Hackaton Part 1: Ideas

by Kyle David on December 23rd at 1:16 pm EST

This afternoon in the midst of our holiday lunch and half day we had six people present ideas for hackathon projects.  Each person had a total of five minutes to make their pitch on their idea, their revenue model, their promotion strategy, and adherence to the guidelines set forth.  After the presentation, each idea received five minutes of question and answer time followed by ten minutes of open discussion.  After the open discussion the ideas with the most support were deliberated and a winner was selected by a slim majority. 

The ideas were:

Dislike Button – A website for which content that was disliked instead of liked as Facebook would insist upon.  The website would require users to submit content and instead of showing the most liked sites, content, pictures, videos of the day, it would show the most passionate distain for the item.  This would intentionally combat the lack of enthusiasm it takes to “like” something and provide a polarizing opposite opinion.

“Really” Like – A website and widget that would allow users to have a finite amount of “likes” in a certain time period of based on the number of people that agree with them if they are early adopters of content.  This would encourage users to be more discriminatory in their use of social bookmarking.

Made In the USA – This idea was targeted toward all consumers that are looking to show for products that are truly 100% American made.  Though the site wouldn’t sell anything, it would serve a great gap in the market, but listing those items that are American made.  With the possible use of mobile technology it would allow users to “tag” items in a store if they see that they were made in America.  Ultimately it looked to become the Wiki of American made products.

Tweet Battle – A website that would allow a user to input two topics (i.e. Jersey Shore vs. The Hills) to see which topic receives more tweets as well as serve as a forum for opponents (particularly in the sporting world, sorry Snookie) to smack talk during an event in a live feed format.

Online Scavenger Hunt – One of the more outside of the box ideas was to create an online scavenger hunt with a prize at the end.  Users would be led through a myriad of websites to ultimately determine the final destination.  First user to the end wins the prize and the site collects revenue with advertisements along the journey.  The first puzzle:

valkyrie dup dog
ruglike davy pod
kludgy rapor die
lurked ivy go pad
keypal void drug
darkly vogue dip
porked valid guy

Can you solve it?

Twitha.com – Similar to textsfromlastnight.com the website will compile a list of the funniest tweets of the day by using the retweet feature and display them by timeframe, type, retweets, etc.  The site would use an advertising model to generate revenue.

Ultimately, the final two ideas that stood were the tweet battle and twitha.com.  After fierce deliberation and a lot of questions and answers, the final idea to be developed will be twitha.com.  Much more to come on Monday when we return and the fun begins.  In the meantime, don’t be bashful about sending along your funniest tweets @kyledavidgroup.  My favorite so far:

@BorowitzReport:  After Santa leaves, Julian Assange comes down the chimney and opens all the presents.

Happy Holidays!