MLM and developing countries

It must be the desperation to escape from the shackles... I have observed that MLM scams become huge only in developing countries... 

I remember a relative trying to persuade me to sign up for a gold coin MLM scheme in 2003. I went to a huge mass rally just to please him.. He was a bigshot in that MLM organisation.. In that rally they were boasting how that MLM was so popular in Sudan, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritria etc.. And I was going WTF!!.

There is a behavioral economics PhD thesis hidden somewhere in this...

The killer - EVERYBODY in India who signed up for that gold-coin MLM came out ahead... Because the price of gold appreciated 300%!!! Haha...

The most brilliant idea ever

Make a Rubic's cube where you are able to cycle the colors of the each cell by pressing on it. You should be able to impress a lot of people after that.

Can somebody create this application

Here's an interesting new application idea - An application that can take Google Reader shared items and post them to a del.icio.us account.

I save a lot of my shared links using the Google Reader shared items feature. But I would also like to post them as a "daily post" onto my blog, automatically. The blog is the central repository for all my online activity. This auto-posting is possible if the links are in del.icio.us, as there are lots of services (like feedburner) that will summarise my del.icio.us posts for the day into a blog post.

So the missing link here is a service to take my shared items from google reader once a day and post them to a del.icio.us account, along with my comments (if any provided in Google reader).

So,
INPUT ---> Google Reader shared items feed url, del.icio.us username/pwd, Time when this posting should be done
OUTPUT ---> Postings to del.icio.us

I am sure there are lots of people like me wanting this kind of service. So if you build this application, it could be a way to get some publicity for your coding skills (or your own company) among the blogging population.

Idea for a fun new application - George's answering machine

I am a huge fan of Seinfeld. Best TV series ever!

Had this idea when watching some episodes a few days back. There is this episode where George Costanza has a really super answering machine/voicemail message. Check out this youtube clip.

I can't get it out of my head now. It permeates every sense of my being. I keep humming it to myself in the train, in the office, at home, in the gym...

I am sure there are lots of people who would like to set this song as their answering machine/voicemail message. So the application I am thinking about is one where I can go to a website, type in a name in a textbox, click on submit, and an mp3 is generated with my name in the message instead of George's. Then I can use this mp3 with my phone company's voicemail.

Yeah, this does not sound easy. But with somebody experienced in audio programming, it should be pretty simple to write a program to splice together a pre-recorded track and a name pronunciation track. I guess a library of naming pronunciations is needed which would be the tough part.