The importance of looking good

I had a intense discussion with the GameRenkei folks on interface design for the past week. A thing that came up unexpectedly was the importance of making games look good. As we scan the current game sites such MiniClip, Kongregate et al, we realise the cluttered interface was not what we were looking for. Instead, we want something more refined and loooks better. In order words, we want a Tumblr equivalent for games.

This conclusion is a minor revelation for the founders and for me personally. In the course of starting GameRenkei, the importance of making games look good was often in the background. We realise that this should not be the case, and in fact, should become the strength of the platform.

Why is looking good important? We think there are strategic reasons beyond aesthetics enjoyment. A well designed interface like Tumblr allocates users attention more efficiently. For example, Tumblr's explore feature is a much engaging and efficient way of browsing content, rather than the typical approach of listing the top games because it allows for freshness in the category you desired.

Also, we hope that giving weight to the how the game will look and display has an effect on the type of game developers the platform will attract. The hope of the team is to break away from the types of games found on MiniClip but focus on higher quality and innovative games.

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Any blogs to recommend?

I have struggling these days to find really interesting startup materials to read. So, I thought I should do a post describing why some of my favourite blogs are not satisfying my reading needs:

BubbleGeneration: This blog haven't been the same since Umair Haque went to start the Harvard Media Lab and the related Harvard Discussion Blog. While the insights at Harvard are still sharp, the frequency is not high and lack the directness of posts such as this.

ParkParadigm: Fantastic read for anyone who thinks markets are the way that many industries will be organised in the future. If you like exploring new forms of markets such as carbon, weather, mobile and their related technologies, this is the blog for you. Unfortunately, the author is busy with his new venture and I foresee a slowdown in the posting frequency. However, I am still enjoying his Tumblr blog, which I hope he can add more comments to what he posts.

BuzzMachine: Jeff Javier talks about networks and platforms in great understanding. He will inspire you to rethink how networks and platforms can transform from your industry. His book is taking a lot of his time now, which explains why I am not getting any good reading from there.

AVC: The only consistent blog is fortunately still consistent in its frequency. In terms of content, not all posts are appealing to me but most of them are.

So, if you have any good reads, please recommend them in the comments section.

Update: Laserlike is a blog from a VC about startup ideas. It is a new discovery and has been a great read so far.

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Idea generation #47: Economics of happiness, open source mixtape, power of open source microblogging

Economics of happiness: Happiness as a strategy is becoming an increasing fascination for me (see post here and here). We are so used to organising production resources using output or productivity as the maximising factor. What about happiness? Is a form of externality that should be priced or can it be the sole maximising factor? For example, can a job site ranks jobs according to some happiness index?

Open source Muxtape: Opentape, the open source muxtape application has arrived. Why is this necessary? Well, Mixtape was shut down by RIAA so the community has to take action. Opentape is the end result. With anybody having the ability to set up their own Muxtape equivalent, it will be near impossible for RIAA to act. Open beats closed.

Related to this is the open source microblogging platform, identi.ca. I blogged about how identi.ca can enabled many new applications. Well, the first of many has arrived. Imgfave is a microblogging site focusing on photo sharing. How far are we to use identi.ca to create an open source Tumblr?

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Startup Idea #85: Small idea-Exposing social networks in social networks

We have formed a partnership with Friendster as part of our effort to help our local startups break into global markets. Breaking into such markets has been difficult especially in this part of the world where connections are not as strong. We hope that though such partnerships, our startups have a better chance to achieve the success they desired.

As part of the partnership, Friendster and my office will conduct a joint call for innovative applications on their platforms. Successful applicants can then receive some micro funding (S$50,000) to develop their applications as well as marketing support from Friendster to push their applications out to market.

After the announcement was made, I started helping startups develop their ideas. One strong theme that came out during the discussions was this: social networks are meant for connections, and not for anything else. Very strangely though, you see very little applications that focus on managing your social connections.

Yes, there are countless applications that allows 'friends' to share media/information and to conduct in endless gift giving but these are not what I meant.

Image via CrunchBase, source unknown
The class of applications I am referring to are more inline with things like MyBlogLog and Xobni.
Applications that help to expose the social networks around you so that you can better manage them. Why isn't that an app that shows who has viewed your profile? Why can't I know who are my real friends as determined by the exact communication that have happen within the network? (Maybe there are. If you know any, do drop a comment and let me know).

Anyway, I hope that more apps appear that help to expose our real social networks and hopefully better utilise them.

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I just bought Numerati

Continuing my passion for data driven businesses (see related blog posts here), I just bought a new book, Numerati.















Why did I buy this read, beyond the fact it fits out interests? His blog helps. Through the blog, I get the sense of what the book will say and it seems to be what I was interested in. In other words, his blog provided a weak form solution to the moral hazard problem. This got me into thinking about tools for book publishers.

Is there a TopSpin equivalent to help writers connect with their fans? Beyond blogging, is there other ways that an author can reach out to his audiences? How about a tool that aggregates all the potential book tour locations and provides an easy way for authors to plan their tour? More interestingly, is there a way for readers to contribute in future versions of the book and a tool can help them to provide the proper payment mechanisms to reward the contributors?

I think many possibilities exist if we think deeper about it. I have a candidate in mind who has the potential to do this in this part of the world: Bookjetty. Let's see if they have the vision to do this, rather than remaining to be just another book community.

Bonus reading: From the author's blog, I discovered his 2006 article on how mathes will transform our world.

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Startup Idea #84: Small idea-Polyvore for brands you hate

I blogged about the genious of Polyvore a couple of days ago about how it is represents the emerging forms of branding 2.0. It is however, one experiment in what will be a new wave of opportunities in remaking branding. How this will play out in other medium (i.e. beyond pictures), other markets (beyond fashion) and other forms (beyond collage) will become the foundations for new powerhouses in branding.

One angle I have is to take the reverse of Polyvore. Rather than giving users the power to put together what they love, how about giving them the ability to show what they hate?

They are tons of bad services and products in the market. Give people the ability to voice their bad experiences through a simple application like Polyvore, where they can make fun of the brands. A sort of anti-polyvore.

Through a feature like recommendations, we can then allow the community to suggest better services or products to replace that was complaint about. A lead generation business can then be created based on these recommendations.

Finally, we will allow these bad services or products the opportunity to 'redeem' themselves by communicating, through public video or text, that they have improved their services.

What do you think? Will this work?

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Idea generation #46: Predictive analysis for injuries, p2p as our future, reminding us to be happy and more

Predictive analysis for sports injuries: An interesting articles talking about the value of speedy recovery to the sports economy. One interesting bit that caught my attention is this:


Prevent injuries by predicting them......Much like the Moneyball strategy employed by Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane, in which teams comb through unusual stats to better evaluate undeveloped talent, the Red Sox hope that Andrews's brand of unconventional testing will crack the mystery of injuries.

This represents an ongoing change where the filtering of data to derive insightful analysis is going to affect all forms of business activities. I blogged about this before but I am constantly amazed by the new opportunities that present themselves.

P2P as our future: An insightful article examining how a different form of organisation, i.e. P2P will affect our future. I am particularly intrigued by the kind of services that can improve lifes in developing countries:

Solar water disinfection (SODIS): put water which is contaminated with disease organisms into a plastic soda pop bottle and leave it in the sun all day. You can use a tinfoil reflector, or put it on a black sheet metal heat collector if you want to be fancy. The UV light and the heat kill most of what would make you sick.

This is a technique you can teach by well-phrased SMS messages. 5 million people a year die of dirty water, many of them children. SODIS won’t get all of them, and it’s not a perfect technique, but it’s easier to get people started on and odds-are many people who only have bad water to drink live in places with abundant sun and available discarded plastic soda bottles…

Can we create then a form of SMS services that serves these info once a day? This will be the equivalent as a-joke-a-day SMS service, but only much more meaningful :)

Reminding us to be happy: A great insight. Marketing needs to stop making us want things. Instead, they need to tell us why we should be happy in the things we have. In fact, marketing should help us rediscover the joy of freedom, the comfort in connecting with others, and the fulfillment of being confident. In order words, marketing needs to know that Happiness is a strategy.

Game industry threatening to sue their own customers: This is hilarious if not a bit sad. The game industry needs to know, as the music industry is realising, that suing is not sustainable. What they need to fix is the business model, not to screw their customers even more. Let's hope gamerenkei can teach them a thing or not.

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