Saddle up your horses, we got a trail to blaze

Over at Mashable I caught site of a service called RT2Buy (from company Twitpay) which is hooked into Twitter and PayPal, allowing purchasing and money transfer over the space of 140 characters. In exposing platform upon which people could build services early on, Twitter made a very savvy move which puts it head to head with the likes of Facebook, Microsoft etc. in more ways than one.

While people continue to duke it out at a site level, I'm super-bullish on the browser-as-platform. Instead of waiting for traffic to reach a site before it is meaningful, the experience remains with you regardless of where you travel to online.

I commented over at AVC acknowledging the barrier to entry that exists for browser extensions, and said perhaps application developers for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms will find interesting ways to extend the experience into the browser.

My thinking is a popular game on Facebook could potentially be extended into the browser and played when not actually on the site. Yes it is the long way around, but I think the fix will arrive via a combination of it being relatively easy to do AND having it heavily incentivised. Games, photo-sharings apps etc. already with a large audience on Facebook seem to be like the most direct path at this point.

This ties back to my whole thing about seeking out great digital work that is uniquely digital; that is to say, taking advantage of the things you can do with digital platforms that you can't do with any other. There are ways we can open the browsing experience up that will appeal to a mass audience.

Whoever figures that one out is going to have a handle on a wide open space that leapfrogs everyone.

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Image courtesy of Eduardo Amorim with thanks to compfight.

Say "I love you" with...a pink iPod?

I receive Apple's regular newsletters pointing me to all manner of wares available in their store pretty regularly. I haven't unsubscribed, and I don't really know why. I'm not big on impulse purchases and I read enough to be well aware when a new product has arrived or is at least about to. On top of that, while I'm completely trading in traditional notions of gender stereotypes, as a guy I do not want a pink iPod. I'd be interested to know if women received a newsletter pushing a blue or black iPod for their male counterparts, but I somehow doubt it.

The iPod itself is a hard sell as a Valentine's Day gift, one that screams "Holy shit, I'd better get them something!" For anyone who has taken this option and is now reading this thinking a grave mistake has been made, take these helpful tips:

1. When you order it, get it engraved (Apple do this for free via their online store, it takes less than a week to arrive)


2. Open it up.


3. Pre-load it with:
   
   
   
   1. Songs you know your partner loves or have significance in your relationship
   
   
   2. Photos of the two of you, your friends, family members, etc.
   
   
   3. TV shows you know they love (you'll be surprised how clear the iPod screen is)
   
   
   
   


4. Buy them a decent pair of headphones as well, as the iPod ones won't last long; I recommend these from Seinheiser, roughly AU$80 and a great investment 18 months running)


5. An optional extra is the Nike add-ons for those with particularly sporty partners, be careful this doesn't get turned into a suggestion you think your partner needs to lose a few pounds - this slippery slope is harder to navigate than you think it is.

As a complete aside, I just unsubscribed from the Apple newsletter. Upon reading my opening paragraph, what choice did I have? Now in my sights: Border's, Go Daddy, eBay. How many newsletters do you receive which you have no intention of ever acting on?

Update: Paypal just copped it as well. I'm reclaiming my inbox and nobody is safe!