by Michelle Lentz
Jesse Thomas recently teamed with Brian Solis to release the Conversation Prism. In addition to working with Brian, Jesse has been busy with quite a few other things, including running a creative agency. Last week, Jesse released a new Facebook app, FriendCompare, which was the result of a self-imposed app-in-a-day challenge.
I recently caught up with Jesse – not an easy task – and got the chance to ask a few questions.
bub: What inspired you to create an app in a day?
JT: I have been interested in this kind of challenge for quite some time. I participated in Andrew Hydes Startup Weekend project last year, and recently Ryan Carson did this design an app in 30 minutes session at FOWA in Miami. Ryan also did Idea Week with his company in London, and they made this Twitter mashup, M.A.T.T. The product looks great, and I was particularly inspired by his Social Media PR coverage and build up of the event. Its a way to make an event out of what can be stressful work. I enjoy this kind of thing in a local community setting, but I think doing this kind of intense thinking on one project is the way to go. I am always working on lots of different projects in a day, and answering email as well. On App in a Day, the idea is to not check email and stay focused.
bub: Was it just you and a friend, or were there more active participants?
JT: As a company, my CTO and me, after a particularly stressful week, decided that even though we were extremely busy and had too much work to do, we were going to not do any client work on Monday and build an app in the day. The plan was to utilize all the talented people in our network to help with brainstorming ideas. At JESS3 we build Facebook applications for a variety of clients including Dow Jones/ Wall Street Journal, Shopzilla, Verizon, Buzzwire, Communication Workers of America, Blue State Digital, In-Bruges the movie, Snagfilms/AOL etc. So this is familiar territory because it feels like everyone wants things done in a day anyway. I am thinking about pushing this kind of power session to clients
bub: What made you want to design a friend comparison system?
JT: I love love love data visualization. Jonathan Harris is amazing, Stamen labs, GOOD magazine, etc. I am always looking for an opportunity to make intense charts and graphs.
I was looking at some of the top apps on Facebook and noticed a few that were about this idea of Friend Statistics. These apps are kind of ugly, but they give a glimpse into the kind of great data that is a click away on Facebook. I thought about it for a while, and envisioned what a data visualization version of this content would look like. I thought that a recommendation engine that ties into that data and uses network data to reinforce recommendations would be great. The next version of FriendCompare will have a robust quiz function whick we think might end up being the star of the show.
bub: Does the new format of Facebook affect how your app is used in any way?
JT: I was really passionate that we should build for the new 760 sizes, but we talked about the number of people that have actually migrated over and decided to build it for the 646 dimension for this first draft.
I want to utilize FacebookConnect functionality for the next app; I’ve already got some ideas.
bub: Anything else the world really needs to know?
JT: We are also working on a E-Book that explains a lot of the mysterious parts of designing Facebook applications. This is something that I fall back on as a resource, including all the standard sizes and example text for the feeds. I want to package that book with a thumb drive of useable code and also design files. I want to provide core templates for designing in Facebook including all the image sizes and components. I’d love to turn this into a workshop series if anyone was willing to come? 
Send me an email at jessethomas at jess3 dot com and checkout some of our work at http://www.jess3.com.
You can find the Facebook application FriendCompare at http://apps.facebook.com/friendcompare.
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