this time that I liked, what did I think?

1) MyFotoJournal: When at first I saw these guys I thought “This is silly”, another blogging platform, but this time you have to pay for it while others are free.  As a wordpress user however I gotta admit wordpress is hard to make look pretty (Sorry wordpress, you know I love you…  but still) and it is *such* a pain trying to add pictures or videos. I think someone sat down and was like “How hard can we make this process without actually having users leave” did some experimenting and found the solution wordpress currently uses.  Plus FotoJournal is way prettier than flickr. It’s nice to have options right? Apparently lots of people are already using it so good work Kyle Fox and company!

2) Beamdog: I made my thoughts on BeamDog clear earlier. Stop trying to take on steam, make yourself apt for windows. That would be super freeking awesome sweet. On the other hand are people going to pay $20 for some casual game from beamdog when they can get Civ4 from steam for the same price??  Nope. Go change the way people manage their computers and stop fighting a company that has an iron grip on the gaming industry.

3) Empire Avenue: Once again I already discussed these guys earlier. (It’s a stock market where you trade people’s online cred instead of companies.) Fun idea, but I need more reason to come back. I could actually see this doing very well among the same people who use formspring and farmville though. People have time and they spend it online in different ways. I personally spend it writing blog posts read by *maybe* 10 people and looking at naked women. (Wait, what?) Not sure if empire ave. is  my thing, but I could see it working out if they get some ad network involved. Now go buy my stock. “JJ”. I’ll make you bazillions of empire avenue dollars. I promise!

4) AppBoy: Yeah…  I’m gonna start sounding like a debbie downer here…  Except more like a Don downer because I’m a guy and Don is a guys name.  I didn’t entirely understand how this was any more than a fancy looking skin on the app store. It was very fancy looking though.   Oh right…  I forgot to tell you what they do: They are a fancy looking skin for the app store. There’s a ton of money in this space as distribution for mobile software is so easy. So maybe they’ll do well, good luck guys!

5) imgbrew: This was the most “boring” of the demos. It allows you to easy offload image processing to EC2. Aka, oops I have 10 million images to resize, what do I do? ImgBrew! Not like anyone does offloading of tasks to amazon and makes money. Hear me Panda, Zencoder, CrowdSifter, SocialMod?  There’s NO money here.  Or making generic IT stuff easier? How’s that going for you Wufoo?  Oh, you guys all make money? Well…  In that case this is just the kind of simple, awesome service that could do really well.

6) mobizou: I think mobile Coupons is something that is going to make lots of money. Lots and lots of money. Just to clarify I think there is going to be a ton of money in this field. Innovative ways to drive retail become necessities for stores as their competition offers the service and they are forced to offer it as well to keep up. Also these guys are calgarian! For reals. Calgary actually had a product at #democampyeg. The platform is obviously new and there are tons of rough edges, but that’s how all companies start and how demos at demo camp should be. This will go as far as these guys can sell it. And as far as they can fix rough edges. That too.

Now go order some pizza from checkers. You won’t regret it. That stuff is delicious.

Ctrl-C

Checkers Pizza

May 5th, 2010 View Comments

They’re powered by SnackPanda and now they’re live.  Check out http://www.checkerspizzakabab.com to order delicious pizza from the comfort of your computer.  Go forth and eat checkers pizza!

Complaining about people complaining about people complaining about…

April 1st, 2010 View Comments

how people use twitter is totally the new complaining about people complaining about how people use twitter.  Imma go ahead and get this started right here right now.

First there was twitter. Which is this thing that I’m not convinced anyone still knows what to do with that I, as well some number of people smaller than  the number of people who build farm based empires on facebook, use.  People started using this “twitter” to talk about what they were doing, talk to celebrities, promote their products and stalk people they wanted to have sex with.

This gave rise to a whole wave of social media “consultants”.  These were people whos favourite thing to do was complain about how people were using twitter wrong. They would often make comments like “Your supposed to interact with your followers” or “Build better personal brand identity using synergy in your social network connections.”  These were people complaining about how people use twitter.

Then the third phase. People were mad other people were telling yet other people how to use twitter. Why should some random 45 year old fat guy from Omaha (Which I’m sure is “really wonderful” place) be able to tell me how to use twitter they said?  And they all started blogging about how people shouldn’t complain about how people use twitter. These people were complaining about people complaining about how people use twitter.

I’d like to be the first to get part 4 underway by saying “Stop telling people how to use the internet”. If they want to complain about how people use twitter they may. You guys are being hypocrites!

But wait…  Now I’m complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter use. So you know what me, stop complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter, you’re being a jerk. … …

Oh no. Look Joel, I just saw you complain about people complaining about people complaining about people complaining about twitter, stop that!

And while you’re at it stop complaining about people complai…

Ctrl-C

The Abdominals Bet, Part 3

March 30th, 2010 View Comments

3 years ago me and my roommate, James Robert (aka Jim Bob) Bacon made an unwise bet. Jimmy (aka James) bet me that by summer he would have a more cut six pack than me. He was on and the loser would have to try and eat 25000 calories (or about 110 mars bars) in one day.  Jimbo (aka Jimmy) lost.

The next year James (aka Jimmy Rob…  ok, I’ll stop this. James, you have a silly name) once again proposed we make a bet. Though I was reticent James insisted and we went ahead. The loser had to shave half of his head for 2 weeks.  Once again James lost.

Last weekend I was in Calgary visiting the Fam and some friends and James yet *again* proposed we have another bet.  I have to admit, I’m getting a bit tired of them. During the time they are one I’m not really able to eat what I want and constantly fret about abs making me that vain idiot everyone loves to hate who is constantly checking out their tummy in the mirror. The whole experience is generally negative. To add insult to injury the loser this year has to get a belly button piercing.  After enough pestering however I gave in and said I’d do the bet again this year.  …

…

So on June 21st if all does not go well I’ll have a belly button ring. … I’m pretty sure belly button rings are the piercing equivalent of a guy getting a tramp stamp. I think this might be because the only way to expose either of these body modifications to the world is to wear a midriff revealing shirt, which is not particularly cool for guys to do.  This guy seems to pull it off though (Granted he’s like 3 years old and probably Japanese, where everything is weird) which gives me a little hope for the loser.Wish me luck all!!

Joel Out.

T61

March 25th, 2010 View Comments

Everyone should check out TheSixtyOne if they like music.  That’s it.  It’s awesome. It’s kind of digg for music, and lets you discover all sorts of artists that don’t have actual labels but are in fact amazing.  It also has some wicked photography which makes me very happy.  It’s not super duper intuitive to use, but totally worth it.  If y’all want to find me I’m jacksonjoel.  That’s all.

Txt2ETS

March 12th, 2010 View Comments

Have you ever called Edmonton Transit bus link to find a stop times???  It’s pretty much a huge pain.

  • Step 1: Navigate stupid voice menu system
  • Step 2: “What is your bus number?” (Entering bus number)
  • Step 3: “You have entered bus stop number XXXX … … … … … … … At 109 st…. … … … ..And etc.”

Overall sucky. So it’s been made better.  Just txt your bus stop number to (858) 779-4952 and get the next 6 buses stopping at your stop. No stupid menus.  Of course if you happen to be on Rogers/Fido they will charge you 25 cents because they are jerks (Ok,  it’s because *for now* we have an american #. But they’re still jerks because Telus/Bell won’t bother you), so try our twitter interface.  Tweet your bus stop # to @etsinfo and we’ll get right back to you. Sorry buslink, but we’re breaking up.

Sean wrote a more informative description of what we built here.  Happy busing, and don’t be too harsh, it’s just in beta!

Joel

ps. 100 posts!

The computer for everyone else

March 7th, 2010 View Comments


I’ve been thinking about what I wrote about beamdog the other day. Iphone store for the pc. It got me pondering what the 95% use-case for the pc really is. I have a friend (see his blog, acts_as_informative) who always claims apple does so well because they hit the 95% use-case really well and just let the others who aren’t in that use case just go do their own thing.

This makes sense, so I’ve been pondering what I think the perfect computer for the 95% really is.

  1. I think it’s managed, like the iphone.  People never really break their iphones because they can only install trusted apps through the apple app store. Most people don’t need access to all sorts of crazy computery stuffs, they just need to have applications that work. Here enters beamdog on pc.  I think the ipad is a very interesting device in this respect, but I don’t think it can replace a pc with keyboard… yet.  The smart people at MS better be keeping their eyes on the ipad, because if they don’t they may very well find the paradigm of computing shifting out from under them and not be ready to move with it.
  2. I think it’s mobile. Laptops overtook desktops because once people buy laptops they hang out wherever they are.  If I’m in the kitchen so is my laptop.  Maybe my desktop is a wee bit faster, but aside from gaming it doesn’t do anything that my laptop won’t. I’m just never going to walk to another room to use it when I can use the laptop that’s with me. The laptop is still not a mobile device, I need to carry it around with me everywhere in a backpack. Computers in the future will fit in my pocket.

Now, imagine if apple just stuck a monitor output and a keyboard input on an iphone, then beefed the iphone up a wee bit so it was a little faster. I could have my computer everywhere, I wouldn’t worry about it getting a virus, and for most people it covers what they do with their computer namely:

  1. Music
  2. Communication via twitter, facebook, email
  3. Possibly some word processing if I’m in school. (Ok, not yet, but not far off)
  4. Watching movies/tv
  5. Sharing media (for example pictures, which I can…  joyously even take with this device)
  6. Getting information from the internet like recipes or wikipedia use.
  7. Even better, with internet storage like dropbox I don’t even need a big hard drive so the small iphone hd is perfect

An iphone costs 200$ with plan.  You might want 1-2 monitors around the house it could plug into if I wanted to do serious browsing for say another 300$ for 2 + 2 keyboards.  500$ is about the price of a current netbook.  I think maybe this is what apple is trying to do with the ipad, but it misses the key point of being more mobile than my laptop and I’m still really not sold on an onscreen keyboard for all of my input, but it *does* plug into a keyboard.  Just a few thoughts I thought I would puke up while waiting my turn to get on the computer I need in the lab.

Joel

Launch Party

March 5th, 2010 View Comments

A few days ago I attended Launch Party, a Startup Edmonton event which celebrated the young technology companies in our city. I thought I’d quickly chat about a few of the companies and my thoughts and excitement levels about them.

Beamdog: These guys want to distribute games online.  So they’re Steam?? If anyone from Edmonton has the clout to try and take on Steam it’s probably Trent Oster. I’m excited about beamdog because I think it can be so much more.  The model for distributing software that is based on walking into a store and buying something is eroding. Steam, the iphone app store and xbox live are all amazing demos of how successful an online software distribution model can be.  Making software easily accesible actually makes it cheaper as well because more people buy it so developers don’t have to  charge as much per copy to make the same profit.

If beamdog could become a windows app store that would be amazing. Right  now it’s a pain to find applications I want and I never know if the application I find is actually good so I have to ask all my friends if they’ve tried it. Managing software on your computer can also sometimes be a hassle.  Fingers crossed for beamdog!

Empire Avenue: Empire avenue lets you trade your friends like stocks. It seems like the final goal here is to create some kind of ad network that pays based on your “stock’s” value on empire avenue. If a lot of people read your blog then more people will buy your “stock” to get a piece of your advertising earnings driving the price of the stock up and ads on your site. It makes sense to use market forces to drive ad prices, and this is a really innovative way of doing this.  Despite this the site mostly feels like a gimmick because you can’t advertise with them yet so all you’re really doing is trading people stocks for no reason.  And doesn’t pay per click already solve the problem because if more people see your content online more people click?  Not sure how to feel about this company, but there is a *ton* of money in online advertising and if they execute this properly then they could be very successful.  On the other hand I already feel alienated because there really doesn’t seem to be any point to being on their site right now.

Seek Your Own Proof: They make an online sciency carmen sandiegoy game for kids.  It’s awesome and I’ll fight anyone who says it isn’t. In an age where we are moving more and more toward graphically intensive arcade games it’s refreshing to see someone making something fun and educational for kids!  Good work Ken & company.

Lots of other local startups were there.  To see them all check Mac’s blog post on the event. I’m not fully sold on Edmonton ever becoming a “silicon valley north” like some of the startup crew seem to be around here, but this kind of effort is at least helping raise awareness about good local companies and there is always room for good companies making good products in any economy in any location.

Design of ETS Ticket Machines

February 25th, 2010 View Comments

On occasion I have been known to leave my student card in the gym.  For those of you who are unaware, in Edmonton, at U of A, this means that I have to pay for transit, which I generally do with whatever coins I happen to find lying around.  It’s not optimal that I spend an extra 10$ per month getting around, but I live with it.  What drives me insane however is when the train is arriving right as I walk into the terminal and I still need to buy a ticket.

Buying tickets is obviously a necessary evil, but how come I need to navigate through a ridiculous menu system to buy a ticket??  I am the 98% scenario, an adult traveling not during a special event.  Why can’t I just put money in and get my ticket??  Just in case I overspend on a kids ticket?  Poor.  Drives me insane.

Joel out

« Older Entries