I’ve become a fairly regular redbox user in the last couple of months. Many of my friends use netflix which I hear has great service and selection but I just don’t want to commit spending the money each month instead of having a little more control over it.
Anyway, I was thinking recently about how redbox could make the experience a little more social. Movies are a hot topic for discussion amongst friends and I think redbox could integrate some existing social tools to help start those conversations online.

• What if you allowed redbox to connect to your Twitter account? Basically every time you rent a movie it sends out a “I just picked up Caddyshack from redbox!” With twitters new metadata advertising additon they could possibly make a few bucks as well. Check out Robert Scoble’s post on Super Tweets for the idea.
• Let’s say you rent a movie one evening and write a review on flixster or another site. Maybe your redbox account could track the movie reviews that you write and send you suggestions.
• What if redbox had a facebook app that was alerted when you rented a movie and it shared it with your friends. Maybe you could suggest the movie to your facebook friends that you know would like it.
• Couldn’t redbox give you a free movie if you became the mayor of a machine on foursquare?
• If redbox changed the protocol for renting a movie and you signed in with your account first, they could deliver suggestions and options for sharing right there on the screen to make it super easy.
• At this point redbox could link their twitter account to the machine so you could tell them what you thought of a movie, or if you had issues with it. Easy customer service and feedback.
• Speaking of that, why don’t they have an easy way to get in touch with customer service on their machines?
• An onscreen link to IMDb would give you access to much better info than what redbox themselves offer for each movie.

Just some thoughts, wonder if anything will ever come of it?

Today’s thought in the shower stemmed from the foursquare updates I’ve seen lately. I only have a few “friends” on foursquare but I started noticing patterns in the places that people visited.
Could apps like foursquare or gowalla be used to track your habits?
Let’s say you are trying to save a little money (aren’t we all?). One of the best ways to do that is to figure out where your money is going and see what can be cut out. If you make it a point to check in every time you go to starbucks you will create a simple way to track your spending. Same applies to convenience stores, bars, etc.
Maybe someone smarter than me will develop a site that maps out all of your stops by day. Then you could use that to figure out a better route or schedule to save time and money.
Of course there is another way to go about it too. Maybe you can talk your favorite snack stop into giving the foursquare mayor a deal, visit more often, get your fix and save money at the same time!
I think it could be an interesting glimpse into your daily habits to use these as tools instead of just a game. And of course, checking in at every stop will put you right to the top of the leaderboard in a hurry…..

My Wet Dreams series shares my wondering thoughts that pop up every morning in the shower. But- I didn’t think this up in the shower…..this one came last night as I was lying in bed watching TV.

I started thinking about some of the folks that I follow online and tried to nail down what it was that kept me interested. Now of course there has to be some good ideas, interactions and something of value to keep our attention in the online world with all the noise out there. But I noticed one major trend in the blogs that I read. Their authors all have fairly unique names, or at least names with a good cadence and ring to them.

Think about it, if my name was Jon Smith I would be competing with thousands or tens of thousands of other Jon Smiths for recognition. But when was the last time you heard of two Gary Vaynerchuks, Seth Godins, Baratunde Thurstons, Chris Brogans or Clint Jollys? (Thanks mom and dad!)

It seems that in the world of online branding, your name can become one of your greatest assets. This is not to say that you can’t become well known if you are a Jon Smith, just that you have to work hard to separate yourself from the other Smiths out there. I’m wondering if anyone thinks of this when naming their child, is there any sense in starting the “branding” process pre-birth?

To add to this, one of the first blogs I read this morning was Maren Kate’s posting about her name, quite serendipitous actually. Her post discusses how she views her name and makes it an advantage in her business. Solid thoughts behind this for using your name, regardless of it’s uniqueness, to convey a message.

Who do you follow/admire that has a unique name?

So this morning’s shower thought came from a conversation last night about this season of American Idol. I’m not a real fan, I watch highlights on YouTube and that’s about as far as it goes, but my roommate watches every show.
He told me about a guy named Andrew Garcia and we hopped online to see other things he had done. He has a ton of vids of himself and other young talented musicians online.
This got me to thinking, we not do an online version of American Idol? Have the contestants submit videos of themselves performing and let the public vote them up or down, give critique, etc. Run it through a few rounds to get to the finalists and then they submit new videos with new songs. Check out Quirky for this theory in pratice.
If a record company got behind the idea and offered up some kind of deal to get the musicians recorded and distributed I think you could attract some serious talent. And I the winning person got there from 500,000 people voting him to the top, you could assume that at least 100,000 of those folks would pony up money for the album.
I did a little googling and couldn’t find anything like it on a big scale. Have you ever heard of something like this? Would you jump on board and watch the videos and vote to see your favorite amateur musician?

Catchy title, no? It’s not those wet dreams you dirty kids.

You see, when I started this blog last year I had a couple of goals in mind. The biggest goal was to have one central place to collect my thoughts and maybe get some feedback from people in the process. If not feedback, then at least some folks would come to know me just a little better which would make those ever diminishing face to face meetings a little more interesting. I planned to write something here everyday, no matter how insugnificant or life changing it may be.

Well it’s been207 days and I have 22 posts, 5 of which are still drafts cause they are incomplete….

Last night I set a repeating to-do to remind me to write here everyday and my mind reeled as I tried to find a muse for daily postings. It didn’t come.

Then this morning in the shower as I was outlining my day the blog was the first thing to pop into my head. It hit me- since I shower everyday, and I want to blog everyday, why not write about the silly things I think up in the shower? It may not be interesting to anyone, it may me a little off the wall or far fetched at times but it will satisfy the goals I set forth when I started blogging.

So there it is, my first “wet dream”…..