I’m so going to blog this!

It’d be great to have a firefox addon which allowed me to bookmark pages at a specific point in the page.  Essentially, I’d be adding in my own anchor into the DOM and then booking marking that.

Implementation might be a bitch, but I’m thinking it would be really useful. Especially useful for dealing with things like long programming tutorials, which you will read over the course of several sittings and will want to put a placemarker.

Alternately, it could just be an add-on that puts a placemarker on the page at an assigned length down the page.  When you come back your placemarker would still be there.

Anyone know of anything like this out there already?

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Thanks to Mat for calling me on the lack of clarity in my idea post.  I realize that it ended up being a bit more of a brain dump and much less of a coherent project idea.  I’ve found that I’ve been able to sell the idea pretty well in person, but text is a much more difficult medium for me.

So here’s the quick pitch:

Native iPhone application for one site/blog (e.g. The Sartorialist) which leverages all the great features of an RSS reader, can be used offline, supports comments, and most importantly has an interface which is tailored to the content.

If the major contents of the site are images, then the interface should give the user the tools to browse through them in a way suited to images, not to the the generic RSS format.

Is that more clear?

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EDIT: I’ve added a couple of edits for clarity’s sake.

I’ve been ranting a lot lately about people sharing their ideas.  However, to my shame I’ve actually been holding back on posting this one out of all the fears that I mentioned back in “Don’t hide your ideas”.

So here’s my one big idea which may be made of Awesome or 100% Fail. Most likely, it’s somewhere in between:

There are some very, very popular blogs out there with huge readerships.  I’m thinking specifically here of The Sartorialist, a fashion photographer who wanders around world cities taking some amazing shots of people with great style.

However, for most people the only way to get all of those fantastic photos is to stop back at the site every day and look for updates.

“But, Kevin, why don’t those poor, misguided fashionistas just subscribe to it in their RSS aggregator of choice?”

Because they don’t know what a RSS aggregator is and don’t want to know.

There are plenty of people, no, probably most people who get their news, blogs, and media every day by opening up a folder of bookmarks. And lots of those people have iPhones.  I’ve talked to these folks and they would love to catch up on their favorite writers, wonks and icons while they rode the train in.  But they’re not ready to fire up Google Reader just quite yet.

Couple of problems I want to solve for users:

Problem #1: Understanding RSS and then subscribing to a feed is a pretty high barrier to entry for most people.
Potential Solution: One blog, One app. They’re already subscribed because they installed the app.  Done.  They have their posts and they’re happy. No technical understanding necessary.

Problem #2: Generalized aggregators have generalized interfaces which don’t display non-general content in the most compelling and fun to use way.
Potential Solution: Since RSS is pretty standardized, write a solid RSS engine which is repurposable but don’t try to be all things to all blogs on the interface side.  Sites like The Sartorialist have very particular content and only ever post a couple of different kinds of content. [EDIT for clarity] The goal here is to write an individual custom interface for a site like The Sartorialist. [/EDIT]

Problem #3: Commenting. It just isn’t there.
Potential Solution: It’s easy to forget that half of the blog experience for many people is the social thing that comes out of commenting.  I haven’t found a good mobile aggregator that handles commenting at all, let alone well. So we give the user a way to comment and be updated when someone replies to that thread.

Problem #4: Brand and the trusted source.
Potential Solution: Would you rather use a dull, all-purpose reader or a shiny, colorful, feature-full application from your favorite content provider? …Ok, well you’re reading my blog, so you’re a geek and you probably prefer the all-purpose reader like me.  But feeling that you’re still connected to your favorite content provider will make a lot of people feel a lot more comfortable.

So why not just make a custom web page? [EDIT] Because a custom application is going to give you a better experience. [/EDIT] It’s all the same reasons to write any native app for the iPhone: intuitive, tactile interfaces; faster load times (not a lot of pesky graphics); easily statefull; offline reading… You know the drill.

So what do You think?  Somebody already do it? What’s wrong with it? What’s right with it? Want to get involved? I love any and all feed back.

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I’d love to see some good visualizations of my social graph.  Google’s recently released Social Graph API makes that look a little bit easier.

Specifically, I’d like to put in my blog address or my openid and see what shows up.  An actual graph would be a great way to visualize this.

That’s definitely going to become one of my pet mini-projects once I actually get off my tuchus and take the time to do it.

I’d like to throw together a quick paper prototype, but in the interest of getting the idea out there quickly I’m going to post this and get back to you on that.

Seriously.

I totally mean it.  I’ll definitely do something with this.

Don’t look at me like that.  I’ll get to it.

Eventually.

——

Please hold me to that.

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Couple more features for the wifi-finder app I’d like to see:

• Submitting new wifi locations should not require the user to log in.  That’s just obnoxious.  Maybe use captcha or something to prevent bots (although I have no idea why bots would be interested)
• Fail! button for wifi that either sucks or doesn’t actually exist
  • This may end up being more a vote-down button instead of a straight up banning
  • Potentially, this could be abused or become a source of griefing
• Win! button to vote up a network if it’sawesome
• A way to note if you need to ask the proprietor for the network password
  • possibly even store those passwords

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So following up on App Idea: Finding WiFi on my iPhone, there is one app that I’ve found for the iPhone: iphone.jiwire.com

It’s a pretty hot little app. My quick thoughts:

What I like about it:

• Slick, tight, readable, i-friendly interface.
• It remembers my search inputs. (Default Safari forms)
• Small result pages that load quickly.
• Let’s me search for only free networks if I choose.

What I don’t like:

• It doesn’t remember my search results.
• I can’t search for where I am based on intersection or anything.
• Results are localized to a zip code which ends up with pretty broad results.
• It’ll launch the maps application but it take a few too many clicks, and I’d rather have it in the same app.  Hitting google map’s static api wouldn’t be too hard.
• The interface is light, but paginated in a traditional way that doesn’t really take advantage of the iPhone’s particular interface options.  I’m thinking here of the way that the google reader web app gives you the “load more” option for a long list
• No user input.  What if I find a new network and want to find it again later? There’s no way for me to submit it.

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So, I’m walking through the city and I have a couple of hours to kill.  I’d like to mess around on the net and my 3G iPhone just isn’t cutting it.  I want to break out my laptop.

But where is the wifi?  I mean real wifi.  There are plenty of sites out there for finding it, but there’s problems with these sites:

• they’re unoptimized for mobile use - Fairly heavy websites, slow, javascript-heavy
• they’re not terribly iPhone-friendly layouts
• some require login

I want the iSepta of wifi-finding.

I want to:

1. Find out where I am.
2. Find the wifi.
3. Get a map.
4. Go there.

And I want to do it on my iPhone. Who wants to build it with me?

[Follow-up]

—–

Notes:

Here are the sites I’ve been looking at:
http://www.ilovefreewifi.com/
http://www.wififreespot.com/pa.html
http://www.wifinder.com/advanced/results/state/Pennsylvania/1/0/0/0/html/
http://www.technewsworld.com/hotspot-locator/
http://www.openwifispots.com/

Please let me know if you’ve seen solutions to this problem.  It’s not a rocket-surgery idea, so I’m sure other people are working on it.

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My buddy JR had this idea for an iPhone app that I really like.  It’s called Laundry Time!

Problem:

1. You live in an apartment/dorm/house where the washer & dryer are out of earshot.
2. Your washer & dryer take different amounts of time to finish.
3. You’re really forgetful like me.

Solution:

You open up your Laundry Time! application on your iPhone and set the two alarms.  They take different amounts of time, so you get two different dials/time-setter-thingers and since you don’t necessarily start them at the same time, you can start one and then start the other later if necessary.  Or, if you’re like me, you can start them both at the same time since I like to get these things done in one fell swoop.

——-

As with all app ideas, if you like it, comment!  If you hate it, comment! If you want to work on it with me, comment!

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Recently I tweeted an idea which seemed to resonate with a lot of the developers I know:

“Note to developers: Don’t keep your ideas to yourself. Even if you’re not ready to do them.”

I’ve realized that a lot of folks (developers, designers, “product”-folks, whatever) are hiding their ideas. We all do it. You have some brilliant idea out one night at a pub. Or in the shower. Or wherever it is. And maybe you jot it down on a stickie somewhere. Or maybe you’ll actually do something with it.

Probably not, though. But not because you’re lazy. Well, maybe you are, but maybe you’re not sure it’s a good enough idea. Maybe you don’t have the skills right now to do it, but you will some day. Maybe you just don’t have the time. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

A big one for most people is that they don’t want their precious, original idea to get away from them. They don’t want someone else to do it before they do.

Knock it off. Stop hiding your ideas.

Not sure if your idea is good enough or just a flop? Share it. You might actually get some good advice.

Think your idea sucks? Share it. No one remembers the so-so ideas. Everyone remembers the killer apps. So just get it out there. You might actually have the next big thing, or maybe it’s the part that was missing from the next big thing. Or not. And then who cares? But you gave it a shot.

Don’t have the skills to really execute the way you want to? Share it. If the idea has legs someone with the skills will probably approach you about working on it. Better to work with someone now to make your idea happen then to wait years and have nothing.

Don’t have the time? Shar… well, you get the idea.

Lastly, for those of you who are sitting on that one big idea that’s going to make you millions of dollars, but you’re worried someone will steal your incredible idea? Don’t worry, they already have.

Not that you’re not brilliant. I’m sure you totally are. But there are a lot of other brilliant people out there having ideas. It’s the folks that share their ideas and start getting other people involved that are most likely to actually make something out of it.

Share your damn idea. Those days of operating in a vacuum are over. I’m also not entirely sure they were ever really there. Most of the time it’s just luck whether your idea is the right thing at the right time. But if you never make it, you’ll never know. If you share it, you might actually make it.

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