Doogle (Google + Digg)

The Internet is an unbelievably powerful tool. Never before in the history of human life has information been so universally accessible. What’s more is that we’ve also figured out ingenious ways in which to categorize and sort this inundation of knowledge. The Internet is probably flooded with millions upon millions of web pages each day. To give a minute idea of how large the Internet is growing, YouTube.com, a social networking site in which videos are uploaded by users, is estimated to have 825,000 videos uploaded daily.

This is just a single site in the huge expanse that is the Internet. Yet, rather than sputtering to a slow, painful death, the Internet collects and organizes this information promptly and logically. The primary method that has been developed in order to deal with categorizing the Internet has been search engines. Search engines have been around for quite a long time after I did some research regarding them.

I found out that one of the first search engines was called, “Archie,” and it was launched in 1990 by a student at McGill University (Source). The way that the search engine worked was by downloading various sites found on public anonymous FTP sites, or simply the Internet circa early 90’s, and indexed them. This created a searchable index of file names; however, it didn’t organize what was in those files. In later years, web search engines like “Aliweb” were developed in which people would upload sites into the database in order to make it searchable for Internet users (in ways, this is similar to Web 2.0 sites like Digg and Reddit, but those sites now have a rating system to eliminate the garbage from your search).

In later years, other search engines were founded that are what some may consider a regular search engine: AltaVista, WebCrawler, AskJeeves, and Excite. These systems worked very well in creating a portal to the hundreds of thousands of websites that you may have been searching for based on the frequency of the keyword that you were searching for. In the early days of Internet search engines, there was a very simple formula in how to catalog results. Search engines would organize web pages based on the frequency of the keyword you were searching for on that page.

Therefore, if you entered the keyword “dog,” the search engine would return results to you so that the page with the highest amount/frequency of the word “dog” on it would show up first, and so on and so on. This worked pretty well at the beginning and was one of the things that Yahoo! did incredibly well. This helped them gain a large share of search market. However, as the Internet steadily grew, people needed to develop better ways to organize their search results so that information could be found quicker, better, and easier. That is when Google developed its unbelievably brilliant, yet simple, formula. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, developed an algorithm known as PageRank, aptly named after Larry Page.

I am going to attempt to explain PageRank as if I were talking to a little child, because there almost isn’t enough Internet to fully comprehend it. Quite simply, it uses the entire Internet to rank the validity of websites while also using the old keyword frequency cataloging technique. Google’s algorithm is essentially grounded on the theory of referencing and it is quite an old concept if you think about it. Google thought that if other websites referenced your own site (through means of a hyperlink), this essentially translates as a way of saying, “this site knows what they are talking about.

I believe in them and you should too.” So, the more websites that reference your website, the more people seem to agree that your information is reliable and warranted, and thus should improve your rating when searched for in a search engine. The reason that this is an old concept is because it is very similar to citations used in books or scholarly documents. If there are a lot of other sources that cite a particular source, it is generally accepted as something that is pertinent to that particular topic.

Think about physics. Tons of studies cite evidence relating to Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, because these guys have discovered information that is at the core of the subject. Google works in a very similar way. It uses the entire Internet to rank it’s catalog of billions of web pages. But just as Google improved upon a system that people thought was perfect enough as it is, I think that there is potential for improvement in the future.

My idea stems off of Google and Digg. Google is a brilliant search engine that works almost flawlessly, and Digg is a fantastic Web 2.0 site that uses the voice of Internet users to promote amazing things and sweep away stupid things. Ultimately, I propose a search engine that uses the algorithm that Google has developed, using a passive system of ranking websites as they do now through hyperlinks/referencing, and incorporating a voting system in which people can vote on how well the website they found when searching actually met their needs. This is a far more active and “Web 2.0” approach. I think that this could be unbelievably effective, because it can move that third option on the page to the top of the page, which ends up saving an enormous amount of time in the long run.

Testing for Realism:

• Is it well accepted by a particular target demographic?

It can be. When I asked Yahoo! Answers what are some of the “barriers to entry when creating your own search engine to compete with Yahoo and Google,” the only response that I was given was, “well…you can’t even enter the market…” I found that quite amusing. It’s true that the search engine market seems quite saturated at the moment, especially when you consider that goliaths like Microsoft can’t even enter into the race between Yahoo! and Google.

However, in the late 1990’s when AOL was running the Internet, people laughed when they thought that in 10 years they would be using something completely different, especially a thing called Google. But the reality is, Google came out with a better product that provided people with what they needed faster. Slowly but surely, people started to sway away from their older technology and jump into something that truly got the job done. I feel this is and can be true with this sort of technology.

It simply makes for a more accurate search engine when you combine the passive and active roles of Internet users. That is one demographic that I can see switching over to this sort of search engine; the masses who want to use something better. That is a tremendous amount of people. Yet, consider further that there are on average 353,987 new Internet users per day. This may include people in developing countries who are using the Internet for the first time, young people who have never used the Internet yet, or older people who haven’t touched the darn thing their whole lives.

These numbers are complimentary of Google Answers (Source). These people, although they probably know about Google and Yahoo! are not entrenched in their Internet habits and if there is a better and more efficient technology, it’s likely that they will opt for it. Slowly, but surely, a superior product will gain market share. I don’t expect this to happen overnight or quickly, but rather over a couple years.

• Does it fill a need?

Like all things on the Internet, it doesn’t really fill a need. The world existed well and just fine prior to the Internet, yet we have come enormously far since we started using it. Therefore, the direct answer to this question is, “no, it does not fill a need,” but the Internet is all about innovation and adaptation.

I would say the Internet is almost the personification of human ingenuity, creativeness, and improvement. Therefore, I feel as though we are doing the Internet and ourselves a disservice if we don’t continue to adapt and expand our possibilities.

We need to remember that we should always be striving to improve, and just because something works well now, doesn’t mean that it is going to work well indefinitely. We should always be conscious of moving forward and trying new things, because who knows what we can learn from it.

• Can it be setup by an individual or at most small group of individuals?

This is absolutely true. It will take a small group of individuals with an unbelievable proficiency in computer science. I have to imagine creating an algorithm that works like that of Google’s to be quite sophisticated in order to create. That is merely a component of this 21^st century search engine. Additionally, whoever designs this super search engine will have to incorporate a voting structure to accommodate people using the site. I envision this in the following way: The product would work something similar to the likes StumbleUpon or any sort of toolbar that you may have installed into your Internet browser.

In order to get active “votes” on websites by users, not only using the passive voting that the computer algorithm achieves, users will have to install some sort of toolbar into their Internet browser (better yet, the search engine could be its own Internet browser). The browser can be set up in a number of different ways. It can have three designs as I see it. The first would be a toggle, in which users can drag how effective the site was in giving them what they needed. They can move the toggle back and forth between 0 and 1000. If you got exactly what you wanted, put 1000, but if you didn’t like the site at all, give it a 0.

These tabulations would then be averaged out and combined with the passive ranking algorithm to give a middle ground of sorts. While it does this, the search engine will also have to remember the keywords that you searched for and make the ranking you gave unique to that keyword or string of keywords. For instance, you may search for “dog” and vote 750 on the first site that comes up. But, if you search for “dog collars” that exact same site might be a 100. The search engine will have to remember the phrase you searched for and connect your respective ranking to it.

The second method that you can use is a simple 1 through 10 scale in which you select a number and submit it in. This doesn’t allow for as much variation, however.
The final method would be to ask the person who was searching, “Did this website find what you were looking for,” and people can reply “Yes or No.” This allows for the least amount of variation, however, it still provides people will the ability to actively vote on how accurate a site meets their needs.

• Can it generate income?

The search engine and Internet industry in general is huge and shows no signs of slowing down in my estimation. The primary stream of revenue that search engines utilize is through advertising, and I believe the advertising industry to be healthy as well as the Internet industry. According to HitWise.com, a company that monitors the usage of websites, they provide a list featuring, “the top 4 leading search engines based on US Internet usage, ranked by volume of searches for the 4 weeks ending March 29, 2008” (Source).

Essentially, these numbers provide a snapshot of the current search engine market share in the United States. According to them, Google maintains 67.25%, Yahoo! 20.29%, MSN/Live Search 4.88%, and finally Ask with 4.09%. This makes up 96.5% of the Internet Search Engine market in the United States, and I assume that the other 3.5% is made up by “bottom dwellers” of the search engine market. If we look at the revenues that these companies produce we see the following:

Google – 16.5 Billion or 245M/1% market share
Yahoo! – 7 Billion or 345M/1% market share
MSN/Live Search – 1.848 Billion or 462M/1% market share
Ask.com – 227 Million or 56M/1% market share

**Click the Image to see it more clearly**
It doesn’t take a statistician or mathematician to see that the numbers here are enormous. There is a great deal of revenue that can be made when entering the search engine industry, especially with such an innovative and fantastic product such as this one. The reason I provide the rate at which these companies produce revenue per 1% in market share is to provide a conservative estimate of potential revenue that can come from entering the search engine market, even in the case that you don’t topple the giants of Yahoo! and Google.

By looking at the top four companies in the Internet search engine industry, there is a mean of 277M for every 1% of market share that they capture. However, I don’t accept this as a conservative enough estimate, due to the fact that as a search engine gains popularity, advertising space begins to become more attractive and thus more expensive. This is well illustrated by the gap between Ask.com and both Yahoo! and Google. It is somewhat contradicted by MSN/Live Search, but I assume that Yahoo! and Google are going through diseconomies of scale (Source) resulting in increased per-unit costs.

After constructing a graph that illustrates the Billions of Dollars of revenue produced by each company measured against the percent of market share that each assumes, a linear trend line can be added. The linear trend line has an intercept of (0,0) because we assume that if you don’t enter the market you don’t make any money, but if you enter the market you will have a linear increase in revenue. The trend line has an equation of y = 0.2536x, which essentially translates as $253 million for every 1% of market share that is assumed. Therefore, I would make a conservative estimate that this search engine, if able to capture 1% of the Internet search engine market share, can produce revenue of $253.6 million per year.

• Is it marketable?

This search engine is most definitely marketable. However, I don’t think that you go about marketing this website in the traditional sense. Sure, websites like GoDaddy.com have had tremendous success based on their racy Superbowl commercials, but I think that it would be a lot more beneficial for this sort of search engine, especially if it is trying to take on mammoths like Yahoo! and Google, to spread virally through word of mouth marketing (WOMM).

This marketing is especially effective, because it is usually friends or close loved one’s who refer you to a specific thing. This is how Google initially got its start and how Web 2.0 websites like Facebook, Digg, and a slew of others got their start as well. This is a very effective way to get users to start using your product and tell others about it. Word of mouth creates a buzz and people typically respond very well to it.

Especially when it comes to a new website, people who are part of that demographic who are currently users of Yahoo! and Google, will only move if they have explicitly been told by someone close to them. As for the new users, they will be inspired by the buzz and follow suit.

If the Internet has taught us anything, it is that the world is a constantly changing place that is continually looking for new ways to perform efficiently and effectively. Surely there are Internet search engine giants now that control over 60% (in some cases) of the market, but if we remember the old English adage, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

No one can really predict what will come of the Internet in the next 5, 10, or 20 years from now, but I guarantee you that if we find a better way to do something, there’s no reason why we would stop ourselves from doing it. I believe Doogle can be the effective conglomeration of passive and active cataloging which will make for the best Internet search experience possible.

MobileAd

Driving is a huge hassle these days. No, I’m not talking about the fact that there's constant traffic or the fact that as more greenhouse gases are released each day into our atmosphere, more pollution fills the air, contaminating our water, food, and lungs. These are not the things I’m talking about when I say driving is a hassle. Rather, what really ticks me off about driving these days is constant drain of dollars and cents that are thrown away at the gas pumps. Gas prices these days are ridiculous. As of April 14, 2008, the average price of gasoline in the United States was $3.38 (Source).

When you consider that a car typically holds around 16 gallons, that’s about $50 every time you go to the pump (Source). With rising inflation and the crashing dollar, you may not think that $50 gets you very far these days, but it can really add up. If the average motorist drives 37 miles per day (Source), and a tank typically holds enough to drive around 300 miles, a tank of gas will last for 8 days. That means that every 8 days you’re going to go back to the pump, pay $50, and just wait another 8 days to repeat the cycle.

Over a year, these numbers equate to $2,280. I don’t know about you, but that’s a huge chunk of change to just be throwing away each year. And, at the current rate, it doesn’t appear that this price is going to get any smaller. Gas prices have and will continue to increase as time goes on. So, there must be some way to combat the oil companies practically picking the pocket of gas consumers. That is where MobileAd comes in.

MobileAd is a pretty simple concept stemming off of the huge revenues produced by the booming advertising industry. Today, when people think about advertising, they might think of Google or Yahoo! which are two of the kings of advertising in the Internet world. Each time you click one of their ads, they make money. You may think that you hardly ever do this (and you probably hardly ever click on an ad), but then again, search engines work under the law of large numbers. Little –by-little it comes in.

However, you may not be thinking about all the other types of advertisements that slap you in the face everyday. Think about billboards, advertisements on the lateral sides of buses, or posters on the inside of public transportation. You may take these for granted, but it costs a pretty penny to be able to advertise to such a large audience.

But people just like you and me go out into the world every day and have the opportunity to interact with hoards of people. If you commute to work, you probably spend the morning hours stuck in traffic alongside hundreds of thousands of people. I would say that having that sort of exposure would really entice a lot of different advertisers.

Then, why not advertise on the side of your own vehicle for money? This service wouldn’t be intended as a way to put food on the table, but rather, a stipend or reduction to one’s gas price. If advertisers are willing to advertise on buses and taxis, why not on ordinary vehicles that travel 37 miles per day on average? There could be stations built into BP’s or Shells in which you can sign up and an advertisement will be placed on your car. There will be various sizes and companies to choose from.

It will have to be put on professionally to ensure that the advertisement doesn’t fall off and to make sure that it actually stays on. Ultimately, if people can save anywhere between $5 to $10 every time they go to the pump, I don’t see why they wouldn’t do this. They can choose the company that they advertise, so it almost says something more about you aside from I drive a BMW or Audi.

Testing for Realism:

• Is it well accepted by a particular target demographic?
  

I think that there is a definitely a specified target demographic of people who would want to use a product like MobileAd. For starters, more generally, people who would like to use this service are those who are concerned with saving money. As the American Dollar continues to dive and gas prices continue to skyrocket ($116/barrel - 4.22.2008 - Projection), saving money when driving one’s vehicle is of premium importance to most consumers. But this isn’t enough for me to make a substantial argument for MobileAd.

Rather, I say consider people who recognize and even glorify advertisements on cars. Who am I talking about? The 75 million people who comprise the growing fan population of NASCAR. Aside from having 17 of the top 20 attended events in the United States, this motorsport profited $3 billion in 2007. The fans that make up NASCAR are considered some of the most brand-loyal fans in America, which causes Fortune 500 companies to sponsor NASCAR more than any other sport.

75 million people is a tremendous base to be able to guide MobileAd towards. That is a very conservative estimate as well, because this is just one group of people in particular who are accustom to having advertisements on cars. The benefits of MobileAd stretch to a wider audience, because it saves people money for simply driving around, which I don’t think too many people would disagree with.

• Does it fill a need?

To answer this question truthfully, I would say that MobileAd does not necessarily fill a need. However, as time goes on, and gas prices begin to climb higher and higher, the need to lower gas costs will be essential. The fact of the matter is that people are going to continue to drive cars. Just because gas prices go up 50 cents doesn’t mean that everyone is going to start commuting via train or public transportation. People will inevitably just head back to the pump and pay the price. Therefore, in order to combat this rising cost, I think MobileAd does indeed fill a need of lowering gas costs.

• Can it be setup by an individual or at most small group of individuals?

MobileAd is a little more complicated to put together and initially set-up, but it can be done if one just talks to the right contacts. For starters, the first thing that needs to be done is for an agreement to be made between MobileAd and various marketing departments of companies. If we consider a sample size of companies, lets say Burger King, Taco Bell, and Wendy’s, all three of these marketing departments have to be contacted. They each have to agree to distribute their logo on private vehicles, and each may determine a different price per mile (more on this later).

If they all agree to the terms, this is spectacular news. The next thing that will need to be done is creating the various advertisements that can be placed on cars. There can be several different makes that people can opt for.

For instance, people can choose to have an advertisement on their hood, trunk, lateral sides, or at the top of their car. Each one of these placements may alter the amount of money that advertisers are willing to pay per mile, but this is up to the person driving. I think that providing people with several options will make MobileAd a much more profitable endeavor. I’m not sure how this advertisement will actually be created, but it has to have the ability to be attached and taken off, but only professionally, because we have to ensure our advertisers that people are actually keeping this advertisement on their car.

It also has to be done in such a way that it does not alter the car in any way. If we can get past these two first initial steps we’re doing superbly well. Next, either one of two things will happen. MobileAd will connect itself to BP’s, Shell’s, and Amaco’s all over America, or it will be independent of gas stations. This will require engaging in agreements with gas stations or buying up real estate to be able to service consumers who want to use this product.

I think it would be very convenient to have this service available at gas stations, but think that it will be far more complicated. Buying up real estate to house the office in which MobileAd can work is far more likely, but it also takes away the immediate payoff that one will receive, because they won’t receive their reduction at the gas station.

They will rather have to drive to another location and get paid there. I don’t foresee this as being a terribly large problem, but it hurts the product a little bit.

Within each office of MobileAd it is a very simple set-up. Essentially, people can walk in and browse around the room for various types of advertisements that they may want to place on their cars. It’s almost like shopping for a cell phone.

You walk into the store and find an advertisement that works best for you. Do you like Wendy's or Dell? After picking out an advertisement that works well for the person, they approach an attendant at a computer. The computer is outfitted with a database which holds the following information. It contains information regarding a person’s name, car, license plate, advertisement choice, rate of pay per mile, and miles logged on their cars. Creating a database like this is quite easy, but maintaining it and streamlining it is quite a task.

In order to make it easiest for both the person working for MobileAd and the consumer, an electronic card will be given to people who take part in using MobileAd’s services. Contained on this card will be all of the aforementioned information that when slid across a magnetic strip will automatically bring up the consumer’s information in the database.

All the person who works at MobileAd has to do is update the miles that the consumer has driven. The computer program that handles the database will have to be able to also check for falsely reported mileages. That is to say that given the amount of time that the person last came to MobileAd and how many miles have been traveled. So, the card will also store information regarding when the person last came to receive a payment. This will safeguard against people trying to run up miles in order to receive higher payments.

There will have to be a significant amount of safeguards in place to make sure that when people come to receive payment it is truthful and honest. Once the payment is given to the consumer, the job of MobileAd is complete.

• Can it generate income?

MobileAd has the potential to create enormous income. According to AdGrove.com the advertising industry represents a $190 billion dollar a year industry. This is tremendous and will continue to grow as it has done previously. So, there is no lack of money in the advertising industry, this is clear. But how does MobileAd profit from any of the services that it seeks to provide. Quite simply, lets crunch some numbers.

• According to a video posted on 5min.com entitled, “How much advertisers pay for your attention in NYC” the price of advertising on the lateral side of a bus per month is $500.
  

Find more how to and instructional Marketing videos on 5min.com

I consider this to be quite premium adverting space, especially because it is a bus and definitely even more so because the bus is in New York City. The rest of my calculations will go off of the premise that a bus in New York City costs $500 per month to advertise on.

In the MobileAd system, drivers are rewarded on the number of miles that they drive, not the time that they have the advertisement on their car. This has to be the case with private vehicles, because some of the time those vehicles will not be in use either because they are parked in a facility or a garage.

This essentially means that the advertisement isn’t doing its job. However, you can be certain that the advertisement is at work when the car is clocking miles, because it must be out in the open. So let us then determine how much this $500 per month equates to in dollars per mile for a New York City bus.

If we assume that New York City buses operate 24 hours a day every day of the month, this gives us a total running time of 720 hours per month. Furthermore, according to Schaller Consulting in a document prepared for Transporation Alternatives NYPIRG Straphangers Campaign in which it was studying the patterns of New York City buses, they determined that the average speed of a bus is 7.5 miles per hour.

Therefore, if we know that there are 720 hours per month that a bus is on the road, and if that bus will travel at 7.5 miles per hour on average, we can determine that the average bus in New York City travels 5400 miles per month (720 x 7.5). Therefore, in order to extrapolate the rate per mile at $500 a month, we simply divide $500 per month by 5400 miles per month and arrive at a rate of 9.26 cents per mile.

Essentially, advertisers are paying buses 9.26 cents for every mile that they travel, based on our calculations here.

Now, remember that I told you that I thought that advertisements on a New York City bus was premium advertising space indeed. Therefore, for a private vehicle, I think that a reasonable rate would be around a third of that for a bus.

This means that I would consider an advertiser paying 3.08 cents per mile for advertising on a private vehicle very acceptable. If we recall back to the beginning, an average gas tank will get you around 300 miles. So, the maximum amount of money that people are looking at making or reducing from their gas consumption is around $9.26 per fill up.

However, MobileAd is a for-profit company, and needs to make income as well. Pricing is an unbelievably complicated procedure, but I will provide several pricing options here and I will determine which one is best at the end. If we consider taking a slice out of the 3.08 cents per mile provided by advertisers in chunks of 10% up to 70% we arrive with the following:

10% - MobileAd makes 0.308 cents per mile and consumers make 2.772 cents per mile equating to $8.31 per 300 miles for consumers and 93 cents per 300 miles for MobileAd.

20% - MobileAd makes 0.616 cents per mile and consumers make 2.464 cents per mile equating to $7.39 per 300 miles for consumers and $1.85 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

30% - MobileAd makes 0.924 cents per mile and consumers make 2.156 cents per mile equating to $6.47 per 300 miles for consumers and $2.77 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

40% - MobileAd makes 1.232 cents per mile and consumers make 1.848 cents per mile equating to $5.54 per 300 miles for consumers and $3.70 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

50% - MobileAd makes 1.54 cents per miles and consumers make 1.54 cents per mile equating to $4.62 per 300 miles for consumers and $4.62 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

60% - MobileAd makes 1.848 cents per miles and consumers make 1.232 cents per mile equating to $3.70 per 300 miles for consumers and $5.54 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

70% - MobileAd makes 2.156 cents per mile and consumers make 0.924 cents per mile equating to $2.77 per 300 miles for consumers and $6.47 per 300 miles for MobileAd.

The key at this point is to determine what would be the Just Noticeable Difference in order to set the price. Recalling back to our first example, gas costs around $3.38 and cars hold around 16 gallons giving a total gas purchase of $54.08 for the average motorist.

With these numbers, I would probably favor a share of 40% MobileAd to 60% consumer when it comes to advertising payments. The reason that I conclude this is because the theory of Just Noticeable Difference relies on the fact that people are generally able to tell the difference in 50% of cases. With this 40/60 split, consumers will receive $5.54 on average everytime they fill their $54.08 tank. This equates to a price reduction of 10% ((54.08-5.54)/54.08 = 90%), which is a sizable price reduction.

I think this will be able to motivate people enough if they know they can reduce their costs by 10% and move their payment from the 50’s to the 40’s. If we go off of this pricing model and consider the demographics of the people who may use our service we conclude the following (very conservative estimates):

• 2% of NASCAR Fans = 1.5 million people
• 1% of the rest of the US population not including 75 million NASCAR fans = 2.25 million people
• Total people using service = 3.75 million
• 3.75 million x 37 miles per day = 138.75 million miles per day.
• 138.75 million miles per day x 3.08 cents per mile = 4.27 million dollars per day.
• 40% for MobileAd = $1.7094 million per day
• 1.7094 million per day x 1 year = $623.931 million per year

As you can see, there is a significant amount of money that can be made from MobileAd. At the same time, it also pumps money into the economy which would be supremely beneficial in a hurting economy.

• It is marketable?

The idea of MobileAd is a little different than any that has previously existed. It is almost a little faux pax to place stickers on one’s car, however, with the changing times; people are going to have to change in order to deal with the higher than usual costs.

Placing an advertisement on one’s car isn’t a mainstream thought today, because there has never really been a need for it. However, if things continue as they have, something like advertising on one’s car may become the norm in just a few short years.

I think the key is really finding the “tipping point” with this idea. I don’t expect MobileAd to be a well accepted idea, but only up until a certain point. There is a point at which gas prices will just become too much and an easy alternative will have to exist.

In years from now, cars may not come in simple colors like white, green, red, or black, but rather fully advertised all around it. I feel like MobileAd is a preliminary step between now and then, which provides extremely high profits.

ReelEstate.com

This idea came to me as I was touring around Italy during my Spring break while I'm studying in Europe. I was traveling with a friend of mine and we were in Venice for the day. Walking around in Venice is a great time, because there are winding streets and getting lost is probably the most fun thing to do there. It's incredibly unique and ridiculous because of all of the canals, and its a great city to just chat with someone.

As we walked into the Ca' d'Oro, which is an ancient palace located on the Grand Canal in Venice, me and my friend began talking about movies for some reason. He happened to share with me that one time, a film was shot on location at his home, and the film company (whoever was producing the film) had to put a light on a portion of his home's property and was paid around $300 for his troubles.

That was some pretty awesome news. I realized then that it would also be pretty cool if someone came across my house and wanted to film on location, because then I would make some money off of just living somewhere. I'd sit back and one day, someone would knock on the door and say, "We're shooting a movie across the street, but we have to stick this light on your lawn.

You don't have to say yes, but if you do, we'll give you $300." To me, that is one of the simplest and easiest ways to make some cash, and you didn't even have to do anything, except for being in the right place at the right time. But maybe, you could improve your chances somehow.

That is where ReelEstate.com (or some other catchy domain name like that) comes in. Essentially, the website would be a place where people, just ordinary (or extraordinary) people like you and me upload pictures of your homes, both inside and outside if you'd like, into a huge database. From there, you create a little profile for your location.

There would also have to be a profile that you set up about yourself (which is not searchable) so that the website can get in touch with you if a producer wants to film on location. For the location's profile (which is searchable) You provide a city and state, no physical address, and describe it a little. You can put anything in the description. It's your way of selling the location to prospective producers (we'll get to them in a second).

You can perhaps give examples of what types of scenes your location would be good for, what types of movies would be awesome if shot there, or you can ramble on about the long history and emotional ties that you may have to this place. It can be whatever you want. Additionally, you can tag your pictures with various keywords that are searchable and what you determine to be relevant. Alright, so that's what people do.

Just simply upload pictures of their own homes, in hopes that a movie is shot there and they make some money at the same time. Sounds pretty fantastic.

Ideally, the next step would be for producers of movies to log on to this website and search either by location or keyword used by the submitter for the perfect location to shoot their movie or scene. Once they find the perfect spot, they simply click a button that says something to the effect of, "I want to contact this person to possibly shoot on location."

The website then gets in touch with the person who posted the picture to say that a film could be shot on their location that they posted, and they need to get in contact with the film company. From there, the individual who posted the picture and producer who wants to shoot the movie collaborate and the job of ReelEstate.com is done. Now that I'm done being vague, lets get into the nitty-gritty of it all.

Testing for Realism:

• Does it have a targeted demographic?

Absolutely. I think anyone who has ever been to see a movie or heard of Hollywood before would enjoy taking part in this website. There is an allure to it that I think all people enjoy; that being fame and fortune.

The fame comes from having their home or location in a movie, which is pretty cool when you think about it. The fortune aspect comes from acquiring money from simply living somewhere. I think there are a lot of people in search of fame and fortune, and this gives them the package deal right there. I can see people that use IMDB.com also enjoying this website very much. It is simple, because all the individual needs to do is upload pictures of their house.

In today's world, many people have digital cameras, and the Internet is flooded daily with millions of new pictures. The Internet Movie Database is the 33rd most hit website in the world (according to Alexa.com) and number 18 in the United States alone, so there are a lot of people interested in movies and of those people, I'm sure many of them would like to see their own house or room in a movie one day.

• Does it fill a need?

I think that you can think about this is two ways. For people who are uploading their homes in hopes of a movie being filmed there, no, it does not fill a need for them. There are other sites on the Internet where people can upload their pictures.

So, I would say for about 90% of the users of the site, a need is not filled by ReelEstate.com. However, when you think about it from the perspective of the 10% of individuals who use this site to find locations all over the US and World, I think that it does indeed fill a need. The reason is because I don't think anything like this exists, and creating a database for these people would make their jobs unbelievably more efficient and productive.

Imagine sitting down at a computer and being able to search the world for a "yellow brick home with a white fence in Torrington, Wyoming." I think that something like this definitely fills a need for these type of people, and what's even more important about that is the fact that the people searching the website, not the ones uploading pictures, are the people willing to pay for the website's services.

• Can this be setup by an individual or group of individuals?

Yes. This website can definitely be setup by a couple computer programmers that know what they're doing. It is a little complex for an amateur computer programmer like myself, but I feel like most of the functions that make this website work are simple enough to be done in a rather quick amount of time. There are some elements to consider:

First, there needs to be a mechanism for uploading and storing the pictures. Then each picture has be linked to a person's personal profile for contact to be made (not searchable). I would envision a personal profile on the website to be a really simple Facebook profile, with or without a picture, and simply a contact number or e-mail and address perhaps.

Beyond that, there has to be a mechanism to search through the website, so there must be a customized internal search engine. There has to be a way of sorting the keywords so that the most relevant search results come first. When producers are trying to contact a location, they do not do so directly, but rather through the website, so there will have to be away that the website coordinates this communication.

This can be done either manually or automatically. A standard e-mail can be forwarded to the person's e-mail address that they have listed in their profile, naming the company who is trying to contact them. Manually would have to involve a person making a phone call. This pretty much runs you through the entire set of activities that takes place on the website. I think that these are all functions that are doable by someone who is slightly computer savvy.

• Can it generate income?

Absolutely! When I think about this website, I think about it in terms of a "LinkedIn" model of revenue. To truly understand what I mean when I say this, do not think about this website as a movie website, think about it as a communication website. Our task isn't to make movies, but it is to get people in touch with one another.

If you recall earlier, I broke down the websites usage to "Uploaders" equaling 90%, and "Producers" equaling 10% of the websites users. This might sound staggeringly daunting to make revenue off of just 10% of the users of the site, but it can work very effectively.

For those 10% of the users, I established that for them, this website would be a need, and it would be something that improved and optimized their job performance. So, why in world would they not pay for such a splendid service?

There are a number of revenue streams. The first is Search. In order to legitimize the website and also make it safe for people uploading, being able to search the website has to be paid for. This will put people who are uploading (90% of our website) at ease, because the only people who are searching the database are those who pay to use its services (and getting people to pay for anything on the web is a close to impossible task).

Being able to search the website can be done in two ways, as I see it. One way can be on a search by search basis. Buy a package for 500 searches for $50. Another way to make money from search is by making people pay a monthly subscription (with unlimited search) for $50. At this point, I am not sure which method is better for the bottom line.

The next revenue stream comes from "Producers" contacting "Uploaders." In order for "Producers" to get in touch with "Uploaders" to request filming on their premises, "Producers" will have to click a button to say, "I want to contact this person." If they click that button, it will cost them $1. Remember, we are a communication website. There can also be revenue from advertising, but I don't expect that to be the primary revenue stream at all.

Let's do some number crunching.

Assume there are 100,000 people who use the website. This means that 90,000 are "Uploaders" and 10,000 are "Producers." The 90,000 people don't pay a cent to use the site, so lets just forget about them.

For the 10,000 "Producers" this site fills a need for them, so they want to pay for its services. Lets next assume that it costs $30 per month to get unlimited search (about $1 a day). Lets then assume that the 10,000 "Producers" buy a yearly subscription for $360. So, revenue stream #1 = $360 x 10,000 = $3,600,000 per year. Excellent.

Next, we want to look at how much money we can make off of contact fees. According to the Motion Picture Association of America, there were 603 films released in 2007. Furthermore, according to Yahoo! Answers, there are typically 60 scenes in an average movie. This allows for 36,180 locations to be filmed on in a given year.

Let us then next assume that when "Producers" contact "Uploaders," sometimes the "Uploaders" don't respond, or the "Producer" finds out that the location is not the exact type of location that they were looking for. With this in mind, let us assume that each "Producer" has to contact 1.5 people on average in order to shoot a scene. The cost of contact is $1. So, revenue stream #2 = $1 x 1.5 x 36,180 = $54,270 per year. Great.

Next, we can look into our advertising revenue stream. According to Yahoo! Answers around 7,150 unique visits a day will lead to advertising revenue of $110 a day. By playing with the numbers a little (Approximately 13 x 7,150 = 100,000), we can see that if our website generated 100,000 unique visits a day, we can make around $1,430 a day. If we stretch this over a year we get the following: Revenue stream #3 = $1,430 x 365 = $521,950 per year. Fantastic.

By putting our three revenue streams together we get a yearly total of $4,176,220. These are conservative estimates.

• Is it marketable?

Yes. This is a simple and easy website to use, and one that people have had a lot of familiarity with (uploading pictures) so you're not changing anyone's habits too much. I think that you can start off by advertising on IMDB.com, because that is such a well established and niched demographic to target this towards.

Most of the advertising and marketing will have to be done by word-of-mouth or viral marketing. If the website is done well and runs smoothly, I see no reason why friends wouldn't discuss this around a lunch table, between classes, or at work.

I think that this website has a lot of potential and upside. There is a huge demographic of people who would want to partake in it evidenced by IMDB.com usage, and it streamlines, optimizes, and fills a need for the professionals in the film industry. It has a potential revenue stream of $4M based on conservative estimates. If the website is set up correctly by computer program professionals, I see no reason why something like this wouldn't work.

Crumbs

The other night, I was sitting around with three other friends of mine and we were concocting what happened to become the greatest marinade know to man. Taking leftovers found all around our Prague apartment, we combined the likes of Cayenne Pepper, Barbecue Sauce, Hot Chili Sauce, and finally some Tortilla chips.

We were baking a pizza and wanted to use the sauce to dip the pizza in. The results were fantastic, and if I were you, I'd probably get these supplies whenever possible and try it out. Well, now that you understand what was going on around me, I guess I can tell you what the actual idea is.

It isn't an original marinade made of the four aforementioned substances. Rather, the idea struck us when we were scrounging for more things to put into our marinade, and finally finding the Tortilla Chips. The owner of the Tortilla Chips had just a couple left, at most a handful, and otherwise all that was left were crumbs bunched up in the bottom of the bag. These crumbs came in handy when mixing it into the marinade, because they were already quite small so you didn't have to crush them up.

However, it then occurred to us just how simple, brilliant, and delightful crumbs are. Buy any bag of potato chips, tortilla chips, or chips in general, and you're going to have some crumbs accumulate at the bottom.

It's just what happens to a bags of chips, ask a physicist or brain surgeon and he or she will tell you. Yet, it bothers some people that once all the chips are done only crumbs remain. But what were to happen if you just had a whole bag of crumbs to begin with?

Rather than having small bite size potato chips that Lays or Ruffles offers, or uniform, identical potato chips as Pringles offers, provide an entire bag (or tube) of a Crumb taste explosion. Crumbs can be a lot of fun to eat...if you have a lot of them.

They are crunchy, just as potato chips are, and they can get stuck on your fingers, which allows for you (or a friend) to lick them off. The taste and flavor remains intact, because the process of making the chip remains the same. The only thing that differs is what is done with chip post production.

Testing for Realism:

• Does it have a targeted demographic?

To this, I would answer Yes ten times over. I think that there are a lot of people who would enjoy and indulge in Crumbs as a tasty treat that is seen as an alternative to regular potato chips. The first demographic I can see taking hold of this concept is children between age 7 and 12. I say this because the concept of Crumbs as food may seem appealing to a younger audience.

Licking your fingers and getting a little messy is all these guys want to do. Second, these would be ideal for a health conscious eater. Eating crumbs is like eating celery, you don't really remember doing it, but you actually did. Crumbs will feel like eating nothing, and you can package these guys in beautiful "100 Calorie" bags. Another demographic who would grab on to these are the "extreme" food eaters.

Think about the crew from, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, who continually give the two protagonists a hard time. Just as these "dudes" enjoyed chowing down on 3D Doritos, Slim Jims, and Funyuns, Crumbs might be the next food that they can't get enough of. Finally, linked to the last set of people, you have people who enjoy smoking marijuana, who would enjoy this treat as a nice munchie late at night.

• Does it fill a need?

The short answer to this is No, but that can be argued a couple different ways. It doesn't fill a need, because it is already filled by other foods we can eat, and foods that are more essential for nourishment, unlike a potato chip. However, there is nothing like this on the market, so it can fill its own need once it hits the market. Who knows what the true power of Crumbs is?

• Can it be set up by an individual or individuals?

Yes. I think that this is actually quite a simple thing to set up, yet you need a couple items that are a little hard to come by. For instance, you would probably have to have access to some sort of machine that can already create potato chips. Following the production of these "original" potato chips, all one needs to do is crush them and package them. That is really all there is to it in order to create a prototype.

• Can it make income?

Absolutely! Chips and the fast food industry is still growing. Also, it is quite a revolutionary product that could target a whole new audience who haven't even been involved in the potato chip eating industry. At the same time, you could get people who eat Pringles or Lays to try this new hybrid of a potato chip. If it is marketed correctly, then it will be able to hook people into it.

• Is it marketable?

Crumbs is a great idea and a catchy name for this delicious treat already. It's simple, but it gets the job done. To compliment the already simple name there are some fun ways to package this treat aside from a bag, like silly old Lays or Ruffles.

You could put crumbs in a tube or can, which would make for a perfect delivery system to the mouth. Think about just tilting your head back and slamming a whole lot of crumbs in your mouth. At first, they are just tiny crystals that coalesce into a savory and enjoyable paste that fills your mouth with an explosion of taste.

Think of the delight that you'll have in licking these tiny morsels off your fingers. A marketing slogan that you could use is, "No Limits." This would appeal very much to the "extreme" potato chip eaters, as well as the regular Lays and Ruffles eaters who are looking for a way out of their mundane eating habits. There are some funny commercials that can be made for Crumbs. First, for the health conscious consumer: Two people are sitting on a couch, or at a party, or in a park, eating crumbs. Then after a while of seeing these two chow down on their awesome snack, the one asks the other, "What were we just doing?" to which the other replies, "Eating some crumbs."

The scene ends with a high five or other jubilant action. Another commercial in which you can use already well established actors is the cast of "That 70's Show," in which they are sitting around their table in the basement and eating Crumbs talking about how good it is. A final commercial idea would be involving cavemen.

Scene one would include a caveman creating the wheel for the first time. Scene two would show the caveman who just made the wheel, go on to create Crumbs. The commercial ends with everyone of the cave people eating crumbs. Nice.

So there's an idea that I recently came into contact with. As far as it being realistic, I think that there might be a chance, but its all about the execution. My question is where would I even think to go to next.

MiParadox Begins

MiParadox. That's kind of a strange name for a blog. What does it really mean? What is it all about? Well, I personally think it means something today, but like all things, I think that it has great potential to evolve, transform, and become whatever it is truly intended to become. Quite simply, this is a blog of ideas. I love ideas. I keep my ears wide open so that I can hear ideas.

I search the web, because I want to come across new ideas. I study, read, and travel because I want to create my own ideas. I think that the process of formulating an idea, having the guts to move forward with it, and executing it is probably one of the most fulfilling feelings ever. I long for this feeling, and that is partly why I started this blog, and is partly explains the title, MiParadox. The "i" stands for ideas. I've got a lot of ideas. I come up with new ones almost daily.

However, I usually have a hard time remembering my ideas or figuring out a way to move forward with them. If there's anything that I've learned from the Internet, its that sometimes its just better to put it all out there and see what comes of it. My ideas typically come from the world around me.

The places I see, the people I interact with, or the inadequacies I become aware of. So, be forewarned, this blog will probably not have much cohesion aside from the fact that it will be a "melting pot" of my own thoughts and ideas. There's something fun about that, though. You may not totally be sure what is to come, but whatever it is, just may spark your interest more so than ever before.

While I gave away the "i" meaning ideas, it could also mean a lot of different things. I think alongside ideas, you have "i"nventions and "i"nnovations. These could also be things that the "i" stands for. But if there is anything that I know about ideas, innovation, and invention, it's that change is just around the corner, and there may be some better words to describe this blog in no time.

This truly gets to the crux of why I have ventured from the sweet solitude of my exam pad to the open abyss that is the Internet. Ideas cannot exist in a vacuum. Rather, they need to stared at, poked a couple times, ripped to shreds perhaps, and essentially naked to the world. Ideas, effective ideas, are built upon layers and layers of criticism.

An idea begins...and is then morphed. It takes on new form and can then only live, breathe, and function as it ought to. Sure, there are ideas that work flawlessly the very first time around, but those are but a lucky few. I feel better hearing other's opinions when it comes to ideas though, because as I said, ideas cannot exist in a vacuum.

I wanted to do this blog for other constructive reasons as well. A good friend of mine shared with me that it takes on average at least 50 legitimate ideas to arrive at something worthwhile. Consider this almost an open diary of any thoughts, ideas, inventions, or innovations that I think are realistic. In order for an idea to "realistic" it has to meet the following standard criteria:

1. It is well accepted by a particular target demographic
2. It fills a NEED
   
3. It can be setup by an individual or at most small group of individuals
4. It has methods of generating income
5. It is marketable

I do not assume that all the ideas that I put down here to be "realistic." However, if anything, it will be a great way to keep track of those ideas which are "realistic" and which are not. Perhaps I'll see a pattern emerge. I feel as though there is a tremendous amount to gain and learn.

I look forward to sharing some of my ideas with you. It is MiParadox.