Anything good on the internet tonight?

The VOIP+social-networking browser plug-in that makes online chat into actual chat

Imagine being able to join your friends online and watch whatever they are watching in real-time. Millions of hours are spent watching sites like YouTube, so the likelihood that one or more of your friends via social networking is watching something you might be interested in at that moment is quite high.

Using Skype-like VOIP and “chat”, you could seamlessly join in with what your friend is experiencing. It’s like walking into a room with all your friends and millions of TVs, seeing what’s on and hanging out.

Others may see it differently, but i imagine that a lot of time spent watching streaming movies is fairly idle for the viewers in the same way TV also became a popular way to pass the time (as well as to entertain and inform). So i don’t think the ability for others to join your viewing experience would normally be considered an intrusion – particularly if you can have the usual social-networking availability statuses.

Most of us when sat in a work/laptop group will happily “chat” and surf without needing to look at each other. Sure eye-contact and gestures can add to more fluid group communication but the widespread use of “chat” services have proved that it is effective. This new service advances that communication into actual chat and what we call “chat” will become “type”.

Chats would work (for example) through open, closed or private groups on participating video/media sites. As I’m most often open to chat when I first go online to check links, Facebook, email etc etc, I would likely go online with an open(minded) status. Others could then see the media content of my application/web-browser. I could then join others with an open status who are watching something interesting or who i would like to talk to and i could be joined by others who have seen me come online and/or like what I’m watching or just want to talk. As long as my status is open i can be joined by any number of people.

We could talk about whichever media that we are watching or we could discuss whether the cheese on the moon really is Wensleydale. The media sharing acts as a conversation starter – proven effective with friends and strangers alike – or we could say nothing and just watch, or having watched a bit and not wanting to interrupt i could leave and go watch it from the beginning (providing i have access to the source) or i could just leave. In fact I could do whatever i wanted to; same as most social networking sites.

However, if i end up in conversation with someone or a group and want to have a word just between ourselves or set up a group which is invitation only. I set my status to closed by linking solely to another person. I can be seen to be online but cannot be contacted without a request alert which requires positive acceptance first. Accepting new invitations links the individual to the private group but all other members can mute and un-mute on demand from a list of chat participants.

Specifically, the list would initially only show the contact who brought you into the group, your friends in the group, those who have unmuted you and those who joined after you. Those who were already in the group cannot be seen without permission allowing a hierarchical structure based on degrees of separation from the group’s originators.

There’s no need to do more than mute/un-mute as we’d all be watching the same thing anyway. And for the extrovert in each of us there’s an automatic un-mute toggle switch.

Should i choose not to go online with an open status, I could go with a closed status and just track down someone who i want to talk to. Friends of mine would still see i was online and request to contact me - but only friends.

Finally, I could use the private status setting. This would hide me from other users unless i reach out and contact another. Only they could see me and if they accept my status and participation would not be discoverable unless mentioned in conversation with someone else – but you can’t fault the system if that happens to you.

Naturally the service would be free, and considering you may need the capabilities and capacity to run Skype and YouTube simultaneously (you may end up needing to buy both) the funding has to come from somewhere.

So you could take a commission of the online advertising viewed through it – 0.1% even but if you had it running as an always on you portal you could get a slice of a lot of advertising online – Google, Yahoo, the works. That should be a fair amount of money. A non-affiliated-ad blocker could be built in to encourage ad-vendors to sign-up to the commission plan. If the ad is blocked the spaces will read “Keep open(mind) free! Click here to show that you support advertising on free services.” These clicks could be tracked and used to provide evidence of positive consumer attention to prospective affiliates.

In return, affiliated sites could require free account creation/linking to Facebook etc for you to view their media. This gives them more channels to communicate and sell their advertising.

Slim pickings for femAle drinkers

Encouraging women drinkers to think differently about ordering ale

According to recent media reports from CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) and others, women real ale drinkers represent a growing but still woefully under-developed portion of the ale drinking market. While some women say they don’t like the taste of real ales, this does not entirely explain the deficit – particularly as there has been a significant increase in ales whose brands and tastes have been targeted more at women (Waggle Dance honey ale and Outstanding Blonde to name two).

A key issue CAMRA has identified is that many women perceive drinking ales from pint glasses as un-feminine. Large glasses can be ungainly for more petite women to hold, ordering a pint is seen to be behaving in a blokey manner or as one of the lads and many women consider a full pint of beer to have too many calories as well as too much alcohol per drink for their tastes.

While a number of breweries and pubs have been experimenting with different glass designs to overcome this cultural aversion to an unfeminine product, I think there is a subtle change that could be made to the way ales could be ordered that would make it more psychologically acceptable for women to drink beer. My proposal is to introduce the concept of a “slim pint”.

A slim pint glass would be - as you’d expect from the name – a full height but narrower glass incorporating a more curved profile or other design styles for greater aesthetic appeal. Alongside new designs, introducing the word “slim” gives breweries the hook to reinforce messages about beers served in small volumes having less and alcohol units per round, being easier to hold and looking more elegant etc without actually changing the product itself. I hate to draw this particular analogy but it’s a bit like using the word “diet” without the misleading promise that it will help you lose weight.

The use of the term “slim pint” should fit easily into use when being served (“three pints, two slim-pints and a two halves of your finest please”) and, being not a very masculine term, it shouldn’t cannibalise the sales of full pints to an excessive degree. Niche targeting by using image conscious terms and language should broadly restrict its adoption to women, metro-men and venues that wish to avoid an overtly macho-orientated image.

The design of a slim pint glass should be stackable and fit standard glass-washers in order to make adoption by pubs as easy as possible and keep production costs to the same level as most existing glass ranges. Another advantage for the pubs would be the slightly increase in profitability that could be applied as they currently do with half-pint measures.

References: http://bit.ly/ctMdk0; http://bit.ly/biX5bT

List item #1: make a list

Add things to your on-line shopping as they crop up

On-line grocery shopping is a fantastic service but we still create mental lists of the things we need as they occur to us while we go about our business. These items need to be recalled when we're ready to sit down and create an order  - even those who create written lists still need to transcribe them. Those of you who log-on repeatedly to add items a few at a time need not worry (but who has the time or inclination for that?).

So for those of us who only remember that we were meant to have bought something when we are faced with a bare spot in the pantry, a simple shopping list app for smartphones could save time and frustration.

You could configure the app to integrate with your online grocer(s) of choice by providing log-in details for you accounts once you've installed the app. You could then whip out your phone and identify anything you'd like added to your next order at any time and a message identifying the item and the required quantity would be sent with your account details to the grocer's site. The next time you log-on to place an order, hey presto the ad hoc items you've added are already waiting for you - of course you can still cancel or amend as usual.

Identifying items should be fairly simple by using fairly common methods. Firstly, manual entry on the key-pad/touchscreen, with a history for recalling previous and common items; this could be linked to the grocer via data services for an exact match (if not available, a matching facility for submitted items could be made available on the grocer's site). Secondly, barcode scanning using standard APIs; again this would give an exact match to the grocer's stock.

Thirdly, and perhaps the technology isn't quite perfect yet, voice recognition - you say what you want and it goes and looks for a match for you to confirm. Finally, and also a technology that's not quite ready yet, camera based recognition (as used by Google shopper) - this would use the camera to recognise brands, packaging or common food types (eggs, tomatoes etc).

I think with a combination of these technologies this app is perfectly feasible and could add another time saving multi-tasking tool for life in real-time. The app could also be used collaboratively, every member of a family would be able to add to the household shopping list or members of staff in an office could add requests to a periodic stationery order.

Standing back to get a closer look

Choose your own context for search results

What about a browser plug in that gave you more control over search results? I've often scanned results looking for a result from a domain I recognise or looking for a term that shows me it has the right context. Let's be fair, the only reason I ever make it past the first page is because I'm fairly sure what I'm looking for is out there somewhere but it hasn't been kindly positioned under my nose by Google (or anyone else).

And when I do get relevant options at the top of the list, I often consider no more than five options before I make a choice. There must be a wealth of information out there just waiting to enlighten me but if the first options seem at least adequate then having to go beyond the first  results page seems like too much effort.

So my idea is a simple results analyser and filtering tools. Business is demonstrating the value of informatics and I reckon consumer informatics tools must be on the way to help us process the seemingly limitless information available online.

My idea is to gather and index a pre-set number of the cached results returned for any search (maybe 100 by default) and, as a starting point for the plug-in, do two things with it:

• Create a word cloud. An absolutely standard word cloud where the word appears larger based on the number of times it is used and omitting the basic words we use to string concepts together (unless they form part of the search term). You'd expect to see the search term quite large at the centre and get an insight into a much bigger picture. Clicking on a word in the cloud will bring those specific results (already returned) which also include that word to the top. Double-clicking would add the word to the search term and get new results.

• Prioritise results by a simple brand and domain favourites system. During normal surfing, any trusted/preferred domain can be added in the same way as a bookmark (and organised into groups etc). When adding a domain, the user will be prompted to confirm the domain's brand (e.g. www.diy.com = B&Q). Following a search, the user will be notified how many of the results come from  preferred domains and how many of the results contain preferred brands. By selecting a domain, brand or group or either the plug-in will automatically bring those sites to the top. Again, double-clicking will add the brand or domain to the search terms and re-submit.

Hopefully this could give surfers broader views and more insight into what opportunities and information lie hidden beyond the next results.

Music in the key of £

The unsigned band merchandise site

Here's an idea that's just crying out to be done - a branded merchandise store for unsigned bands. There must be hundreds of thousands of new/unsigned/garage bands out there at the moment, with no shortage of supply to replace those who don't make it. And what self-respecting band's vision of success doesn't have the band and/or their adoring fans decked out in t-shirts, caps and badges emblazoned with the band's name?

So there's a market out there. Each band might in its entire lifetime only order five pieces of apparel, but, with the sheer number of potential customers (including families and friends) and the high churn rate, the markets total volume should be high enough to make a nice earner for someone even at low margins.

The technology and services needed to set this up are easily available and require very little cost and effort to set up. I've set up a sample site at www.filthycool.com using an online apparel customising and ordering service called spreadshirt.net. All the example site would need now is an appropriately themed CSS template creating and it's ready for business. The pricing I've used in the sample would return a £1 profit per item.

With the site complete, a marketing and advertising campaign would be needed to establish the brand name and acquire users (both bands and shoppers). I think it would be ideal for someone who would be happy working the unsigned band gig circuit to get bands on board and advertising in publications like NME as well as online.

In terms of maintaining the site, the only involvement would be in ensuring the logos to be used are suitable and uploaded. The spreadshirt.net service even allows purchasers to use the logos as they wish on any of the items stocked (including buttons, caps, coasters etc).

Most bands would buy very few items but now and then a band might over time generate substantial sales. Probably a bit of a lifestyle business, but I think the potential is there for the taking.

There is no "i" in drunk

The let me know you get home safe app

This one came to me last night after seeing my friend off at London Bridge. As he shuffled off into the darkness (distance to home 400 yards), i thought i should tell him to text me once he gets home. However, not everyone has either the mental capacity or the physical capacity once they navigate their threshold to do anything more than collapse in a heap.

So here's a simple app idea for the sobriety-challenged. The app would allow messages to be automatically sent to any concerned party once the phones location is identified to be in the vicinity of there lodgings (or any destination). Or to let them no that they didn't make it.

Setting up the app for a user would be a piece of cake. Users can set destinations by using either Google Maps or allowing the phone to determine its current location - by network or GPS - for repeatedly visited destinations. Links to the phone's contacts, GPS and network location services can be managed.

On starting the app for use, the user would be prompted to: first, select or set a destination; second, select which contacts or phone numbers to notify; and lastly, to set the estimated time for the journey (hours and minutes).

The app then keeps a tab on the phone's location and, in an ideal scenario, once the phone enters the vicinity of the destination within the estimated time it sends a confirmation message by text to each of the chosen contacts.

Should the estimated time elapse before the phone arrives at its destination, an app will record the current location and trigger a phone alert asking the user to select one of the following options: "Still on the way" (defers the initial alert for an hour); "I'm home safe & sound" (triggers confirmation messages); and "I think i need help" (triggers alarm messages). In the event that no option is selected, the app will then wait for anther 50% of the set estimated time to pass before re-triggering the alert every minute for five minutes and recording the current location.

Should the user not respond at all, alarm messages will be sent by text to all the selected contacts providing them with notification that the user has not reached their destination and is not responding to the alerts - as well as providing the times and locations recorded by the alert system.

This idea could also we used for all sorts of purposes (like making sure that regular truants actually turn-up at school or that husbands/wives/whatever don't spend too long at the pub - does this make me a gender traitor?).

So that's it in a nutshell really. It only occurred to me later that i was so busy working out the details of my idea, i'd completely left my friend to his fate.

ps. Yes, he lived.