What happens when someone come up with a half baked idea that could -potentially- change up the commerce game, then decides to act upon it?
We are about to find out because in the past few hours we’ve assembled a team including up to 8 developers, 1 designer, and myself on the fly to hack it out and see if it will work:
William Nelson
Craig Benson
Sugam Pandey
Steve Enzer
Lucija Kordic
Ari Greenberg
Joanne Sun
Michael Arace
Suyash Joshi
Marissa Louie
We even have a sponsor who called with a generous offer:
Special thanks to appbackr, The New Way to Finance Your Apps.
The premise: I came up with an idea for a new platform about a day ago. Then we announced the hackathon on a whim.
The plan: Spend up to 48 hours developing an iPhone app while challenging ourselves to produce something of value to society.
This weekend should be a blast. Perhaps more fun than the trip to Belize, surfing, and golfing outings I cancelled in order to build this!
Marissa Louie is the Founder and CEO of HeroEx, San Francisco’s affordable 1 hour delivery service, where customers buy items then have them delivered in 1 hour or less.
With the upcoming Apple Developer Conference slated for the first week of June, Apple fans are hanging on the edge of their seats to see the latest iFantasticProduct unveiled. But, for those of us who don’t need the cutting-edge and brand new version of everything, here’s a smashing deal for you!
The iPhone 3SG 16GB is now on sale in stores at Wal-Mart for a slashed price of $97! On the Apple site, this phone version is still listed as $199. Granted, it sounds so much cooler to say you got your phone from Apple, rather than Wal-Mart, but I’m all for saving $102! This deal, only offered with a new 2-year AT&T contract, is the best that I’ve seen so far besides getting a refurbished phone.
I think it’s time I look into replacing my stoneage 3G iPhone and upgrading before Wal-Mart shoppers pile up the phones in their carts next to the bulk size bag of potato chips, clearance DVD’s and Hannah Montana bed sheet sets.
And as an added bonus, look at the new market the iPhone will be available to! Sweet!
In celebration of the release of their first iPhone application, Dale Carnegie Training is giving away 200 hardback copies of “How To Win Friends & Influence People.” This classic book has sold over 15 million copies to date, and incorporates human relations principles which have helped generations of people worldwide enjoy personal and professional success.
The books will be distributed via contests to the readers at 20 blogs – including Bubblicious.To enter, our readers simply need tofollow bubblicious on Twitter, and retweet this post (see the “Tweet this” button below). Winners will be notified via DM. Here are the overall Contest Rules on the Dale Carnegie blog.
The application is a an adaptation of Dale Carnegie courses aimed to help you enhance your relationships with others, gain cooperation, and be a leader. The skills gained can be directly applied to improving public speaking, mastering workplace culture, presentation effectiveness, team member engagement, leadership development, sales effectiveness, customer service and lots more.
For more information about the Secrets of Success app, visit the iTunes store.
There is no limit to the quantity of iPhone apps out there. From apps that make silly noises to apps that calculate your tip on a dinner out, the selection is almost limitless. A new app, Zoetica, launched today offers a solution for those interested in the nonprofit world (an interest of mine). The Zoetica iPhone app aggregated nonprofit tech and social change blog posts, making sure the content is at your fingertips at all times. Continuing with the nonprofit theme, the application is free of cost in the iTunes store.
What makes Zoetica different than other news aggregators is that Beth Kanter, Social Media and Nonprofit expert, hand selects the blog feeds that are ultimately aggregated into the app, ensuring the user will receive the most relevant information in the space. The app was created through a partnership with AppMakr and is in itself an example of the possible use of such a tool for a nonprofit. The service makes app development possible for groups with limited budgets and limited tech skills, something many nonprofits can use. AppMakr offers different price points that allow for almost any marketing budget to include an app in the plan.
For more information about the application as well as possible uses for nonprofits, please visit Beth Kanter’s blog
WeeWorld gets more mobile with a new iPhone app. It lets you customize your WeeMee on the go. You can then use your new avatar for caller ID purposes, even on other people’s iPhones (your friends, of course–who else would have your phone number?). From there, you can also use your avatar for social networks like Facebook, where WeeWorld also has an app. As far as other social media outlets go, you’ve pretty much always been able to use your WeeWorld avatar for the likes of AIM chat. The same goes for the new mobile avatar creation app.
With the new iPhone app, WeeWorld is taking its virtual environments one step closer to the mobile realm. Having incorporated itself into a wider-range virtual world and porting that to other platforms such as Facebook, WeeWorld has been rather calculated in its strategy towards expansion. Having a greater mobile presence indicates that WeeWorld is seeking better engagement and interactivity with new and existing users. I, for one, would love to see more ways in which to interact with my virtual environments through my mobile device.
While there aren’t many direct ways in which the new WeeWorld avatar creator can interact with the WeeWorld’s online virtual world, the new iPhone app is certainly a step in the right direction. Given the growing presence virtual environments have on our every day social interactions, even something less involved such as an avatar can have a great impact on the mobile and associated web-based markets.
Virtual goods, for one, present an opportunity for WeeWorld to increase visibility and revenue by offering an iPhone app such as this, especially if the economy around purchasing accessories for an avatar grows through WeeWorld’s mobile presence. Tying this in with other socially-driven platforms and marketplaces is a good way for WeeWorld to segment and re-aggregate a good portion of its existing and upcoming options around its virtual environments.
Especially with the upcoming release of the Apple iPad, WeeWorld could have even more chances to combine its mobile and web-based efforts. As the iPad will have a greater focus on web activity and mobile browsers, the opportunity for Facebook apps to increase their mobile options may be achieved with the iPad and similar devices. For those, such as WeWorld, that already have iPhone apps, the potential behind the iPad is even greater for mobile access and interfacing options with its users.
