willw.net

On Wednesday I competed with three great team members in the Telfer Business Model Competition. Up against 20+ really strong teams, we came out on top and won 1st place.

Our business BadServer.ca – which I like to describe as a dating site for restaurants and job seekers – is coming soon. We are moving on to compete in the Ottawa Wes Nicol Business Plan Competition this Sunday.

Jeramiah Hadwen, Dan Cardamore, JP Chartier, Scott Annan, Katrysha Gellis, me (Will Robertson), and Chris Jackson (Picture by Lisa Hoople)

Thanks to Professor Bruce Firestone for holding this competition; the judges Scott Annan, JP Chartier, and Dan Cardamore for seeing what we saw in the idea; and my great team Jeramiah Hadwen, Katrysha Gellis, and Chris Jackson for all their amazing work!

Eight months ago I wrote on here wondering whether the Meebo iPhone app was actually ever going to be released. Today the waiting has finally paid off – it is here!

Things I noticed

• Log in with your Meebo account or register for one
• Maintains your buddy list groups like you already had
• View chat history
• Funny Meebo emoticons
• Add/Block/Remove buddies
• Push notifications work! (not sure how long it keeps you logged in though)
• Options to TURN LANDSCAPE OFF, auto-capitalize messages, timestamps, and sounds on/off
• Swipe between conversations to quickly maintain multiple conversations
• Lets you know your friend is typing

From what I can see, this app blows eBuddy and Nimbuzz out of the water. I have tried a number of other apps (IM+..) and they were unusable. Can not comment on Beejive as I never grabbed it since I was holding out for Meebo. Get this app!

Here are a few screenshots of the app in action:

My latest observation on the Gazaro Insider, the Super Bowl causes HDTV prices to Skyrocket!

One example: this Samsung HDTV jumped up $800 for the Super Bowl then immediately back down after the game.

Read all about it on the Gazaro Blog

Last weekend my roommate Neil dug out his copy of Wall Street so we could watch it again. This viewing was spurred by this great trailer for “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” – coming to theatres April 23, 2010.

Here is the trailer:

There are always people who trash sequels, but I will be rushing out to see it in April!

At the end of last summer I quickly created a classifieds website for Telfer students to buy and sell their used textbooks. Students often sell their books back to the bookstore at criminally low prices. TelferBooks would offer an easy way for students to cut out the middleman, and sell books directly, student-to-student.

Check it out at http://TelferBooks.com and let me know what you think.

As part of the ADM 3378 E-business course I did a group presentation on the topic of “Getting Started with E-commerce”. My part of the presentation covered domain names, web hosting, and e-commerce software. The presentation was very brief, only five minutes, and could not go too deep into these topics.

My slides from the presentation are embedded below or you can view them on DocStoc:

Getting Started With E-Commerce –

Having a cell phone is great, that is, until you get your bill. If you have every opened up a bill and found a ridiculous text messaging or minutes overage charge, you are probably looking for a way to avoid this! Rogers and Bjango have recently released two iPhone apps to help you keep an eye on these things.

Rogers My Account is an iPhone application for Rogers iPhone users (there is a Fido version too) to track their monthly data, text messaging, and voice minutes usage.The app also lets you view your statement balance and pay with a credit card. It is incredibly useful, however it is not the quickest or prettiest app.

Rogers My Account – Usage Screens

Rogers My Account – Balance, Payment, and the oh so slow Loading screen

However do not worry, there is a better solution! Thanks to the Australian iPhone development firm Bjango and their beautiful app Consume. Consume logs into your Rogers account and download usage statistics for you, displaying them in a wonderfully designed user interface. In addition to tracking your iPhone’s (or any phone account) data, text messages, and voice usage – it also displays your home broadband cable usage. If you have an iPhone and home internet with Rogers, this is a must-have app!

Consume – Internet Usage, Updating, and Mobile Usage screens

Consume – Settings and Add Account screens

Go get Consume now! If it saves you from a big Rogers bill, with many extra charges, it will have paid for itself in just one month!

Rogers My Account (iTunes Link)

Consume (iTunes Link)

A parade balloon of my favourite children’s book character Arthur. This video is fantastic, thanks to Derek who sent it to me.

Real Racing GTI is a demo version of Firemint’s game Real Racing, an incredibly fun racing game for the iPhone. However this is not your ordinary game demo. Nope. Volkswagen has sponsored the demo, featuring the new 2010 GTI as the only playable car.

This game is, as Michael Scott from The Office once said, a win-win-win situation. Firemint gets to upsell the full version, while likely making a pretty good amount off of the demo itself. Volkswagen gets to promote their cars with a really good game – compared to most sponsored games, and we all get to experience how great Real Racing is without paying for it (unless you get hooked like I did and need the full version).

BTW I wrote this post about a month ago, but every time I loaded it up to take some screenshots, I ended up getting sucked into a few races – that’s how fun this game is.

Screenshots don’t do it justice, watch this neat Volkswagen Commercial featuring the game!

Currently I am taking a course on E-business with Professor David Wright (ADM 3378). We had the opportunity to write an article for the Telfer School of Management’s E-business Wiki. I chose to write about URL Shorteners, such as Bit.ly. You can view my article embedded below from DocStoc or check it out on the wiki.

URL Shorteners –