If you are in NYC during September 22-24, this may be just about the coolest thing that you could do. The Come Out and Play Festival is all about street games in the middle of New York City. It is three days of play, talks, and celebration, all focused on new types of games and play. And when I say new types, I mean it. Check out some of the offerings:
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I came across Pink Choice the other day while browsing. I see a lot of these travel reviews sites popping up lately, but I thought this one was noteworthy simply because it specifically targets gay and lesbian travelers. The site has a clear interface and I can see it being much more useful than large sites like TripAdvisor if you are gay or lesbian. It just makes sense. Content seems a bit sparse as I browse through it, but I’m sure it is still in the beginning stages.

On a related note, check out this new, gay-friendly trip plan on TripTie: “A Feel for San Francisco” by new TripTie member Krippy.

Darren Barefoot of Geeky Traveller (a blog I frequent) just wrote a very kind review of TripTie - our first review ever! His blog is also syndicated on SFGate. Here is a quote:

“…The most Web 2.0ish of these sites, and the most interesting looking…It looks like quite a deep application–great for the obsessive trip planners.”

Thanks Darren!

That’s right, we’re in beta - “invite only” for the time being. Send me your e-mail address if you want one.

(Photo by: swearinglibrarian)

When starting a new business, it’s natural to want to get some help. It’s also natural to want to split things equally between yourself and a partner. However, the 50/50 split (meaning that 50% of the business belongs to you and the other 50% belongs to your partner) is a disaster waiting to happen. The best way to think about it is a person with two equally-sized heads; one head wants to walk one way, the other head wants to walk another. The result is a stalemate and no forward movement. The same can be said of a company with two leaders with equal say on all matters. My advice: figure out who the heart of the business is, then give that person more power to make the final decision.

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Listen to your testers, or else why have them? The comment I heard most from our alpha testers was: “I don’t get it. What exactly do I do on TripTie?” As an interaction designer/information architect, who has designed many sites in the past, this was a slap in my face. Have I lost my touch? Am I just too involved in the project to see clearly anymore? How could they not get it?

My friends consoled me: it’s probably a little bit of all these reasons; it’s a new concept; I probably am too involved to see clearly. And gosh darnit, I don’t think the homepage was helping either. Sure, it had trip plans up there front-and-center (well, on the left-hand side actually), but it didn’t have a clear purpose. It didn’t spell out the concept to the users, which is what you need to do with something new. So we re-designed it: the purpose can’t be bigger; four trip plans, dead center; and plenty of text below to describe why you should use TripTie. Check it out for yourself.

Customer service can make or break a company. Here’s a good example. In Eighty Days is hosted on Dreamhost’s servers in Los Angeles (in the Garfield Building, the same one where the MySpace facilities are located). This past month, we’ve seen outages like no other, downed websites and databases. I was really starting to question whether I should change hosting companies. Of course, I knew MySpace was having its problems, and therefore it was probably a broader issue, but seeing my friend’s site up (he’s also on Dreamhost) while mine was still down smelled of bad fish in NYC Chinatown on a hundred-degree day.

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