The iphone changed that, and I believe Evernote “the app” saved Evernote “the site”. Why write or text a note when you can quickly snap a photo? I spend my day writing notes to myself on a giant dry erase board. When I fill the board, I take a photo and store it away for future use.

If I happened to text a note or import text from a website to one of my Evernote notebooks, I can easily recall any word in the note or text using the snazzy search engine; Evernote will pin point the note and highlight the word or words I was searching for. Definitely nice.

But. Here is how you change a $1,000,000 site into a $10,000,000 million dollar site.

What I need from Evernote is the ability to search for specific words or phrases in voice notes. For example, I’m driving down the Airport Freeway, and I have a brilliant idea. I use my hands free headset and upload a voice note to myself. Three months later, I want to recall a certain section of that note. I remember saying “homeless man hustle,” and so I enter the phrase in the Evernote search engine. Evernote, in turn, pulls up the voice note and fast-forwards to that section of my note.

I love voice notes, and this ability would allow me to freely upload voice notes without precariously wasting minutes of my life rummaging through old voice notes looking for the “good stuff.” I also don’t want to be concerned with overextending my welcome and recording lengthy, verbose notes; I wouldn’t have to worry about that if I knew I had the ability to quickly find any and everything mentioned.

Evernote. Make it happen. Pronto. And watch the cheddi fall from the sky.

I”m suprised Palm didn’t incorporate Swype on their new Palm Pre device that is supposedly going to rival the iphone. If you’re going to have a chance winning more than one hand, you have to up the ante.

Dear Mr. CEO of Palm,

This was your chance. Here in Tokyo, we have a love/hate relationship with texting. Texting is a like an after school third grade track meet; everybody is moving incredibly slow. They are third graders.

Juice us up and slap a tank of Nitros Oxide onto our texting devices. You dropped the ball. You expect us to abandon or cast away our iphones. That’s like Tom Hanks giving Wilson the boot.

So, please refer to the title of this post for my closing sentiments.

Sincerely,

The Good People of Tokyo, Texas

 After spending 12 minutes watching 12 second videos, I began to feel extremely woozy. Most videos resemble people staring into their bathroom mirrors rambling incoherent nonsense. I am convinced that most people on the site think their videos are entertaining and provide a great amount of redeemable value.

Those people are wrong.

Only a small percentage of the human population have something awe-inspiring to say. Well, that’s not entirely true, but few people can convey such a message in such a short time. And maybe awe inspiring is too large a task, but most people lack the 12 second wow factor; that is why small talk sucks.

 Let’s take me for example. As much as my acting abilities favor those of Terrence Howard, if I’m alloted twelves seconds to attempt to record something meaningful, witty, or insightul, I’m going to end up looking more like Eddie Murphy in Meet Dave or Shaq in Kazaam.

I know my limits.

The only entertaining feature on the site is the 12second challenge. But I would much rather respond through the text based site, Plinky.

Final thought: 12seconds here and there, throughout the day, over the course of the year, easily turns into several days worth of nothingness, and I would rather be doing “something” other than all the nothing that is going on at 12seconds.tv.

I am a stealth gazelle. I repeat. I am a stealth gazelle.

Monthly, I enter ninja mode and tote my iphone, suped up with 2.0 megapixel camera with photo geotagging capabilities and third party integration, to the dreaded Blockbuster vaults, where the newest dvd releases dwell.

Mission:

Gather vital information for MPNQ (my.personal.netflix.que).

Course of Action:

The quickest way to disseminate one hundred thousand dvds avaible to movie watchers is not online; it’s on foot.

Scavenging online for titles is a laboriously tedious task. To save time,  I simply scroll through the aisles of Blockbuster (undetected) and snap photos of films.

Here is the problem:

Listen up Retro Netflix, Queuetastic – Netlfix Queue Managment, iPhlix – Netlfix Queue Manager, and any other obscure iphone app. developer who plans on delving into developing low budget Netflix phone apps.

Typing on the iphone should be avoided at all cost. I repeat. Typing on the iphone should be avoided at all cost.

It is equivalent to pecking. And Bond (especially a black Bond) doesn’t peck.

Here is the solution:

DVD recognition technology. While in my, let’s call it photoflix account, which I downloaded for 99 cents in the app. store, I take snapshots of DVD’s that interest me. Those photos are then cross referenced with a database of DVD covers.

 

Once the corresponding DVD is located, the movie is instantly added to my Netflix que and the crooked mouth bandits at Blockbuster remain unaware of my operative mission.

The app. would essentially work in a fashion equivalent to Shazam.

Cashflow:

Getting paid is easy. Pennies stack 99 cents at a time. And penny stacks are the first step towards paper stacks.

The first black Bond, signing off.

American Apparel

Times New Roman is unequivocally the greatest font of all time. 

In some intimate circles, it is known as the Martin Luther King, Jr. of typography.

 A font that speaks to the gentleman inside of all of us. Blogs and text messages take on a sense of class when crafted by the hands of the mighty Times New Roman. Unfortunately, Times doesn’t fit the aesthetic ambiance of this site.

No disrespect.

This font is our legacy. Let us pass it on to the next generation. It’s delivered iconic messages like “You’re fired” and “I love you.” It’s helped us say “Hello” as well as “Goodbye.” We will forever be indebted.

 As an ode to a timeless masterpiece, the great folks here in Tokyo Texas have teamed up with Skreen.com (the web2.0 pioneers of online T-shirt printing) to provide you with the first piece in our Spring “Font” collection.

Game recognize Game. This savy web2.0 site made this shirt possible.   The site provides artists and entrepeneurs  alike  the opportunity to create free online T-shirt storefronts. On their homepage they boast, “It’s as easy as uploading a picture, we take care of all the rest.”  That it is.

Here in Tokyo we are hoping for a David vs. Goliath or a Craig vs. Deebo outcome.  

If you’ve been sleep (and yes, I know that’s not grammatically correct, but I’m trying to keep it street), here is a quick refresher: ShopSavvy is an intuitive shopping application on the Android platform that provides price comparisons via the scanning of barcodes.

Also known as magic:

 These guys are helping put some technological bling on our dearly beloved Lone star. So show some love and vote. (click the badge below)

Windows cracked.

Common’s Universal Mind Control pumping out of the factory speakers.

an eco-friendly Six-Shooter on the dash.

And a tricked out iphone sitting in the cup holder.

Putting the Tokyo back into Texas.

Here is the problem:

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches suck. They reach a level of  intolerable disgust when you think about the “day old fettucini” that could have been. Or that half eaten Turtle Cheesecake. You went out of your way to ask for that marvel of modern technology, the to-go box, but after thirty more minutes of robust dialogue, goodbye handshakes and hugs, that little white styrofoam box was not  at the forefront of your mind. The entree was $14.95, you only ate two thirds of it. So you left $5 worth of fettucini behind enemy lines. Within five minutes, every inch of your table was swept by the nefarious busboy and all delectable remains were discarded.

Here is the solution:

If you’re at a restaurant that offers to-go boxes, you will probably be spending some time waiting to be seated near the entrance. What I’m waiting for is a (To-Go-Box) app. that allows me to pinpoint my location in the waiting area. After, I finish my meal and return to that vicinity, I receive a friendly text message that states, “Hey moron, don’t forget your food.”

I know this is a little sketchy (maybe really sketchy) when you begin to think about some of the possible hang-ups. What happens if you pass by the waiting area on the way to the restroom? What if you don’t have any food leftover, won’t you still receive an annoying text message? And, don’t forget, GPS is still lacking pin-point accuracy.

 

But like all great applicatons, beta stages and user reviews are where you find answers.

Million Dollar Question:

How do you make the cash, the cheddar, the cheese?

Well, at first, you don’t. It’s a free app. until you can work out the conundrums aforementioned.  After that, you charge 99 cents. Remember, the way you become a millionaire, is one dollar at a time.

Here is the problem:

Trying to find a Cinnabon kiosk, cleverly tucked away in the northern nook of a 115,000 square foot mall (1,000 yards from the Food Court so the Cinnabon exec.’s can provide cinnanomy sweet solitude from the forever lingering aromas of Lil Sicily’s secret sauce), is reason enough to settle for an over-priced, over-salted snack from Mom and Pop’s Popcorn and Pretzel joint. Because, after I try on a hoodie from the Gap (I gotta keep it street), the last thing I want to do is track down a mall map.

 

I have an iphone, which sits at the upper echelon of modern technology ; why do I need a measly, mall map. If I’m in my car driving through some obscure, newly constructed subdivision in east Dallas, Google maps knows exactly where I’m at. I don’t have to rummage through the back seat of my Grand Cherokee to find a dilapidated DFW city map. To be honest, I threw that thing away.

Here is the solution:

Create an application that locates the mall I’m in, brings up a map of that mall, and pinpoints my location. Trust me, I know it’s going to take some time to create a database of all American malls, so start with the nation’s most trafficked. As interests spreads, so will the multitude of maps.

The biggest obstacle is overcoming the horrendous ability of GPS to locate me indoors. This is evident when I’m in my car garage; as far as satellites are concerned, I don’t exist. I’m practically Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. But you’re the nerd, you figure that one out.

Million dollar question:

How do you get paid?

Create revenue by placing adds below the map. I know everyone hates the intermingling of apps and ads, but it would be beneficial for me as a shopper to know that American Eagle is running a special on hoodies (AE’s not really my style, but a deal is a deal). As the app becomes more popular, ads can be centralized to the specific mall that the shopper is in.

Violah. Now I know exactly where that cinnamony morsel of goodness is located, no more sniffing it out like blood hound. Let us feast.