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Brain Brew

Apparently, ideas have been percolating within my brain, and I’m starting to enjoy the sweet scent of a freshly brewed plan. Let’s draw a cup and see what kind of roast this is.

Yeah, the Million Dollar Home Page got a lot of press in part because it was new and different. Ok, that by itself can’t work again. But, what if a new version had a unique, compelling concept behind it? Wait, compelling to whom? Well, it’s hard to be uniquely compelling to everyone ($1,000,000 would do it, but that’s been done). So, how about if we target the audience geographically? Hmmm, I see that some outfit called the Australian Million Dollar Home page put up a site, but yuck, it’s just a carbon copy with no originality, less functionality, and bad spelling to boot.

As it turns out, I live in a pretty unique and compelling town, with a fairly strong culture of antiestablishmentarianism. So why not do an Austin-specific version? That would be pretty cool, wouldn’t it? Hey, I could use Austin landmarks as a backdrop - no, wait - I could use their outlines and offer irregularly-shaped pixels. Yeah! I could use the 360 Bridge, some of the more interesting buildings, definitely the UT tower and the Capitol, and maybe something from 6th street and S Congress? It was actually my wife who suggested using the skyline, which made a lot of sense, shape-wise. OK - now we’re getting somewhere!

So, we now have a proven concept (pixel advertising) with a unique and hopefully interesting twist. We can market this locally in the real world, and globally in the aether world. It will be targeted and fun. The technology is pretty straightforward (at least for a web application developer) and within the scope of a single person. The potential upside is huge, but even if it’s not, it is still worth doing. If nothing else, this can serve as a showcase of my skills. Hmmm, my company is in a “transition phase”, which means I might get laid off at any time. Plus, we’ve decided to try for a baby this year, and we all know how much cash they can suck up. Hey, Alex Tew started his experiment to get money for his university expenses. I could do the same, but for my kids instead. Yeah, this is making some kind of sense !

Obviously, somewhere along the line the light went off in my head that said: Hey - I can do this! But even more crucial was the second light that read: Hey - I SHOULD do this!! The name of the site suggested itself from looking at the result of a bunch of little ads all mashed together. And so, towards the end of 2005, AustinMash! was conceived.

Mmmm, there’s nothing like a fresh brew…