1. Universal Loyalty Card -- I was thinking about getting my semi-annual haircut today (Isabel has taken to binding my hair in various tails as I play Plants vs. Zombies), but then I remembered at some point being handed a Hair Cuttery card. No idea where I put it. At this point, I have a SuperFresh card, a Giant card, a Panera card, a Toys R Us card, a K Mart card, a CVS card...and on, and on...I almost have enough cards for a game of poker. And it's not like the cards actually do anything. They just keep surveillance of my purchases and send me occasional coupons. It seems to me that the market is ripe for someone to propose a Universal Loyalty Card -- something that you can swipe, scan, or flash anywhere. You'd just have to find a way to register your stores on the card so it would no where to send the data. Any of my tech friends want to get on top of this?
2. The Arcnasium -- I will spend a lot of time "grinding" in RPGs. The current addiction of choice is a freeware game called Spiral Knights. Isabel and I are doing a kind of buddy system in the game where we split our winnings after dungeon crawls. Anyway, if I spent the same amount of time building up my actual strength and dexterity that I spend building that of my fictional avatar, I would be a superman. Now, there are some games that have tried to marry exercise and experience points. Pokemon had some kind of Nike-Plus type device (Penny Arcade had a good comic about it), and I've read there is now a site that will keep track of your exercise and give you "achievements." The problem with these kinds of systems is that they largely work on an honor system. If they were ever linked up with an actual online games, overweight hacker-gamers would just find ways of hooking up their devices to paint shakers or treadmills to earn points without doing the work. That's why I would propose the Arcnasium -- an arcade/gym hybrid where "referees" could keep everyone honest. The points you earn exercising in the Arcnasium would then be uploaded to some affiliated online game.
These are awesome ideas. They would totally work. All I'm asking for is a cut of the profits...or a potentially long, protracted lawsuit against anyone else you successfully executes them.
I have seen The Social Network.
Comments