Gavin Baker

The other day I went to the website of a restaurant I wanted to make reservations at to get the phone number – while there I noticed they had a OpenTable icon indicating they used that for reservations.  I called and made my reservation, but that to scratch an itch I downloaded the OpenTable iPhone app to explore the app and the service.

I launched the app and I saw the screen below….and I’ll admit it hit me like a ton of bricks – it’s called OpenTable because it’s about finding an open table.  It’s primary purpose isn’t a “new” way of making online reservations, it’s that in a busy city full of bustling restaurants, I can easily find what restaurants have openings in a few easy steps.  Beautiful.

(more…)

I saw that two guys here in Knoxville I’ve connected with via email and twitter in the past couple weeks, Patrick and Casey have launched a new project. It’s called Knox’d.

I’ll let Patrick’s description stand on it own.

Information seekers in Knoxville, TN have a new way to get the latest headlines and information from the best of the city’s Web sites. It’s called Knox’d, and it is my latest side-project I developed in partnership with soon-to-be fellow Scripps project manager Casey Peters.

Knox’d has one goal: to aggregate the latest news and information (including jobs, real estate and classified listings), in one location. It seeks to fill the technology gap between the folks that use RSS (me), and the folks that don’t.

The site uses a format very similar to one like Popurls, or Alltop.

Eitherway, it’s very cool to have our own local feed aggregator and I’m fortunate they’ve chosen to include my blog in the listing (thanks guys).

Check it out!

Tom Cotes, who gave the best explanations I’ve heard to date for why it’s important to think outside of your own little sandbox. Succeeding online means thinking about how to take advantages of the network rather than just simply trying to build the best website.

I love this quote.  In fact I’ve printed it off and put it on my wall.  The Internet has changed and is changing and while it’s always been a network of computers, it’s moving toward a network of interconnected people and websites.

So in building a website or revamping one, the question can’t be “how do we draw everyone here and keep them here” but how do we produce content, or features that fit into the daily lives of Internet users?

Now, there might be some Goliath sites may not have to conform to these new “rules” as immediately because of their sheer magnitude, but take newspapers for example.  Here in Knoxville our local paper is owned by Scripps, and they’ve attempted to bring about a  social-media-esque way of working with the news.  They didn’t do this because this is what they were used to. They do it because they have to do it to compete.

For Abunga this means, where and how can we leverage the power of the network? It involves asking, is this feature networkable?

We’ve got a great site, but how do we plug into that network so it’s easier for you to use us?

What do you think?  Is he off base?  Am I off base?