Individual post from "Nothing In It"

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Software Idea

Flipping a coin is so old school. Instead, why not let a random collection of people on the Internet make your decisions for you?

This idea requires an interactive web site and messaging platform for the decision making, and at least one Internet terminal of some kind for submitting decision requests. For mobile goodness, terminal or terminals could be PDAs or phones or whatever, as long as they have the ability to upload an image from memory. Best would be the ability to take pictures with a camera and upload those.

So here's how it works: If we're trying to decide where to go for dinner, and I suggest pizza while you suggest burgers, instead of flipping a coin we pull out our cellphones. We both take pictures with our phones or choose pictures from memory. Then, we log into the web site and initiate a request somehow, such that we both log into a single request. I upload my picture and the word "Pizza." You upload your picture and the word "Burgers." These pictures can be of anything, though I predict pictures of heads and tail will be popular. The web site picks a random selection of registered users, and sends them a link to web page on the site via email or text message. This page displays just the pictures, and no information about the decision being made. Users pick one picture of the other, based on whatever criteria they want. Voting lasts for thrity seconds or so; only those paying attention get to participate. The web site tallies the results, then sends back "Pizza" or "Burgers" to us as appropriate.

Decision made! I hope it's pizza.

2008.10.01 at 12:00am EDT

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