Have you started ‘hacking’ on the iPhone yet?  We are pushing on the development pretty hard in preparation for iPhoneDevCamp next week.  The ajaxian folks have compiled several ‘notes and quirks’ with regard to development on the iPhone:

• Poking around the DOM, I don’t see any special objects, with the possible exception of window.offscreenBuffering (set to true).
• Bookmarklets work, although you have to go through the bookmarks menu to get to them.
• Safari crashes are handled gracefully - the main screen fades back in, and you can jump right back into Safari. It will then load page you were visiting when it crashed.
• Drag and drop, and other behaviors based on picking up mousemove events, don’t work. CSS-based element drag and drop doesn’t work either. Dragging one finger around the iPhone’s version of Safari causes the window to scroll, and that’s it. I assume that scroll events do work. I’m sure somebody is already working on a version of drag and drop based on window scrolling.
• For documents with no width set, the iPhone uses a default width of 980px.
• You do not get “mousedown” when you touch the screen. You get “mousedown” and “mouseup” at the same time when you release your finger. The “mousemove” event does not seem to fire at all. There is no way to handle double-clicking because that is the action for zooming, and calling event.preventDefault() doesn’t seem to override that.

Greg (in New York) and Robert (in Half Moon Bay) are eagerly awaiting the launch of the iPhone.  Both are waiting in line at the Apple store a full day before release:

[via]

The CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey, is blogging about the FTCs recent challenge to the company’s acquisition of Wild Oats.  Brad Feld reprinted an excellent example of how CEO’s can use blogs to get their side of the story directly to shareholders, consumers and legislators (I will reprint here):

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently filed a complaint challenging the merger of Whole Foods Market and Wild Oats. Whole Foods Market intends to fight this complaint in court. My blog posting provides a detailed look into Whole Foods Market’s decision-making process regarding the merger, as well as our company’s experience interacting with the FTC staff assigned to this merger. I provide explanations of how I think the FTC, to date, has neglected to do its homework appropriately, especially given the statements made regarding prices, quality, and service levels in its complaint. I also provide a glimpse into the bullying tactics used against Whole Foods Market by this taxpayer-funded agency. Finally, I provide answers in my FAQ section to many of the questions that various Team Members have fielded from both the media and company stakeholders.

As stated in our initial press release about Whole Foods Market’s challenge to the FTC’s complaint, we set an intention as a company to be as transparent as possible throughout this process. This is my first detailed effort at transparency. We will provide additional information as we field new questions and receive updates on the proceedings from the FTC and the courts.

The iPhoneDevCamp is really making some waves. I talked to a reporter from MSNBC about the event and have been trading voice mails with Business Week. Check out a few of the articles about the event:

The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW): Making the Web a Better Place for iPhone (06/20/07)
Wired: Hack Up Some Web Apps at iPhone Dev Camp (06/19/07)
iPhoneAtlas: Interview with Raven Zachary, founder of iPhone Developers camp (06/19/07)
AppleInsider: iPhone developers camp slated for early July (06/19/07)
Ars Technica: iPhoneDevCamp to whip developers into shape (06/19/07)
iPhonic: Unofficial iPhone developers boot camp to bring Web 2.0 apps (06/19/07)
A great way to muse: iPhone first shipment will followed by iPhone Developer Camp (06/19/07)
QJ.net Apple News: Make applications for iPhone at the iPhone Developers Camp (06/19/07)
intomobile: The unofficial iPhone developers bootcamp aims to bring us more iPhone Web 2.0 apps this summer (06/19/07)
iLounge: iPhone Developers Camp coming July 6-8 (06/19/07)
Mac OS Ken Podcast: 06.18.2007 Podcast (06/18/07)
Texas Startup Blog: iPhone Update (06/18/07)
Podcasting News: iPhone Developers Camp Coming July 6th (06/18/07)
TECHPopuli: Techpopuli Podcast #21 (06/18/07)
iPhone Atlas: iPhone developers conference to be held (06/18/07)
iPhone Matters: Introducing iPhone Developers Camp (06/18/07)
TechMeme: iPhone Developers Camp (06/17/07)
Business 2.0: Boot Camp for iPhone Developers (06/17/07)
Dylan Schiemann: iPhone bar camp (06/17/07)
My iTablet: Join the iPhone Developers Camp (06/17/07)
theiPhoneblog BarCamp, iPhone Developers Camp (06/16/07)
Big in Japan: iPhone Developers Camp! (06/16/07)
Digg: Introducing iPhone Developers Camp (06/16/07)

That is the question on Chris Brogan’s mind in a post he wrote earlier today.  Chris suggests, “It’s one thing to have a community of friends and an audience for your blog, podcast, or videoblog. It’s another thing altogether to have an activated community of people who will take action and bring about actual change at your request.”

In his post titled Activated Communities, Chris asks his community for help fleshing out his idea.  Ironically, the exercise to understand the concept of ‘activated communities’ will require that Chris’ community of social media people be ‘activated’.

How can you ‘activate’ your community?  We have talked about the idea of understanding your ‘higher calling‘ for sometime.  The idea is simple,

If you can determine what your company’s higher calling is you can direct your communication with your clients through this new channel. By working with consumers to answer this ‘higher calling’ the communication is no longer adversarial, but cooperative. Building a community around a higher calling can be very effective and fruitful for both the consumer and the company. You are no longer ‘company’ or ‘consumer’ but partners working toward a positive goal you both care about.

It is hard to simply ask your community to ‘Digg’ something for you if they don’t ‘digg’ it.  One surefire way to ‘activate’ your community is to build that community around a higher calling from the very start.  My question is, “can you activate any community around any idea?”  My theory is that most communities will activate around the underlying interest or ‘higher calling’ of the group (i.e. photography for Flickr), but activation will quickly dissipate as the ‘call for action’ becomes less and less topical. Obviously your friends will ‘Digg’ almost anything for you, but will soon tire of the activity if the requests continue outside of the communities ‘higher calling’.  Chris compiled this neat list of ‘tools’ for activated communities:

• A Digg account. - Use this for promoting stories and blog posts and podcasts that want higher attention.
• A LinkedIN account. - Build your own network, link it to mine, and then we both expand our awareness and our reach. Because if I’m seeking out someone in your network, I can now ask you to help me connect to them. This builds connectivity to people you might need to reach very quickly.
• A Twitter account. - To get the word out quickly. Re-twittering helps tons.
• A Facebook account. - I think groups on Facebook are a quick way to get mail out to people easily. It’s also a good opt-in / opt-out mechanism.
• A Flickr account. - What if some of our activation requires visuals? I guess you could add a YouTube account for the same purpose, just in case we want to shoot video.
• A PayPal account. Sometimes it’s just about a donation to a cause. When a friend says their servers are down because of bandwidth bills, it’s nice to be able to drop a few bucks in the till to help them over a hump. (Sometimes it *is* just about money).

The popular Consumerist blog listed 22 tips for getting the best deal out of Dell as leaked by a former employee.  Dell responded by sending a nasty legal threat.  The blogosphere responded negatively and Dell after spending the day thinking about their position said, “”Okay, we goofed. We shouldn’t have sent a notice.  To my earlier point, we appreciate the reminder from the community. Point taken.”

Clearly Dell is paying attention to its customers.  Ken Fisher noted that, ” The silliest thing about it all is that the 22 tips are by and large all well-known strategies for getting the best deal out of Dell. There’s nothing in the list that’s damaging to Dell or particularly revealing—at least, certainly no damaging than what could already be found on forums across the Internet.”  In any event, while it would have been smarter for Dell to have avoided the incident, they showed good judgment in their response.  WTG Dell…

This weekend we had a nonpartisan mayoral runoff election here in Dallas.  I supported Tom Leppert in the election and signed up at his website to have a yard sign placed in at my Greenville Avenue property.  Tom won the election, but I was pleased to find a short email in my inbox from Tom’s team thanking me for my vote.  Community efforts, like elections, are only possible through the efforts of community members, remember to thank them!

The Barcamp crew is getting together to create ‘iPhone Developers Camp‘ the week following the public release of the iPhone. Check out the wiki and get involved. If you would, Digg it for us here. The event (from the wiki):

iPhone Developers Camp is an upcoming gathering, inspired by BarCamp, SuperHappyDevHouse, and MacHack, to develop web-based applications and optimize web sites for iPhone. It is a non-commercial event, organized by volunteers, with attendance free to all. By the completion of the weekend event, a number of iPhone-ready web applications and web sites will be launched to the public. The event will be held in California, and out-of-town guests are welcome.

Attendees will include web designers, developers, testers, and iPhone owners, all working together over the weekend to improve the web experience for iPhone. Development projects will include both solo and team efforts. While some attendees will wish to work solo during the event, we encourage attendees to team up, based on expertise, to work in ad-hoc project development teams. All attendees should be prepared to work on a development project during the event. You do not need to own an iPhone to attend (although, a large number of iPhones at the event will make the development and testing process much easier).

Attendees will be able to:

• Create new web applications for iPhone.
• Optimize existing web applications for iPhone.
• Migrate Dashboard Widgets to web-based widgets for iPhone.
• Test and optimize web sites for iPhone.

The Big in Japan team let out a cheer today when Apple announced that we will get access to the iPhone via web applications.  Development for typical phones require complex SDK development, but Apple has decided to open the platform and allow firms like Big in Japan access the phone’s functions such as ‘making calls, sending emails while connecting to Google Maps.  It is not clear how the iPhone’s browser will expose the Domain Object Model to allow phone-specific functionality.  In a related move, Apple released Safari for Windows.  Presumably this will allow non-Mac developers to build applications for the iPhone without using an emulator.  Nice work Apple! [via]

It seems like a lifetime ago we shot the pilot for our television series called MotorSport Ranch.  The pilot aired on INHD and aired perhaps 100 times.  We shot the first season (13 hour long episodes) more than a year ago for air on Dish Network’s VOOM HD channel called RushHD (extreme sports channel for adrenaline junkies of adventure sports).The season premiere will, FINALLY, air tomorrow night on the RushHD channel on Dish at 9PM EST.  Don’t have Dish?  Me either (if you live in Dallas and want to host a watching party please let me know ~ I would host one but I have DirectTV).  We will be launching a YouTube version, but we are still sorting out the legalities of airing our own show (don’t get me started).

Ironically, the show got us into social media, ultimately causing us to create our social media company, Big in Japan.  I blogged extensively about producing the pilot in a blog called “How to create, produce and air your reality television idea.“  That blogging experience caused me to reinvent our own business as well as build a business around helping companies do the same thing.  In any event, MotorSport Ranch isn’t the Shield or Nip/Tuck, but it was fun project.  Who knows, maybe they will pick up a second season…

Oh and for those of you asking, “um, what is MotorSport Ranch?”

Synopsis:  At MotorSport Ranch, our members play neither golf nor tennis.  There is no pool.  We do not host Easter egg hunts.  Just fifteen minutes outside of the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, free from conventional big city confines, this rustic Texas country club boasts a 1.7 mile road course, club house and private garages for members.  Our well-to-do members race supped-up exotic cars, open wheel formula racers and track ready motorcycles.  The Club Pro is a professional formula racer ready take your driving to the next level. 

This is not a Hollywood set!  MotorSport Ranch has been a fully operational country club for racing enthusiasts for the past six years, run by ranch-owner Jack Farr, his trusted ranch-hands and the Club Pro.  Our affluent members are doctors, dentists, lawyer, jewelers, oilmen, and land-barons.  All are serious car racing enthusiasts who periodically escape the real world to compete in their dream cars, which range from Ferraris to Dodge Vipers. 

MotorSport Ranch is the setting for our one-hour, reality show of the same name.  Its well-heeled members are the cast.  As in “The Apprentice” and “The Bachelor,” we begin the season with twenty of our ultra-competitive male and female racecar drivers.  Each have agreed to have their on- and off-track lives filmed in exchange for a chance to win a place on a professional racing team.  Ala “The Apprentice,” our Ranch-owner, his trusted ranch-hands and the Club Pro offer accolades, impart advice and eliminate competitors. 

Each week, we profile MotorSport Ranch competitors and showcase their coveted cars or motorcycles.  Viewers watch members train, socialize, and compete in on- and off-track competitions.  The final segment of the each episode, “The Show Down,” features remaining members in a two-part competition.  Part one is a sponsor-driven event; for example FedEx might provide trucks for each driver to race around the track or Jiffy Lube might provide the drivers with oil changing stations where each driver would have to change their own oil.  Part two is a highly competitive trial of speed.  The winner would receive the penultimate trophy, his moment in the spotlight and a full week of bragging rights.  Most importantly: he, alone, would receive the XM Radio (or other appropriate sponsor) immunity “idol” providing him immunity against the episode’s elimination round. 

On the season finale, one driver will prevail and be awarded The Title, hailed “MotorSport Ranch Champion!” and given a highly coveted spot on a professional racing team.  Tease: He (and perhaps others) will return next season.

Maybe it’s just me and my service provider (probably not), but in the last few weeks many of the Web services I’ve come to rely on are having downtime issues. It’s one thing to see a new service like Twitter go down (regularly. often.), but it’s another thing to see a solid, existing business like PayPal go down mid-day on a Friday. Or Flickr (run by Yahoo) running slower than cold molasses. Or….

One of the great things about the Web 2.0 "movement" is the ease with which a Web service idea can be realized. Have an idea? Have a concept and a tiny bit of coding skills? In a matter of days or weeks you can have an application launched!

As fantastic as this can be, I also wonder if we’re simply setting ourselves up for disappointment. I’m beginning to really like Twitter, yet the service infuriates me with it’s near constant scaling problems (which is more a product of intense interest than bad coding). For as many of my financial transactions that go through PayPal, I’ve come to expect that it’ll be up and running when I need it. Flickr is my go-to community these days, but I only have a few minutes a day to check in, so speed issues make me skip it all together.

Certainly we’re in a new era, and like any new era there are going to be issues. But perhaps the bigger question is whether these scaling issues we (or at least me)  are seeing are a sign of a tipping point passed or simply of a new acceptance of poor implementation. I’m inclined to believe the former.  You?

After watching the "Viral Garden Top 25 Marketing Blogs" list for some time now, I feel lucky to see that this very blog has made the list… and at #18! To see the company I’m in makes me a bit misty. Seriously, Creating Passionate Users, Logic+Emotion, Brand Autopsy… these folks are the real deal and I’m right there tagging along. Wow.

Big thanks to Mack for keeping this fun project going. Now I’m just going to sit back and let the fat endorsement checks roll in…

…wait, what? That’s now how it works? Ah crap.