There’s so much left to be invented!

I love this video for so many reasons, and it makes me excited to be making digital things. There’s so many ideas left to explore!

From a game called Crayon Physics. [via Jackson Fish Market]

CommandShift3 Launches Today

A new project I’ve been working on with Darrell Silver, Erin Sparling, and Lee Semel launches today: CommandShift3.

It’s like Hot or Not, but for websites.

Started on a lark during a NYC Jelly session with Adam Varga, Darrell Silver, Dan Lurie, Erin Sparling, and Lee Semel, we’re really proud to open it up to the world today.

Much thanks to everyone who’s given us advice and support, including the celeb designers who recorded short videos we’ve hidden in the site for you to find. (Khoi Vinh, Matt Linderman, Taylor McKnight, Derek Powazek, Brad Smith, Ryan Sims, Dan Cederholm, Chris Messina, Ben Brown)

Great use of Email at Meetup.com

With all the attention on 2.0 tech and RSS and the like, people tend to forget that for most people, even the leading-edge, email is still the killer app for the Internet.

I wanted to share this example of well-thought email usage on Meetup.com

Meetup already makes heavy use of email once you join a group (sometimes too heavy) but I love what they’re doing to encourage you to join and create groups that don’t even exist yet. This is such a smart way to increase engagement among the users they already have.

You indicate topical interest, and when a meetup starts within X miles of your location, they tell you about it. Even better, their “Pledges” increases your commitment to the group and the likelihood that you’ll attend the meetings and help promote and grow the group. Beautiful.

Open Social — Here we go again…

Are people really going to maintain multiple sets of front-end pages for their web sites for Facebook, Open Social, etc.?

I think so, yes. I think any web site going forward that wants maximum distribution across the largest number of users will have a single back-end, and then multiple sets of front-end pages:

• One set of standard HTML and Javascript pages for consumption by normal web browser.
• Another set of HTML and Javascript pages that use the Open Social API’s Javascript calls for consumption with Open Social containers/social networks.
• A third set of pages in FBML (Facebook Markup Language) that use Facebook’s proprietary APIs for consumption within Facebook as a Facebook app.
• Perhaps a fourth set of pages adapted for the Apple iPhone and/or other mobile devices.

From Mark Andreessen, [via Lee Semel]

Four versions of every front-end! It’s worse than the great Browser (incompatibility) Wars of ‘99-’97. This sounds like hell.

Small Copy Changes Can Make a Big Difference (OS X 10.5)

This kind of attention to detail is what makes me *love* Apple. [via Daring Fireball]