selfie | Lawrence van Rijn

As it is said, like any good story this was set off by a joke. A girl (youthful young woman) I know asked me how you can tell if AI is installed on your phone. Like a red flag to a bull it was all I needed for the demon on my left shoulder to whisper in my ear “Go on you pussy” and off course I obliged the little sucker. I told her that I wasn’t sure how it could be checked on Android, but on iOS I only knew of one way (knowing she had an iPhone). So she went all in with ‘Cool, how can you tell?’ I told her. Hold the phone in front of her and ask ‘Siri, why am I single?’, if the front camera activates the AI module was installed. And she obliged by doing just that. It was fun all around and she caught on about 5 seconds later which got me the response ‘Lawrence, you dick’ and the demon on my right shoulder went ‘Nice!’. Such is life.

Yet this set of a chain of events in my mind. Disney (the old guy in a freezer) came into play as did somethings I saw during the week and my mind started to combine a few matters. The YouTube part were the video’s of these lookalike pictures in an NHL stadium was one, the second was Walt Disney with his ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall’ and the idea was set into my brain.

You see these videos have a 40K or more likings on YouTube. This implies that well over 5 times will have seen it. In addition in the video you see how the person of interest howls at being the ‘lookalike’ as does the audience. This implies that the interest is clearly there and the app does not yet exist (I checked). Now, not everything we like gets a like and that is fine. What we have here is tractions and that matters down this track. So consider an app where you see a mirror and the mirror is the reflection of you (via your camera) with the first button, now with some added filters (some added now and some added over time) people can make a picture of themselves to use in whatever. I use my image with a Charlie Brown filter which I have had for over a decade, but I know that if I come across another nice filter I will upgrade for longer or shorter time my image. Then there are online ‘social’ people who want to upgrade their image of self weekly.

Now we get to part 2, the second option is to press another button on the image with the mirror and the ‘mirror mirror’ part activates and the system will seek a lookalike online and reflect that one.

This would be hilarious at times and whilst you could activate options like Celebrity, anyone, sports, goofy and so on another lookalike could be found. Some will be awesome, some not so. With goofy we get that anyone with a beard could get an image of an ape. You get the idea.

This app is supposed to be fun and in addition you could add a reward setting. The reward is that as you spread the lookalike love you get a choice of mirror, frame and filters. You see whenever they share the image, it comes with a small reference to YOUR app (iOS, Android). Just a small reference at the bottom. This get YOU traction on social media and optional more and more downloads. To make this work you need to keep the price low (like $0.49). You think it is nothing. But it could mean the difference between 1000 downloads and 5 million downloads and that is where the cash starts flowing in. You see most people will not hesitate when it is a mere $0.49 and they will hesitate when it is $0.99, that difference is thousands of downloads and as you make the app better and better more people will come to your app and try it.

It is up to you to give the appeal that they will try it with a ‘Why not’ set of mind and $0.49 gets you that. As your solution is more fun, is better and gives them better downloads (without the link) to save their OWN image, they will use it more readily and gives more visibility as well.

It is a simple setting that the lower fee will almost certainly guarantee. You still need to make a good app, but that is up to you and the first one will reap the rewards of revenue. I have no time for this. I have other things I am working on and as such I am handing it to you my readers. To make something of this. As calculations go $0.49 minus the 15% that Apple charges gets you with 10,000,000 downloads 4 million plus. The better the traction, the easier the 10 million downloads are reached. The lower the price, the faster it goes and I reckon you can (if you make a good app) get a lot more than 10 million downloads. You see there is a lack of fun apps that gives you something to laugh at, a nice option to see yourself in another filter and a way to entertain friends. Then consider the amount of selfie lovers (for whatever reason) and the need to have decent filters come into play and in all this your app that came from a free idea will get you your house (or a new car) what would you do when you get an additional few millions? So have fun, be wild and offer the people something that gives them a chuckle or two. And I hereby fulfil the promise I made less than 24 hours ago.

Have fun and enjoy the rest of the week.

This started a few hours ago. I was in a conversation when a thought occurred. The idea would have merit, but I was amazed that no one has acted on this, not in years. The first culprit would be Ubisoft. They are so caught up in what they perceive to be innovation that actual innovation passes them by. They might be the biggest one, but they are not alone. In less then an hour I had the setting maturing in my brain. So lets take a look

This is the selfie system. A gamer can upload a selfie into the gaming portal, from there it goes to a server side processing module and from there it goes into the game. We have all these photo options. Yet, I reckon that millions of gamers would want to see themselves in Whiterun, standing in front of a dead Thunderjaw, standing in Gotham, being in Cyberpunk and some of these games would allow you to buy the postcard in the game (in Cyberpunk) and that postcard of you in the City Center could be ‘mailed’ to your game account, downloaded and you could put it on your social media. The funny thing is that this approach was an option 10 years ago. There are of course the funny flaky moments (an 21st century image of you in 9th century Bagdad), you name it, there are options.

The server-side processing module would be the IP of the gaming company and it could be applied to EVERY game they want to, and that one server-side module would be applied to EVERY game, so one module only and as the stage evolves that module just gets better and better. The portal might alter per game and per console, but there are already options with Sony, Nintendo likely too. PC had these options decades ago. The portal is the only one that might need adjusting for every game, as such every game will have a portal part, but that is actually the smallest part of all.

What baffles me is that no one has put this in place. Perhaps there are reasons and I reckon that there would be a need to set the legal premise that every uploader is legally responsible for WHAT they upload. Yet I do believe that this is a minor adjustment. It also corroborates with a thought I had years ago. To upload your image so that the character you play represents you. Wouldn’t it be great if you are the photo mode? I know that this cannot be done with every game, but a Nord in Solitude that looks like you? Skyrim has sold 60 million copies, that implies that well over 30% would want this. That is almost 20 million social media posts and those on multiple channels will show it everywhere. So why has no one considered and acted on this?

I refuse to believe that I am the first one, but the lack of actions on the other side (game developers) seem to imply that no one has seriously looked at that part of gaming. You see games can only exist as they cater to the gamer, that much has been a fact for decades. So what gives?

I will let you ponder that, for me Monday is only 14 hours away, enjoy the day you have.

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