Why Angry Users are Good Business for New Twitter

A few days ago Twitter decided to re-dress its site in an entirely new interface that it claims is “an easier, faster, and richer experience.” I love that. I love an easier, faster, and richer experience. However, the folks at Twitter have opted to use a gradual roll-out strategy where only a limited number of users get to try the new Twitter. Eventually, everyone will get a look out the new outfit, but for now, only a few chosen ones are lucky enough.

And that’s cool and all, as long as you include me. But unfortunately, I happen to be one of those kids whose friends all still use Facebook and therefore, is stuck with a follower count of about 35. So I don’t exactly qualify as a VIP member, and so me and my miserable follower count remain trapped in old Twitter. Sob…
Still, despite the fact that I’ve joined the ranks of countless users, frustrated that they don’t get new Twitter, the site may be making a good business decision screwing with everyone.

Remember when the iPhone came out in its raw, primeval form? And remember how pretty much nobody could possibly get their hands on one, unless they camped outside of the Apple store at 3 AM? Do you really think the all-knowing Steve Jobs couldn’t have predicted that Apple would run out of iPhones within the first few hours of its release?

Obviously, he planned it.

Why? Because if only a few people can get their hands on it, they’ll be quick to flaunt their good fortunes. And what happens then? Well, everyone else just wants the iPhone even more because one of their friends has it.

As a matter of fact, it appears that Twitter is executing this same strategy to perfection with its new site. All the users who have gotten new Twitter are conveniently tweeting about how much they love it, making us non-new-Twitter users green with envy. Hence, when we’re finally invited to the party, the satisfaction will be so great that we’ll have the urge to, yes, tweet about it. And maybe, two Twitter users will be so happy about getting new Twitter, that they’ll actually talk about it (yeah, REAL talk) and a non-Twit will be listening in. Then, the non-Twit might even be so intrigued that she’ll join Twitter.

And soon, Twitter will take over the world. The end.

A New Product that Cracks Your Eggs for You

So last night, I was watching some TV and this infomercial came on. You know the whole deal— a way-too-enthusiastic voiceover, narrating a day in the life of an aggressively smiley actor. Yup. Same-old, same-old.

But for some reason, I just watch a little closer when an infomercial comes on, sort of like we all do when “the man your man could smell like” starts talking to us. I mean, c’mon. You gotta admit that some of the ideas that are advertised are pretty amazing. Now, I’m not talking about Vince’s Shamwow (which I own and doesn’t work) or Slap-Chop (which you can’t make an edible salad with).

I’m talking about stuff like the EZ Cracker. So apparently the EZ Cracker can cleanly crack your eggs for you, without getting any of the shell into the eggy part.

A lot of people know that I’m no cook. I couldn’t make a bowl of rice for you without messing something up. Let me tell you that on the grounds of fear of causing the apocalypse, I haven’t even tried cracking an egg.

Finally, there’s a device that looks like it can help me conquer my fears.

And looking at the device, it’s actually quite astounding what a feat in engineering this is. Basically, you squeeze a handle and that forces two rings that are gripping the egg, to suddenly separate. This spurs the eggshell to separate into two different parts, allowing you to watch as the yummy part, as it miraculously drops out.

What amazes me the most though, is the fact that it claims that it can crack an egg of any size. My question is how did they engineer this device so that the rings could grip onto an eggshell of any size, without applying too much or too little force onto the shell? Too much force would obviously crack the shell, while too little, wouldn’t grip the shell hard enough that the two rings could pull the eggshell apart.

On the other hand, however awesome the engineering is, I highly doubt that little thing could separate an ostrich egg. And the infomercial does claim that it can crack an egg of “any size”. I’d like to see who else scouts this error out and pursues another one of those stupid lawsuits.

Creative Condiments: The Infamous Costco Onion Dispenser

We know we're lazy when we need a specially designed machine to help us garnish our hot dogs. And what better way to make money then to cater to our work-shy needs?

That's the basis of Costco's famous onion dispensers. They're those big metal boxes that say "ONIONS" in big letters on them. And they're awesome.

All you have to do is turn a handle and out comes a stream of flavour. I can't believe we used to actually lift tongs and manually spread onions in the old. Hah! We were so naive back then...

But seriously, while it may seem like a very trivial little invention, having your onions neatly come out of a little machine lets us bypass so many troubles. I mean, with tongs, a number of things can go wrong:

1. You might take too much and then it’s impolite to put it back so you’ll just be forced to down a double helping of onions.

2. You might spill some. Then you’ll have to scramble from the condiments station before a Costco employee comes, making you feel guilty that they have to clean up your mess.

3. You’ll have a hard time spreading it properly. Usually, unskilled onion-putters just put a big glop on one part of the wiener, and then face the task of spreading the onions evenly with the yucky tongs that have gone who-knows-where.

So I was interested in what else the onion dispenser’s, manufacturer made. I did a little research on the company that makes these babies, Perfection Manufacturing, and apparently they specialize in condiment dispensers. Ketchup, mustard, cheese, you name it, they’ll dispense it.

Wow, there’s a company for everything these days.

Brilliant Business Ideas: Who Knew We'd Pay for "Collectible" Coins?

Yesterday, I caught myself submitting my blog to a blog directory. I was told that not doing so would lead to this page dwelling in relative obscurity for the rest of its life (sort of like Miley Cyrus’ brother). And obviously, I don’t want to be like Miley Cyrus’s brother.

So I put in the title of my blog, then the URL, then the directory prompted me for my “blog category”. So I was like, “OK, it’s ideas.” But scrolling through the dropdown menu, to my astonishment, such a category didn’t exist. So I thought of another one: innovation. Feeling proud of my ability to come up with such a great alternative, I went to select “innovation”.

But that wasn’t there either. Now slightly dejected, I thought I could get away with having “entrepreneurship” as my category, because I thought my blog might maybe encompass “business ideas”.

“Entrepreneurship” was one of the choices so I sat down and thought, “What are some good business ideas that no one gets any credit for, but are actually hugely successful?”

How about collectible coins?

Who knew that avid collectors everywhere would be willing to pay fifty, maybe a hundred, maybe thousands of dollars for coins with special designs imprinted on them? I mean, it’s understandable that ancient currency is quite valuable as a rare historical artefact, but whoever thought of simply manufacturing rare currency, just by changing up the emblems on their surfaces, is a true genius.

This means that we can mass produce different limited edition coins and expect people to pay big bucks for the privilege of owning any piece of junk, as long as it’s rare. Now that’s what I call a hot business banana pepper.