Collin1000.com

Those are the 3 steps to launching a successful web2.0 app or website. Step 1, take an already existing idea. Step 2, Add new features. Step 3, do everything else better.

Mafia Wars/Mob Wars/Mobsters are now in copyright/Intellectual Property lawsuits against each other.

What this brings to light is each company trying to dissolve the other so they can be the one “big” mob style game. With 3 games with almost the same feature set and goals, they need to have a constant struggle to be the one users prefer. In the world of the Internet, If you do it better, you win. Take the big rise of search engines: Google did it the best, they dominated. Take webmail: Gmail came out, it did everything that hotmail and yahoo did, but it added new features, and did everything else better. Facebook, same story. It made myspace’s clutter look neat and tidy, and it continues to innovate and add new features, while Myspace now sags behind. The trick of the game is to keep making improvements. Bigger, better,  faster. (stronger) Innovation can go wrong as well, for example, FunWall/SuperWall -> Improve on facebook’s own wall. (Both of these apps have basically failed to exist in their original form anymore after the new profile update)

If you know of a way to make something better, you have an idea waiting to be profited from. Because lets face it, almost anything that will ever become a facebook app, or website for that matter, has “been done” -> All that needs to happen now is the continual improvement process. It is challenge, the need to compete, the drive to be the best, that will cause innovation in the world. Keep giving the masses what they want: just do it better than you did the day before. Much as a department store gauges customer satisfaction, web developers writing scripts or apps should have a metric to judge how well they satisfy the need of the users.

Competition is always a good thing. It keeps us moving forward. If there was only one forum system forever, we would all be stuck with that and whatever was invented for it. Thankfully, we have phpBB, IPB, vBulliten, and a host of others. With IPB and vB neck and neck competing with each other, they both continually improve on design and feature set. Facebook / Myspace also sees this, and that is where it shows that Myspace is lacking in the site management department. They saw how Facebook launched Apps, they saw all the problems Facebook had, and when they launched their platform it STILL did not do as well as FB.

Clone something (website or idea) out there. Innovate new features. Dominate the competition.

Authors Note: Yes, I wrote this at 2AM. Silly me. Follow me on twitter @Collin1000 for more random ramblings.

Have you ever been twittering with someone only to begin a long discussion, often finding that you need to move to a DM? Then finding that DMs are too slow or (oh no!) you cant fit things in that short limit? Or, need to tweet with many people at once? TwitChat is a new web service intended for use on mobile phones with twitter. It is the most basic, bare bones chatroom. Check it out for yourself! More upgrades are headed for it in the next few days, including an auto post to twitter, twitter login auth, and anything else I can think up. For now, here is the link to check it out.

http://collin1000.com/twitchat2/

Feedback is welcome either here in the comments, or tweet me @Collin1000

Super excited for the release of the new Green Day album, I logged on to my favorite music service, Rhapsody, to stream the album and hear all the tracks. (Awesome, by the way)

Then, this morning, I went to buy MP3 versions of my favorite songs off the album. I log in to the Rhapsody MP3 page and see that every song is priced at 1.29 cents - a change recently sparked by iTunes that was followed suit by Walmart, Rhapsody, Amazon and others. Well, this sucks, but I was fine with it - I figured I would just buy one less song off the album.

Then, lo and behold, I notice on the Amazon MP3 site that they are selling all the songs for only 99 cents!

When this new pricing system was announced, we were told that the new pricing was being set by artists, and, at their request, certain popular music would be hiked to the new 1.29 price.

Now, sure, some of their pricing *kinda* lines up… but I still find out of every artist I look at, there are always songs that are cheaper at one over the other. Jamie Foxx has some songs/albums cheaper at Rhapsody, others at Amazon.

To be fair, there are many songs that the prices are the same on, such as Billy Joel’s album: The pricier tracks are the same on Rhapsody, and Amazon.

Rhapsody shows all the tracks by one of my favorite artists, Matchbox 20, at 1.29 - and yet Amazon is selling all the same tracks at .99!

The trend continues with the Black Eyed Peas as well.

So what is the point of this? I think that this new pricing system is a complete failure. The pricing should go back to the old way where EVERYONE sold music for 99 cents. This new system is OBVIOUSLY being abused by sellers such as Rhapsody. Stop ripping me off!

Overall, I have to say I am pretty frustrated and annoyed that the pricing changes we were told labels would set seem to be totally inconsistent. Amazon tends to have the lower price, while Rhapsody is charging the obscene price of 1.29 on their tracks. For now, im going back to Amazon for my music needs - where I just purchased the full album version of Green Day’s new album, 21st century breakdown. (And I saved $6.82 on buying the full album from Amazon compared to buying it from Rhapsody)