Four Click Freedom

It kind of struck me today how easy it is to protect myself in China.  Everyone else who wants to copy me can, because it is just as easy for them to protect themselves as well.  But the thing that is most important impediment that must be in place is to at least keep out your competitors.  Yes I say that everyone can copy a Clickboard, but that they can not copy my logo.   Big deal they will still copy my logo and my moving pointer ‘clicker icon’.  I mean the little hand pointer that moves back and forth encouraging people to click, well I guess that is a given and everyone is going to have to use that.  And the little star at the end saying that the coupon will connect them to Clickboards.net, well they might use that too.

And if in the end they do connect the coupons and discounts to my site what am I to do.  Especially if someone keeps redeeming more and more coupons.

Well if in fact I find the technology to tag the coupons that are sent to my site, well guess what, they will also be tagged.  Just like the users who log in to my site, the coupons themselves when connected to my site will have to be logged in.  They will go into a bay at first to be authenticated.  After a few checks for multiples and validity they will then be sent to the users account.  This is in fact the downfall of my site.  Pre-authenticated Clickboards being sent to users profiles so they can earn points and basically live for free.  The bay is the most important element.

But if in fact mobile coupons and Clickboards do in fact get sent to my site there will be no problem.  What you have to see here is that websites will eventually be talking to one another.  There is no more static, there is no interactive, there is now multi-active.  Meaning you will be on more than one website at once.  They will be acting together to produce an end product. All from different suppliers, all for different users.

Just like credit cards verify account balances, websites will be updated continuously based on input, and the output will at the same time be updating a third site, or the congruous site which is the harmonious extension of the site that you are currently experiencing from the meld of sites which you are viewing.

Keeping people out is not a problem.  Having multiple sites acting together is.  But for now, you can practice hacking me when the site is ready, I enjoy the attention and don’t mind the mess, I have time to clean it up and learn from the experience. Hopefully this will happen in the beginning, but that is still a couple months down the road.

Well if there is a market that needs to be broken into, it is the mobile market.  Daily I read about the big dollar numbers being thrown at any company that says they can tap into this sector and provide results.

Well my oldest friend just looked at my site the other day.  He only looked at it for five minutes according to my Google Analytics, but anyway he went to at least five pages and got the idea within minutes.

He had a break through though.  His idea was to incorporate Clickboards outside the Internet.  He was saying each add would have a PIN number.  Now this is already true in my case to catalog the ads.  However he was a little more dynamic.  His example was for a 50% off coupon at the Gap.  You would text 50OFFGAP, to put it simply to your online account number.  This is much like Twitter and will most assuredly be one of my first projects after putting the website in place.

I just need to find out what number they text the promotion code to have the discount stored automatically on their Clickboards.net account.  Research Twitter more now, not that I would still know how it works from the inside.

It is really easy.  I have actually come up with two different ways to make a Clickboard, both using Flash.  The first uses multiple scenes.  What you do is set your canvas size the the size of the banner you are making.  Then in four separate scenes you cover the canvas in a button.  The buttons as stated lead the sale progressively through the scenes.  And the buttons can be as extensive and complex as you can imagine with Flash.  All that you need to do is put stops on each scene and then link each button to the next scene.  The final scene will be the button that connects to the URL Clickboards.net.

The second method uses one scene.  Here you use four key frames and put stop actions on the key frames.  The click action will then allow the Clickboard to keep playing.  The final frame is again the URL action.

Basically one method uses the button to create action and the other uses the key frames.

I personally am not an expert and my rudimentary method is still in the research phase of asking questions a lot.  I wish I was back in Flash class and I would have my first Clickboard done in about forty-five minutes.

Oh yea and the reason people know they can click on these banners with buttons is because my icon will appear in the lower right hand corner of each button or step in the scene.

Go make one now!

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Great news, I think I am going to be able to do the Clickboards.net locally here in Tianjin.  This new portable receipt printer that I found makes everything happen.  Basically as long as their is a computer in the restaurant this will work.  And from what I found there always is.

The printer is programmable and every individual one you can upload the store logos and id for the printer onto it.  Then by simply having linked to the computer through IrDA, Bluetooth, Infra-Red, or WLAN the coupons from Clickboards.net can be printed for the store at the store.

Currently I am thinking all discounts that the user has for the store will all be printed and then they will have to select at the table or check out which ones they want to use.  The store keeps the copy of the used coupon(s) and the user takes the rest home with him.  He can re-enter the coupons back onto his profile when he gets home with the pin number for the coupon.

But better yet, this portable printer has the option of coming with a magnetic card and smart card reader.

Brilliant