We have mentioned our latest project a couple of times since February, but I thought it was time for another update on SocialTones (Gravatar for RingTones built for Google’s Android phone platform).  We had an full team meeting on Friday to talk about the development of the application.  We settled a few outstanding issues such as the ‘infinite contact quandary’ and our various ideas for monetization.  Our current goal is to have the application ready for the first Android phone (mfgr’s, contact us if you want to work together).

Over the past three years we have delivered cool and innovative social applications to clients like Lego, FX and TechData.  While our applications were cool and innovative, our business model was stuck in the past, well not anymore!  I am pleased to announce that Big in Japan’s new development model is 100% free.  Got an idea for a cool application for your business?  Simply provide the plans to Big in Japan and we will build it, host it and manage it for free!  What is the catch?  None.  We will do it all for free.  This new pricing plan is effective today, April 1st, 2008.  If you want to learn more, call 214.550.2003 and ask for Alex.  Cheers!

Sixty days ago we began working on the current version of Whitebox™ and we are happy to announce that the majority of the system has been completed. We are currently resolving obvious bugs and should be ready for private beta early next week. What is Whitebox?

WhiteBox provides technology enabled finance and collection products for the automotive industry. Our customized solutions provide warranty providers the ability to offer car dealers products such as new and used warranties, gap protection and after market to consumers who do not qualify for traditional finance products.

Our ACH collection system, married to our state-of-the-art web interface and electronic signature collection technology create a seamless finance solution. Our software engineers work closely with our clients to customize our offerings to meet the specific needs of each product.

By combining our robust banking interface and our hosted web application, car dealers are able to generate significant profits without extensive training and related overhead.

One of our favorite clients, LEGO, keystone toy the ‘Brick’ turns 50 today!  What a legacy.  Two weeks ago several LEGO employees came to Dallas to check on our progress and to give us a sneak peek into LEGO.  Their corporate overview had some fascinating information, including today’s anniversary of the Lego Brick.  Of course, Gizmodo scooped me on this one ~ way to go guys!  Here are some fun facts (via Gizmodo):

LEGO brick curiosities

• There are about 62 LEGO bricks for every one of the world’s 6 billion inhabitants
• Children around the world spend 5 billion hours a year playing with LEGO bricks.
• More than 400 million people around the world have played with LEGO bricks.
• LEGO bricks are available in 53 different colors.
• 19 billion LEGO elements are produced every year.
• 2.16 million LEGO elements are molded every hour, or 36,000 per minute.
• More than 400 billion LEGO bricks have been produced since 1949.
• Two eight-stud LEGO bricks of the same color can be combined in 24 different ways
• Three eight-stud bricks can be combined in 1,060 ways.
• There are more than 915 million combinations possible for six 2 x 4 LEGO bricks of the same color
• 7 LEGO sets are sold by retailers every second around the world.
• The LEGO bricks sold in one year would circle the world 5 times.
• 40 billion LEGO bricks stacked on top of one another would connect the earth with the moon.
• LEGO bricks are so much more than just toys. They are used in classrooms from preschool to university level to teach everything from math, language skills and science to engineering and technology principles.
• The LEGO brick has inspired generations of innovators, like Jonathan Gay, inventor of Flash.
• World-renowned author Douglas Coupland believes the LEGO brick represents a “language in itself.”
• A January 2008 Google search produces 57.6 million references to LEGO bricks.
• There are 55,600 LEGO videos on YouTube.
• Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, used LEGO bricks to build the external low-cost and expandable casing for ten 4GB hard disks when they were busy developing the Google search engine (today, they have reportedly been used in Google’s college graduate recruiting exercises to test potential candidate’s creative horsepower.)

Thanks LEGO!!!

We get asked all of the time, “who should I call to raise money for my latest idea?”  We usually point them to the Texas Startup Blog’s Venture Capital Directory, but more recently we have been excited about the work Jeff Williams of Hunt Ventures has been doing.  Read more about, ‘Jeff Williams, hottest VC in Dallas!‘.

I began the Texas Startup Blog back in June of 2005 writing more than 1,500 articles about entrepreneurship, startups and venture capital.  Ironically, almost half of my ‘potential’ readers would visit once and notice that I was writing about politics or my personal life and click away.  They had no idea what the site was about.

Late last year I decided to ‘merchandise’ the value of the site by creating a homepage that was organized based on subject matter topical to entrepreneurs.  I would keep blogging as usual, but first time visitors would see a broad set of material relevant to them.  My old readers could still see my chronological blog.

This weekend the experiment began as I launched the ‘beta’ version of the site.  We are still working out the kinks, but it is pretty close to being finished.  Let me know what you think.  The site is based on WordPress and uses categories to organize the display of posts.

Technorati Profile

Actually Rails 2.0.1 was released. Just a sidenote to David and his team. Our company wouldn’t exist if it were not for his efforts –> Thanks David…

Over the last four months ServiceGuy went from and simple idea to a nationwide service with more than 1000 contractors in ten cities. The 1,000th contractor to sign up for the ServiceGuy referral system was Mike Fox from Norristown, PA who offers landscaping services.I arbitrarily set our Phase One goal at 1,000 ServiceGuys. Now that we have met our Phase One goals we are ready for Phase Two. Phase Two is where we start getting business for our ServcieGuys. Imaginuity is developing interactive advertising for placement on Comcast’s ad network that is slated to start just before Christmas. We are also testing physical placement of ‘tear sheets‘ in grocery stores (400 stores per market) delivered on a weekly basis. Finally, we are testing Google Adwords in several markets. Our goal for Phase Two is to generate 2 calls per day per call queue.

Since early August Mike has made 27 major upgrades (some might be better termed bug fixes) to the system. The final items include some goofy things like allowing users to reset/retrieve their password, providing a method for news/announcements to users and finally an upgrade to the user profile pages. Once these last seven to-dos are finished Mike will be turning over day-to-day management/tweaking to Francis. Mike will be starting another pretty cool project that involves ACH, USB signature pads and data warehousing.

The FX team called us (Big in Japan) late Friday afternoon with an idea.  Wouldn’t it be cool if we could have a phone at the new McNamara / Troy location in Hollywood?  The Nip/Tuck team is moving to LA this year and to promote the move they created a ’simulated’ office in the Hollywood and Highland outdoor mall.  The office has some very cool holographic videos of the doctors (so you can see them at work) as well as real live models waiting for the doctors.  The only problem?  You can’t get in.

The phone would allow people passing by to interact with the promotion.  When FX told us about the idea I said, “sound great, when do you need it up and running?”  The answer was, “within a week!”  I thought to myseld, “OMG, we will never get it done within a week!”  Of course we agreed to do it.  Within a week we shipped a pre-configured Cisco ATA to the team building the storefront.  We then connected it to our FanPodCast system.  When you pick up the phone it auto-dials our switch in Dallas and you get the ‘doctors’ IVR.  You can leave a message for the doctors if you like: 310.747.3447

If you are in Hollywood, stop by the store and check out those holograms:

Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City or Philadelphia?  ServiceGuy might be just what you need.  (most of these don’t have many providers so if you are not connected to someone try again in a couple of weeks) Give it a try:

• Computer Guy in Atlanta call 404.478.2724
• Computer Guy in Chicago call 773.654.2145
• Computer Guy in Dallas call 214.635.4701
• Computer Guy in Detroit call 313.557.3570
• Computer Guy in Houston 281.657.4522
• Computer Guy in Los Angeles 213.405.5304
• Computer Guy in Philadelphia 267.350.8103

ServiceGuy is a new service the Big in Japan team has been rolling out over the past couple of months.  What is ServiceGuy?  I wrote about it back in May in a post titled, “Quick Project: ServiceGuy Referral Network” when I was having trouble finding a pool guy.  The idea is simple: You need help now.  You don’t want to wait to receive a call back.  You don’t want to wait for an email response.  You don’t want to create an account or provide demographic data.  You want to talk to a service provider in your area right NOW!  Just call the ServiceGuy number for your area and the service you need.  Your call is then connected to a service provider.  No voicemail.  No email.  No accounts.  Just a direct connect to someone who can help you right NOW!

Phase one of our launch is focused on seeding each service with providers.  We need to find a minimum of 25 providers in each category before phase two can begin.  Phase two of our launch is focused on getting consumers to call our providers.

The Big in Japan team develops intellectual property to allow brands to create unique interactions with their customers.  Our clients include FOX Television, LEGO, TechData, The United States Postal Service and The Federal Reserve to name a few.

Our latest development, ServiceGuy, utilizes patent pending technology to allow for ‘live connections’ between homeowners and service providers.  ServiceGuy is a real world example (visit http://serviceguy.org) of the type of interaction that is possible utilizing our technology.  Our team is prepared to implement our technology within your brand’s internet presence, allowing for a private label experience for your customers.

Typical referral systems focus on demographic matching, while ServiceGuy allows for ‘availability matching.’  Combined with your existing referral system (or a new system we implement), the underlying ServiceGuy technology will allow you to provide immediate ‘live connections’ between homeowners (users) and contractors (service providers).  In many cases an immediate connection is more valuable than a perfect connection.  What if you could offer users the ability immediately talk to a service provider 24/7?  The ServiceGuy call engine can call 25-250 service providers at the same time, ensuring at least one provider is available to take the user’s call.  For example:

Each service provider who accepts the call from the ServiceGuy call engine is prompted to press a key to indicate their availability.  The first provider to do so is given answering instructions and is connected to the user.  The call is recorded for the service provider’s records.

The system can call the user at a later date (1 day, 1 week or 1 month) and request feedback about the service provider.  Feedback can then be used to increase or decrease a providers position in the call queue.

For more information please contact:

Alexander Muse
amuse@biggu.com
1+214.558.1079

Last week I wrote a post titled, “Timothy Ferriss: ruining lives four hours at a time” where I was critical of Timothy’s book.  I have never received more legit comments on a single post that I wasn’t willing to moderate.  OMG, evidently there are lots of fans of Timothy’s idea that a four hour work week is a good idea.  They get VERY pissed if you say anything negative about the book, so pissed that they cannot help but use vulgarity to express their views.  My question: Should I redact the vulgarity and post the comments or simply delete them?  I have been deleted them so far, but started to wonder if I was making a mistake.  Thoughts?

The eSport Partners situation is a great case study for any company who is interested in what NOT to do when you find yourself the target of former employees who make random comments on blog posts. Sometimes the best response to negative feedback is no response. Other times it makes sense to respond. Let me know what you think about this situation:

Almost eight months ago we wrote a post titled, “The eSports Partners Comment Debacle.” The post detailed how I had written a short post indicating that eSports had raised money (actually debt). The post was short and positive. Several disgruntled employees (former I assume) commented on the post indicating linking to lawsuits filed by various governmental organizations. According to the suits, the company didn’t seem to treat their workers fairly. Truth be told, the comments seemed a little like sour grapes and I didn’t really give them a second thought.

Almost a year later lawyers from eSports Partners contacted me and demanded that I remove the post and comments as well as provide the identities of the employees who made the comments. After a few conversations I decided to comply with their request and remove the post and comments, but I replaced it with a scanned copy of the demand letter. The lawyers contacted me once again and threatened to sue me if I didn’t remove their letter. I refused.

So what is new? If you Google eSport Partners the third result is my post containing the letter from their lawyers. So what? Almost monthly I get emails from potential employees asking for more information about the company. Here is an example message (some details changed to protect the identity of the person):

> —– Original Message —–
> From: /redacted /
> To: /redacted/
> Sent: August 3, 2007 4:49:44 PM GMT-0600
> Subject: ESports Partners
>
> Hey Alex,
> I saw your retracted post on Esports and I’m going in
> there on Thursday for an interview. Can’t find any
> web history on the posting you had on them and was
> hoping you would fill me in on any information that would
> be helpful to me.
>
> I have a kid and a husband, so I take my career
> considerations seriously. Any way you could fill me
> in on what the context was on the post?
>
> Thanks in advance.
>
> /redacted/

Of course I can’t say much, other than explain the situation because I don’t know much. I do know that the company really mishandled the response. In this case I believe eSports Partners should have left well enough alone and ignored the comments.

I started playing with YouTube back in 2005 and didn’t really get it.  I posted a couple of videos, but I wasn’t a consumer (i.e. I didn’t watch other people’s videos unless someone blogged about one).  Fast forward to this year and add the Apple TV to the mix.  I bought Apple TVs for the office and the house and found myself showing off the Apple TV by playing videos from YouTube.

Soon we started turning on YouTube (via Apple TV) any time we had a few people over.  We would each pick a couple of ‘funny’ videos to play and let the system rip.  It wasn’t like watching traditional TV, something we would never consider doing with guests, instead it was a different experience.  The clips are short.  The content is kitsch. The experience in a word is casual.  It didn’t hamper our conversation, it enriched the content.  YouTube + AppleTV = Great for Small Parties.

Now with my iPhone I find myself doing the same thing.  People want to see how it works and after I show them the visual voice mail I show off YouTube.  People are amazed.  YouTube finally makes sense for me.  Will I watch hours of YouTube?  Never.  Will I watch 2-3 three minute clips per week?  Definitely.

Turns out Google Maps are even better when they include Microformats.  This is great news from Google.  Specifically, they are using the hCard microformat.  Very nice!!!

You can get the benefits of microformats for your own maps applications if you change your HTML to contain the necessary hcard classes. In this simple example, we’ve changed the infowindow to contain an hCard formatted address. The code for that is below: