Apple Should Sell A Viewclix Killer

Viewclix is a popular photo-frame device whose canonical use case is to allow family members to share photos with an older relative who is not up on technology. It also has secondary uses of push teleconferencing (you can initiate the teleconference remotely, without a tech-challenged elder having to do anything), and posting reminders to your loved one ("remember, we will pick you up today at 11:00 for lunch"). 

It does work okay, but the usability, for photos in particular, is very clunky. So clunky I found myself putting off updating the photo rotation, which was the main reason for getting the device. I have since confirmed a much better solution for updating the photo frame functionality: simply deploy a spare TV or monitor, equipped with Chromecast, as a remote Google photos sharing device. Just a few, simple steps:

1. Set up a shared album(s).
2. Invite other family members to be contributors or administrators (depending if you want to let other delete, as well as add, photos) to the shared album.
3. Set Ambient Mode on the Chromecast to show the shared album(s).

Voila!

In addition to the >> UX, you also get a WAY bigger, TV-size screen. However, the roll-your-own with Chromecast does not address the other use cases. Which is why I think this is a great product opportunity for Apple (or Google, or Microsoft, but especially for Apple).

This is probably not an Airpods or Watch-sized market, but it is surely in the millions, in the US alone. Plus it would have strategic value, in strengthening the overall Apple ecosystem value proposition.

Business idea: Customized service to notify a fan it is worth watching the game

Recording sports and watching them on my own time & terms is transformational. I think I would watch 90% less sports if I had to suffer through them in real-time.

I am also very much in the anti-spoilers camp. I know not everybody has the same viewpoint, but I am hardcore about it. The downside, though, is you lose the flexibility of entirely skipping a worthless game.

I can imagine a service that uses a combination of machine-learning and user-configuration parameters to notify a user if a given game is worth watching on the DVR. The user could set various parameters such as:

• My team wins (I personally don't include this one, but some people do).
• The score is close at the end.
• The score is close most of the game.
• The game involves a reasonable amount of scoring.
• The scoring is not all on penalty kicks (I'm looking at you, futbol) or home runs (baseball).

Also, the result wouldn't be a pure yes-no, although that would be an option. There would be an overall rating underneath the yes-no. So if you are me, a spoiler hater, you might want just the yes-no, because the score could give something away. But if you are on the fence or particularly busy, maybe you want an indication if it is a really good game, not just good enough to be a generally enjoyable watch.

Then there are all kinds of ways you could incorporate statistical and machine-learning elements, to adjust the rating. Just scratching the surface:

• Higher rating if many other people with profiles similar to yours rated the game highly.
• Lower the rating if you identify that you accidentally found out the result (lower still if you know the score).
• Use ML to adjust the rating based on your own ratings of past games.

Then also enhanced features such as telling you how far to skip ahead, or to skip to the last few minutes.

Uber for Parking Spots

I believe there are a lot of private parking spots in cities that are grossly under-utilized. Offices and stores that are closed evenings, when big events are happening. Churches that don't have much going on weekdays. General excess capacity. Seems like it crying out for an Uber of Parking Spaces.

An obvious challenge would be policing usage. How can the private version of a "meter maid" quickly visually ascertain that a given car has paid for their spot? I think the key is for all spaces to be numbered. So the enforcement game shifts from checking the car, to checking the space.

I did a quick search to see if there are startups exploring this space. I found a couple of hits on "Uber for Parking", but nothing that matched my idea. One was on-demand valet parking. Pretty much DOA, due both to its labor intensitivity, and the fact that it does not leverage "sharing economy" principles. It mostly just offered valets to park your car in the same commercial spaces already available to the general public--it did not lead to greater efficiency by utilizing wasted, empty spaces.

This effort, on the other hand, is too old-economy contractual. It seems to want you to sign over your empty space for a month at a time, as opposed to using excess capacity day-by-day.

So my working conclusion is that this could be both a significant business opportunity, and perhaps an overall social gain--less total space in the city required for parking spaces, due to more intensive utilization.

(That is the static analysis, anyway, Perhaps more available, cheaper parking would lead to more driving, which is definitely not a social gain, in my book!)

Mobile Trashcan Washing and Tire Air Pressure

This mobile trash bin washing service s a business idea I had a while ago--a purpose-designed truck to come around and clean gross trash bins. Price is just a bit too high for my tastes, but hopefully either they will gain economies of scale, and/or attract competition. I think I would be happy to pay $15 for a one-time cleaning, or maybe $30 for 2x annual subscription. Their one-time price of $44 is way too much, and their minimum is $60 for quarterly--twice my threshold.

A bonus idea I have is to combine this with other household chores that are pretty easy for a professional, but tedious for the homeowner. The best example that comes to mind is tire air pressure. The challenge there is that it would require the car to be available in the driveway on the trash day--doesn't work for most people.

Highlighting and Annotating on the Web: Business Opportunity for Medium

I read a lot, and I am a big fan of highlighting. For years I have thought good highlighting/annotating of web docs needs to be much easier. I have dabbled with various extensions. They are okay, but still kind of high friction, especially when it comes to sharing--my primary reason for highlighting. At work, I often resort to pasting into a Word doc and using Track Changes.

I would really like this to be a W3C standard and built into browsers (no I don't have all the technical details). But in the absence of that, it seems like a decent incremental opportunity for Medium. (I'm not a big fan of unnecessarily centralized blogging, but just saying...)

Nonprofit or Government-Sponsored Social Graph?

Social networks are likely central to many forms of future business innovation. Innovations such as experimenting with business models other than advertising and marketing. The problem: it is now all-but-impossible to get a critical mass of people to sign up for yet another network. This creates a huge barrier to entry, entrenching the established networks (Facebook foremost among them). App.net is one relatively well-known example of how even a high-profile, technically outstanding entrant, with something truly innovative to offer, quickly fails.

Is it possible to create a durable, viable, public social graph as a service? I am thinking of something either sponsored by a quasi-governmental entity (like Fannie Mae, or ICANN), or funded as a stand-alone organization (like Mozilla).

In particular, with the looming expectation that Facebook and the rest are going to be subject to coming government regulation, could the requirement to allow users to export their social network be part of such regulation?

Simplified Idea for Oak Flavoring in Bourbon and Wine

NPR had this story about how charred oak barrels are in high demand for aging craft bourbon. Producing them requires good wood, of course, but also skilled coopers. That takes time and money.

I have a different idea...why does the oak flavoring have to come from the container itself? Couldn't they use stainless steel containers, and obtain the oak flavoring by inserting some charred oak staves? Advantages: 1) Get both sides of a given stave (plank) to contribute to the flavoring, so roughly half the board-feet to obtain the same amount of flavoring; 2) Much less skill/time/labor required--no Coopering, just charring; 3) Lower shipping costs.

UPDATE: As my friend Bill Heymann pointed out, NPR had a story a year ago about a company implementing this kind of thinking, except far more aggressively.

Unforgiveable Sins, Part I: Corporate Transgressions

Any corporation will make mistakes, some big, bad or especially galling ones. When they do, they deserve to suffer, in proportion to their offense, both through immediate financial impact, and reputation. This is important for society, because corporations are basically amoral. Within the very wide latitude of what is permitted by law, the Pavlovian reward-punishment of the marketplace is the only reliable check on corporate behavior. This is not a bad thing, it just is the nature of a for-profit corporation (and applies much of the time to not-for-profits as well--more on that in Part II).

Yes, corporations may claim to have fixed ethics and ideals, but over the long-term, those are quite changeable. They are a blend of how the corporation has traditionally acted, what the individuals who make up the organization believe, and what the corporate can get away with. The latter being the biggest factor, especially in the long-term. So the only real constraint on non-illegal corporate behavior is the opinion of the marketplace.

By the same token, just as all humans are flawed and will transgress, the same goes for organizations. It is unrealistic to think any organization can ever be without sin--especially when definition of "sin" will vary from consumer to consumer.

So while it is good and righteous when consumers and public opinion punish an organization that has done immoral/bad/harmful/unethical things, most of the time, punishment should be tempered by realism. Forgiveness can be extended based on a direct redress of the offense, of course (backtracking and refunding customers who purchased a lousy product, for example). It can also be extended based on the passage of time. Just like a prisoner is released from prison after they have "paid their debt" to society, so it may be that after buying a lousy product, and avoiding a corporation for half a decade, it is time for the consumer to give them another chance.

However, some organizational sins are so severe they can't be forgiven for a generation. Not until (and unless) the corporation has had a complete turnover in its "DNA".

I used to be a "fan" of Micro$osft (I didn't spell it with the $ back then). The company has done many, many things to lose my good favor. But two standout out as unforgivable. Both are sins of omission.

First is neglect and stagnation of the browser, once they achieved monopoly position. As much as we hate IE today, at least it has plenty of credible competition, to spur it on. Think how bad IE was when it had a near-absolute monopoly in the market.

Second is neglect of security. Even though they were the de facto platform vendor of effectively all consumer computing, M$ simply did not give a s*** about security. Didn't fit their strategic plan, didn't help their bottom line, traditionally an area filled by niche vendors, so they couldn't be bothered. And millions of consumers--consumers who were Micro$osft's customers--suffered substantially for it.

For these reasons, it is difficult for me to think well of any product Microsoft offers. Even ones that get very good press in the marketplace. I simply can't trust them.

(Ditching the bombastic, sales-myopic Steve Ballmer may prove, 20 years from now, to have been Microsoft's first step toward corporate redemption.)

Kickstarter Idea: Wireless Charging Shelf

Background: We have 6 Qi devices in the family (all our phones plus my Nexus 7 tablet). Thus it is very convenient to keep a Qi wireless charging pad front-and-center on the kitchen counter.

Problem: this is messy, and uses valuable counter space.

Solution: I want a wall-mounted Qi shelf. One idea I have is for a custom socket wall plate, which includes mounting hardware for the shelf. That would probably be the ultimate, deluxe solution. But more costly, both for parts, and effort to install. And not portable. So it is one idea, but maybe not first choice.

A variant that might address these problems would be to have the charger-shelf plug in to the outlet.

The challenge here would be combat flimsiness and instability. I think it could be done. Combine a very rigid plug with a little raised "fence" around the perimeter of the charger-shelf.

If someone creates a Kickstarter for this, I'll fund it for $75.
_________

For bonus points, create some kind of adjustment mechanism, to help position the device. I am thinking of some kind of slider, like on a printer, for different paper sizes.

(I'm pretty sure this thing will not be practical for even a 7" tablet. Win some, lose some.)

Domestication of Monkeys

I was really intrigued by the National Geographic article on domesticated foxes. It suggests a business opportunity. Monkeys seem like they would be a great pet, but apparently they are hell-raisers. But why couldn't the same approach be taken to domesticating them?

Gamification Skepticism

I want to go on record as being a skeptic of gamification for consumer products companies. 

UPDATES

I find this NYT article pretty accurately leaning skeptical. Just to be clear, I'm not saying gamification never works, I just think that the cases where it works will more likely be the exceptions that the promoters wish would be the rule, but aren't. Here's a choice quote:

"It's a concept being invented and mastered by speakers, conference organizers and business consultants in order to provide them with a short-lived burst of success," said Dr. Bogost, who last year wrote an essay that, in its off-color title, bluntly dismissed gamification. 

One mild example of gamification that I have been offered, and have no interest in, is riding against a virtual competitor when doing the exercise bike. It's artificial and dull, and I don't see other people doing it, either.

NYT: Secret E-Scores Chart Consumers' Buying Power

These digital scores, known broadly as consumer valuation or buying-power scores, measure our potential value as customers. What's your e-score? You'll probably never know. That's because they are largely invisible to the public. But they are highly valuable to companies that want - or in some cases, don't want - to have you as their customer.

Very interesting stuff. I have long been intrigued by the thought that companies should be better at knowing who the profitable customers are, and aren't. Banks in particular I think have been going in this direction for over a decade.

Lately, Tires Plus has quit trying to upsell me on unnecessary maintenance...I wonder if their system has figured out is a waste of time?

Likewise, the last time I bought a cheap laptop at Best Buy, they didn't try to upsell me on anything--no extended warranty, no performance optimiazation, nothing.

Idea to Lower Cost of Electronics in Appliances

Electronic controls for even very simple home appliances have become the norm. As noted, I am not a fan of this development, because they have several drawbacks, including adding completely unnecessary complexity, and actually reducing useability (hard to beat a big, fat, nicely-weighted dial for setting volume on a stereo; or temperature in an oven). But the biggie is that they are more failure-prone and when they fail, WAY more expensive to repair. Often, an electronics failure effectively "totals" the appliance.

It almost feels like this is a new version of the dreaded, semi-mythical concept of planned obsolescence. If that is truly the case, my idea will never work. But I'm going to assume that is it not the case. So here is my idea.

Commodity electronics and computing power are SO cheap now. It seems like there should be some reasonable way to standardize the electronics to use modular layouts and modular processing capability, so that repairs involve a relatively small number, of relatively inexpensive,  DIY-serviceable standard components.

I guess my rough analogy would be to take the realm of electronic-control design out of the hands of manufacturers, the way Android has taken mobile OS design out of the hands of handset makers. Let the manufacturers focus on the hardware, and most of all, on reliability!

Jet Blue Fly As Much As You Want for $599

Doesn't work for my situation, but good to see an airline experimenting radically with pricing.

App Store vs Web Apps

This article seems to be saying that, in the downloadable apps vs web apps battle, the marketing support provided by the App Store is indispensable, and inherently favors downloadable apps. I get the marketing support part, but can't you promote web apps through the app store, too? You could purchase and acquire your user id through the app store, but access the application via a web interface.

Actually, now that I think about it--I wonder if an "app store" might not be the solution to getting users to pay for ordinary web sites.

Donate To This Political Ad

Dave Winer with yet another creative idea:

...put a Donate button on the ad. If I give you $100 you commit to using that money to run this ad.

eBay Doldrums

Slate has a good article on eBay's doldrums.

I have never been a big fan of eBay, or online auctions in general. I have found that it is waaayy too inconvenient for the buyer. Too much time and energy invested in figuring out what to buy and then waiting to see if your bid wins, which it often doesn't.

Part of the problem is that eBay's auctions do not closely enough mirror bricks and mortar auctions, where both the buyer and seller are under time pressure. In eBay's case, time works against the buyer. If you are trying to buy some item, like a $40 used MP3 player, and you lose a couple of auctions, you have now spent a week (elapsed time) trying to buy an item. It's just not worth it. There is the "Buy It Now" option, but in my experience, the prices people set for those are ridiculous--you could buy the item new, at a store, for the Buy It Now price.

I have an idea for solving this problem, by blending aspects of Buy It Now into the auction process, in order to make the element of time work more like a real auction. The seller would set a "win it now" price, but that price would be hidden from bidders (but once set, not changeable by the seller). The way it would work is that the highest bid exceeding your hidden "win it now" price would be accepted, after one hour of no subsequent bids, as the winning bid.

Differentiation Opportunity: Photos on HDTV

Growing up, my father was a big fan of slides. He took a lot of pretty-good photos, using an 35mm SLR camera, and had them all converted to slides. Once a month or so, we would have family slde night and look at the pictures on the big screen. It was a great way to look at them, and to collectively re-live family memories. MUCH more participative than leafing through a photo album.

I see the big, brilliant HDTVs that have been populating America's living rooms in the last few years as the obvious, and much more accessible, succesor to the home slide show. RSS inventor and inveterate software tinkerer Dave Winer is pushing this concept with FlickrFan (Mac-only, unfortunately). It is just such a great way to see your pictures--think of your HDTV as a really big monitor, and your rolling slideshow of pictures as the photo-screensaver, that plays whenever you aren't using your TV for something else.

I have been doing this, sporadically, with our HDTV. Unfortunately, our HDTV does not have an SD slot, so my easiest means of getting photos to TV is using the SD slot in my son's Wii. That works pretty well, but the built-in slide show functionality on the Wii is pretty limited.

So given the very fevered competition in the HDTV world, I think the top-tier manufacturers (e.g., Sony) could create some differentiation and value-add if they worked really hard at positioning and marketing their displays as platforms for displaying digital photos.

I think key ingredients would be:

1. Ease of use.
2. SD slot built in (more slots would be better, but SD at a minimum).
3. USB port (so you can hook up a card reader, or a USB drive, of a laptop).
4. Good built-in slideshow software.
5. Screensaver mode option--show photos automagically, when the TV is not being used.
   
6. Ease of use.
   

Other more advanced offerings might include;

1. Internet connectivity and downloding from Flickr, etc (basically what Dave Winer is doing.
2. Pre-integrated bundling with a streaming media device. Have to be careful, because without exquisite execution, this could trash ease of use. This is where Apple will probably make inroads.

Some form of crampons for vulnerable people on ice

You know those wheelie sneakers that elementary-age kids have? I would like to invent the crampons version of that. We all know how dangerous snow and ice can be for the elderly. If they (or anyone else, for that matter) had shoes with little studs, it would vastly increase traction. The ideal would be if the studs could be somehow retractable, so they didn't damage floors.

I don't actually have any reasonable ideas for implementing retractable shoe studs, mind you, I am just thinking how useful they could be.

We Need Better Teleconferencing Software!

Introduction

I work for a very large, very distributed company. For the first time in my career, I find that most of my meeting time is spent in teleconferences, rather than in-person meetings. Although I miss the face-to-face contact, I do think it is clear that teleconferencing will only become more prevalent, driven by various developments: distributed workforces, off-shoring and out-sourcing, and telecommuting.

Considering how critical teleconferencing is to getting work done for the contemporary knowledge-worker, I am rather shocked by the deep mediocrity of the technology. My employer uses AT&T Teleconference Services, which I have used for years at other companies, and it really hasn't improved AT ALL over time. Same old problems: everybody has to introduce themselves, and then hear a repetition of all the other people on the call; if someone puts you on hold, the rest of the conference gets serenaded with their PBX's muzak (I know there is an advanced feature that prevents this--nobody ever uses it); security problems if you have back-to-back calls on the same number, when the early joiners for the next meeting unintentionally "barge" into the meeting that hasn't yet ended. The fact that these old, well-known problems continue to be tolerated--never mind the failure to introduce cool new features--shows me a product category ripe for innovation.

What is needed--beyond a teleconferencing provider who cares enough about their product to continually improve it--is convergence between teleconferencing and web conferencing. In the admittedly limited sample of big companies I have experience with, web conferencing really has not taken off as one would expect. We probably have 10 teleconferences for every 1 web conference. Granted, there may be some discussions that simply do not benefit from any visuals, but as often than not, I find that there is inevitably a point in the teleconference where it would be very convenient to display something.(Maybe I shouldn't complain though--I have a long commute, and when possible, try to combine it with conference calls) In fact, we frequently wind up quickly emailing documents for the participants to review.

There are probably a few reasons for the under-use of web conferencing, but I think one big one is the tedium of scheduling them. I have used both LiveMeeting and Webex, and they both require meetings to be set up in advance, and the meeting URLs have to be distributed to all the participants. Ironically, ease of initiation is the one area where teleconferencing really shines, since there is no setup whatsoever required--just dial in to a well-known, persistent number and access code (unfortunately, there are some security problems associated with that, which we will get to shortly).

If teleconferencing and web conferencing could be tightly integrated, I think all the existing problems of both could be solved, and valuable new features added. An inventory of the improvements I envision is listed below:

Web conferencing is initiated automatically with the teleconference, and vice-versa

Just as employees receive their own, individual access code to the master teleconference number, so would they receive a standing URL for web conferencing.

As a bonus, teleconference/web conference addresses would be discoverable, for authorized individuals (see Security section for more discussion).

See who is currently connected, along with who was invited

Instead of taking an oral roll call, you can see who is connected. I bet introductions and roll-call takes a 5% productivity toll on teleconferencing time. So as mundane as this problem is, solving it would have a big payoff. Bonus feature--you automatically get a log of who was on the call, and even when they were on.

"Ping" invitees who have not signed on (via IM or phone call or email)

Another big time-waster is the need to "ping" the people who were invited but still haven't joined in 5 minutes after the start of call. Integration wouldn't completely make this go away, but it could make it easier--instead of manually adding their names to an IM or email, you could just click-select and invoke the "are you joining us" message. Bonus--an option for pinging could be a phone call with a pre-recorded message.

Display who is currently speaking

This feature would be very nice, though admittedly it would take some real technology, not just more integration. Still, it's value would not be insignificant--it can be very,very challenging in a large conference call to track the identity of the speaker.

Better security

Another thing that surprises me about all the corporations I have been at that use teleconferencing is the obliviousness to the gaping security hole. Since access codes NEVER change, anyone who gets one can join any call at any time. And given the lack of functionality, it can be very difficult to count and track all the beeps (not to mention, with quick-start calls, if the lurker is the first person in, they will be even harder to detect).

I would envision a layered security approach. There would be an option to provide a one-time URL for a given meeting. There would also be integration with network-based identity-management capability.

Bonus feature: for those occasions where the teleconference host won't be able to attend, instead of having to hand out one's standard host access code to a delegate, the ability to generate a one-time access code.

Conference Initiated But On Hold

I have worked in many different companies, and they all suffer, in varying degrees, from the problem of arriving late to meetings. To address this problem, the software needs to allow the conference to be initiatied but placed on hold (this enhances personal productivity, since participants won't feel obliged to engage in small talk while inevitably waiting 5 minutes beyond the appointed meeting time to have a quorum of participants available). The way this differs from current technology is that the leader, and even the participants, will have visibility to who has called in. That way, the leader can determine when a quorum has been reached, and at that point can take everybody off hold and into conference.

As a bonus, participants have the option to "break hold", if they want to talk as a subset. The key point is that everybody knows who is on the call, even if they haven't broken in to introduce themselves, as would be necessary with the current technology.

Auto disconnect web conferencing when done

A security problem I have noticed with web conferencing is that it is easy to forget to disconnect. Integrated software could have pop-up reminders, initiated when the participant terminates the call, if they are still logged in as a presenter on the web conference.

Icing On the Cake

Of course, a modern, integrated conferencing system would not have stupid anti-features, such as:

• Inadvertently and embarassingly subjecting the rest of the teleconference to music when you put them on hold to take another incoming call.
• Hanging up when you mean to take yourself off mute (inadvertent hang-up being an anti-feature of almost all current telephones)

Farther Into the Future

• Development of an applet for mobile phones that provides most or all of the above features.
• The development of full "telepresence".

CONCLUSION

The current state of teleconferencing reminds me of the state of web search or webmail before Google jumped in: minimally adequate, but long neglected, ripe for innovation and integration. In the short-term, it seems like some of the features I envision would require a highly integrated corporate PBX. In the long term, I hope they could be achieved via off-the-shelf handsets, or at a minimum, via standard cell phones.