We had a small party last night and somehow all got around to playing guitar hero and dance dance revolution on our xbox360.  It was a lot of fun and I got to thinking that a great idea for a game would involve both. 

Why not make a game that had the guitar, and dance pad at the same time.  Throw in some karaoke and maybe some of those motion sensitive drum sticks? Make it really fun for a whole group to play at the same time.  All the equipment already exists I believe.  It would add a whole new level to the 'family band' idea.  Note: Dad, if your reading this tell your clients!

Jen has officially joined the Internet generation and started a blog. Her Reality TV Blog is brand spankin new, and probaby doesn't have much for entries until the next few days when new shows air. Everyone stop by and say hi. If you have a suggestion for a show she should write about be sure to leave her a comment.

I entered into the beta test of moola.com last week.  It is an interesting site and concept.  Basically you are in a seriese of games each with a different opponnet.  In each game the two of you play a short graphical game that is part chance part skill.  The winner gets the losers allocated winnings.  So you start with a penny.  If you win, you take their penny and you now have two pennies.  That turns to 4, then 9, then 16, after 17 wins you have $1,310.72.  After 30 wins you have $10,737,418.24.  Yes just over ten million dollars.

You don't actually pay anything.  You get your starting penny by watching a little video ad on their site.  If you lose, you start back at a penny again.  You can cash out at any time.  People have cashed out at $20 and more.

So what is the catch?  It is hard to win consistently.  You have to win a number of times to make it worth cashing out.  Also what are the odds you will find someone at lvl 18 willing to risk just under $3,000?  Once enough people are signed up, I am sure pleanty of people would risk it.  But now probably not as much.

I played the two games they have to offer.  They are short, and somewhat fun.  I thought I figured out the strategy, but for as smart as I think I am, I lose more than win.  I have made it to lvl 6 I think.  No higher.  Essentially your strategy is based in part on your competitors strategy.  And by the time you figure out theirs the game is almost over.  They are simply so short that it is hard to get to know them and their weaknesses.  Is it possible to keep track of them and when you play that same person again react accordingly?  Yes.  But that is a lot of work for a lazy man like me.

So is it worth it?  Will you make bill dollars?  Donno.  It is just as easy as playing solitaire on your computer and killing  a few minutes, and you have that added bonus of possible cash.  But no, odds are you will not be making big dollars.  Its like the lottery.  Fun to think about, but don't start making plans on how to spend all that money just yet.

If you want an invitation to moola, let me know.  I may be able to get you in.  Otherwise fill out the form on their site and they will eventually invite you anyway.

Alexa is opening up its system to allow outside developers to use it in various ways to build new applications, or integrate into existing ones. 

There is a price for this opportunity.  But it is relatively inexpensive.  $1 per cpu hour, $1 / GB storage / Year,  $1 / 50 GB processed, $1 / GB downloaded, or $1 for 4000 user service requests.

The opportunities are really boundless.  Not so much with the tool as it is offered now, but how this changes the relationship between a search engine platform and everyone else.  It will be interesting to see how the other big players respond. 

Future Examples:

What would be fantastic is someone to make a tool for end users to connect to the system.  Those end users could then do something like  "deliver videocast of mpg,mov,etc files relating to [topic] as stream to this device".   So if you were having a party and wanted to play cool music videos in the background on your computer you could run some sort of query and poof, instant streaming videocast.  Just have to get the media owners in on it so they can charge a minor fee for it. 

Download Video Files - (full length) From Alexa Where Series = 'Family Guy' Order By DateCreated.  = stream of family guy tv shows (not trailers or snippets) shown in order.

Download Video Files - (trailer) From Alexa Where Topic = "zombies" and DateCreated > 10/1/2005 = stream of trailers for movies involving zombies made in the past few months.

I created a new site today.  This site is a fun little place for you and a partner to gauge your sexual compatibility.  There are times when bringing up certain sexual topics can be difficult or embarrassing.  This tool lets you do so with your partner without worry.  It isn't a purity test or a sex test, but rather a way for two people to easily determine how sexually compatible they are and more important what areas are they compatible in (so they can action on them).

I am always interested in feedback.  So feel free to comment, make suggestions or report bugs.

This is an enteresting site profiling what the future holds for us over the next few years.  It is a video, shown as though it is 2014 and recounts the history of the internet, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc.  It is very well done and has some interesting thoughts as to the future of the internet, news media, etc. 

I think they could have put a bit more into the tv portion of the grid, but really it gets the point across.

Due to the success of Googles ad system, many are trying to figure out how to replicate it in other mediums or simply improve it.  Other mediums being Print, TV, etc.  One issue that makes it difficult to reproduce is that the pay per click nature of googles adsense program is hard to Carry over into a physical (non online) world.

Some have suggested a Pay Per Call system. 

What I have found after some research though, is that there are a number of these PPC systems for web based advertising.  Click on a link, view the details, and if they call you get charged.  Only get charged for the call, not the click.

Now, the number of players that have jumped into this area is huge.  Not the least including Microsoft (potentially).  Still the issue is that the advertising is only useful if the result you want is a phone call.

So just how useful would it be?  So far, it seems that it could be very useful for some businesses/industries.  But not for the number that the pay per click system is useful for.  Also, Googles reach with adSense is so wide, that it would be hard for any other player to match.  Just not as many eyeballs looking at the ads.

What I would relay be interested in is a Pay Per Action system.  Where I can dictate the action.  For one site or product I may just want a click-through to my site. For another maybe a download of my software.  Maybe a inbound phone call.  Maybe someone to use a coupon (printed on-line) in my retail store.  Perhaps I just want repetition.  I want to target specific types of people, and show the same ad over and over regardless of what they search on or what other sites they go to.  Repetition is the key to branding after all.

 A system that is customizable to that extent and more is what we are waiting for.  One ad system to rule them all.

Over the weekend our brand new boiler for our rebuilt home failed.  The boiler sent a constant stream of water into our basement.  By the time it was found we had a good 5 inches of water.  Power tools, photos, other stuff = very wet.

Naturally sump pumps are a good idea in places that could be flooded.  We have one, a very good one.  Unfortunately it had no power (still doing renovations and very little power in house).

Did you know there are sump pumps that require no electricity?  I don't think they pump very much but it is certainly better than wading through the water later.  Here is some detail on one specific product that looks like it may work well.

Unable to track the originator of this, as I got via email via Dangerous Dan.