Entries Tagged 'Innovation' ↓

Very cool quick little video about Web 2.0…

(via Dan Benjamin in email)

Procuring the Wii

It all started when Manton got a hankerin’ to get his hands on a Nintendo Wii. I don’t know if he considers himself a “hard core gamer” per se, but he is definitely a gaming enthusiast. After camping out all night at a Target store and freezing his wii off, he was finally able to procure one of the dream machines with a golden ticket. Question upon reflection…Does camping out all night and freezing to buy a game machine qualify one as “hardcore”. Yes, definitely, it does.

In a blog entry about camping out for the Wii, he writes:

I arrived at Target at about 9:30pm Saturday evening with a chair, blanket, Nintendo DS, and book. They would open ten and a half hours later at 8am the next day, but tickets would be passed at around 7am. Early line campers who had arrived at 3pm in the afternoon had a sign-in list to ensure there was no confusion. I was number 33 out of 60 confirmed Wii systems. By midnight, all the consoles were accounted for, and everyone who arrived afterwards was turned away.

Wii Transfer is Born

While the sports pack is incredibly fun (see the shot above of Manton and I playing tennis in his living room), Manton had a secret agenda when purchasing the Wii. He actually harbored a secret plan for world domination which he didn’t share with anyone, not even his own family. Over the past several months, his diabolical plans have begun to unfold.

The first version of Wii Transfer started out simple enough…it allowed you to convert a movie to the Wii format. Nice and simple and very useful unless you already own video manipulation tools and know how to use them. He couldn’t stop there of course, however…oh no…he went ahead and added the capability to back up your saved games. So this was a pretty neat tool already and he was feeling pretty jolly at this point, so he decided to join the ranks of Rogue Amoeba and offered a MacSanta promotion (hey, a PageRank of 7 ain’t too shabby as they say). This started to garner him some notoriety as a pretty generous soul.

An Awesome Power is Unleashed

Nobody really knew exactly how generous, however. You spoke and he listened. Like any responsible indie developer, Manton set to work on music and picture sharing over your local network. In the blink of an eye (well not really), Wii Transfer’s capabilities were bolstered and version 2.0 was released. The world has finally started to get wise to the joy that Riverfold is unleashing on the world. The real question is what will they think of next? I have it on good information that upcoming updates to Wii Transfer will likely shock and amaze you. They may even make you downright giddy.

If you are the proud owner of a Nintendo Wii (lucky you), please do yourself a favor and check out Wii Transfer. I can assure you that you’ll be glad you did.

Order Wii Transfer today (Special Pricing Expires January 31st!)

Ze Frank has been “discovered” by Hollywood. My advice to anyone signing him up…Get out of his way. The man is damn funny. Oh, and constraints are good. Look what he has done with a video camera and a computer…nevermind how much he has figured out about preparing/wearing fruit. I’d love to see Ze doing political commentary on Comedy Central during the 2008 election season or something.

I watch The Show (feed) every day, but I did not dress up my vacuum cleaner and take a picture. Although, I did consider it briefly. I’m not really sure if I am technically a sports racer or not, but I am definitely a fan. I did send Ze a book for Christmas as a small way of saying thanks for The Show.

In the article, Ze presents this koan to his potential advertisers:

If an advertiser wants to come into this space that I have, I feel like, No. 1, this is an audience that I value immensely, because they do incredible stuff. How do you value an audience who, when I ask them to dress up their vacuum cleaners, send in 1,000 pictures in 20 hours?

(link via SvN)

I can’t wait for the SXSW Interactive Web Awards on March 11th, because Mr. Frank himself will be hosting the event this year. Should be a hoot.