Picture a room full of kids with shitty attention spans. They’ve done their class work, had lunch, and took a nap. What do you have them do now? I know!
“Everybody, sit at the table. Here’s some paper, crayons, scissors, glue and a few sheets from old magazines. Draw a picture, make a collage, have fun…” Which means “I have nothing better for you to do, so keep yourself busy.”
And so the kids do, entertain themselves. They grow socially and express themselves creatively. A positive side effect, often unintentional. In the long run, it’s great and a very important moment for children to learn and experiment with art and being social.
So now there’s Mixel. If your an adult or just have access to an iPad and have nothing better to do with your time, sit at the table. Grab some scissors, glue, crayons, paper and a some scraps from a magazine. Play nice, kill time.
I love small local stores. Wether it be for nick nacks, foods, etc. I often want to approach very small businesses with my services as a web designer and developer but rarely do because it’s difficult to make the business case in terms they will appreciate.
Just now, I encountered a perfect business case. My go to Chinese restaurant has been sucking on the quality as of late, but wait! I can’t find their competitors menu’s. I typically toss them, because I’m loyal like that. Any way, how do I know which to call? What’s the minimal order amount for delivery? Sure Google maps gives me their address and number but am I really going to call 2 or 3 places to compare? No.
But since one of them has a website, no matter how shitty it may look they have a leg up. And in a world of 8 second or less attention spans that single Chinese restaurant has won my business. The way I see it, for every person that finds them online they stand to make at least $100 a year. 10 orders at a minimum of $10 for delivery. Which leads to word of mouth, and a potentially loyal customer base.
So take that Orient Garden, Hunan Express is up in this piece.
Got an email passively slamming friend Jeffrey Zeldman’s 10K Apart competition, because it allowed too many Kb’s, is a sponsored event, and “it’s been done before”. The email argued that the new js1k.com competition is more challenging and thus pushing developers to do more creative things. Below is my reply:
Very cool, though I’m not sure if that’s a fair comparison. js1k.com is pitching “pretty effects” with from what I can tell little to no practical use. While the 10K Apart competition is asking for not only visually appealing interfaces, it’s asking for purpose and usefulness. People are creating applications and games, not simply visual effects.
Ps. The 10K is not only js, it’s also html and images. Pps. The reason Js Libaries don’t and arguably shouldn’t count against you is because they are CDN hosted and so popularly used. Chances are, they are already in your cache from a visit to another website. Perhaps Google.com or Bing.com
