LittleWyvern.com

It is all a bit overwhelming, but I am making good progress.

Although I am technically unemployed (self-employed?) at the moment, right now I am in the middle of several different programming projects. In addition to the random weekly bug-fix work that I do as an independent contractor for Netstudy (to pay the bills) I am also working on a large independent project that I will hopefully be able to sell to Netstudy when I complete it. The company needs a significant upgrade to their system, but unfortunately nobody knows how to actually go about doing it. Times are tight and they can’t afford to waste money on “maybes” so I made them an offer: I will teach myself to do what they need done, and if/when I get it working I will sell the code to them.

If I can’t accomplish the task then they don’t have to pay me anything.

That works out well for both of us. They don’t have to assume any of the risk – worst case they don’t spend any money and merely remain in their current situation – and can still end up with what they want. Meanwhile, I assume all of the risk (mostly wasted time and effort), but in the end my sale price will necessarily be higher than my hourly rate would have been had I simply been hired to do the task. True, it could be a bit of a raw deal for me in the event of failure, but of course I hold my abilities in fairly high regard. In my mind there is effectively no chance of failure.

And so it came about that I have been spending a lot of my time lately teaching myself Flash and ActionScript and how to read and write XML.

At the same time I have also been developing a pair of Facebook applications. There’s no money to be made from these apps (at least not yet), but I find myself spending more time and effort on the applications than on any of the Netstudy stuff. Like my project with Flash, I have had to learn how to do everything on Facebook from scratch. Even more difficult is that the programming languages involved in writing these apps are completely different than any of the ones I use for either my contractor job or my Flash project. Not counting any FantasyBlueBook stuff, I am actively developing in (something like) eight or nine different technologies, half of which I am learning as I go.

Jumping from task to task it can all get very confusing.

Anyways, I probably shouldn’t discuss my Netstudy project in any detail here, but suffice to say that my progress has been good. Hopefully I can hammer that out in the next few days, and then with any luck I can actually get paid for the hours I’ve been investing.

The facebook apps will take a bit longer to complete, I think, but they are more fun to work on. Just as I’ve heard the saying “write the book that you would want to read” (or the movie you would want to see), I am writing the app that I would want to actually use. I do not have any plans to patent these apps so I don’t think there’s a problem in discussing my ideas. Plus, I am really counting on you guys to give me feedback on how to make these apps as useful as possible.

Idea 1 – A Friendly Wager

I can’t speak for anybody else, but I make A LOT of bets with people. Whether I’m wagering a trip to the fridge or several hundred dollars, I am pretty much always in action with somebody. Keeping track of all those bets is extremely difficult and I am constantly arguing with people over the particular details that we each (differently) remember. Further complicating the situation is the fact that my friends are always quick to exploit any possible loopholes. It all becomes a big mess, but of course I keep making bets anyways.

I thought about building a website devoted to making and tracking my bets in a public way. Rather than making notes on my dry-erase board or an excel file on my hard drive, I figured it would be useful and fun for people to be able to see what, when, and how much I actually bet with various people. Quickly I realized that Facebook is already the perfect place for such a system to exist. With their architecture I can actually improve my idea by being able to build out a robust system that allows me to negotiate and confirm these wagers with my friends, eliminating not only the possibility of forgetting a bet, but also marking down in digital stone the exact terms of those wagers. I can propose a bet to my brother, say, and he can then accept that bet. When he inevitably loses to me, he can’t go back on his word… I have the exact date, time, and wager details of when he provided his e-signature.

For the more casual wager I am going to provide each user with a bank of ‘widgets’ which they can use to bet with their friends. I can, say, bet my sorta-buddy in New York ten widgets that the Jets will lose next weekend without either of us needing to actually risk anything. The widgets is just a way of keeping score really. In addition to trying to run-up a widget bankroll, these scorecards will also let me run stats on people to calculate things like win %, ROI, etc… that can make the system more interesting and fun. I am also building a series of privacy settings so that people don’t need to actually install the app to see it. You will be able to browse through your friends’ wagers and see what kind of stupid bets they have made. Each bet can be individually controlled so people can keep particular wagers private if they’d prefer. If you then want to join in the fun, cool… it’s a one-click install.

American Idol starts on Tuesday (and The Bachelor already has), so I had better hurry up and get a working version out there so I can prove my dominance to Jim and Zurek.

Idea 2 – Story in the Round
Unlike “A Friendly Wager” I haven’t actually built any of this app yet, but I think it could be fun too. Basically it’s just a collaborative story-writing app: the sort of thing we all did back in grade school. Friends can get together and take turns adding to a story, probably restricted to one paragraph at a time, and gradually build something. There are a few apps already out there that are sorta like this, but none of them (that I found) work the way I would want them to. I imagine being able to write a paragraph and then tag a friend, who would then be obligated to add a paragraph. Nobody can take over a story, but groups of friends for each story can be as big or as small as the creator likes. I think a lot of people like to write, but don’t have the time or courage to take on anything of length. This could be a fun outlet for people (like me). Plus, it’s another excuse to learn something new and practice building a Facebook app.

Any other ideas…??

Perhaps one that we can make a little bit of money on together??

Hopefully these first two “for-fun” apps will get me familiar enough with the Facebook architecture that I will be competent when I eventually come up with the good “for-money” idea.