We also talked about the difference between SMS and MMS.  It seemed common that this idea worked better through MMS and that most phones are capable of receiving MMS.  We did argue about the potential plagiarism rights an SMS creates.  He was saying that people can simply send themselves coupons, thereby creating cause for theft.  He was saying that waiters can simply send themselves a bunch of messages, or even in the first place not tell that the SMS was used and pocket the money.  This led me to the validation step.  Currently his process does not have a validation system.  I suggested that once the coupons have been sent to the user, that they would be required to validate the coupon in front of the waitstaff thereby expiring the coupon from use by that user.  The total validated coupons received for that client could then by submitted at the end of the week or month for their records, eliminating theft from waitstaff.  But he saw that people would not pay the extra money to send one more message to validate their coupons.  This led me back to the fact that I wanted to change his model to be free to the user.

Regardless each message is locked in to costing RMB1 under his model so this would not work or change.  However he said I could have my own number to use for RMB3000 a month.  So the Clickboards on his site or others around the Internet could be accessed through my number.

He kept explaining that the mobile coupon market is still very young and has not taken off.  He has seen little success with this type of business model.  Something that can not support itself.  And charging the client for giving away the coupons is very difficult.  Alvin sees the light that the Clickboard has but not necessarily through coupons and believes charging clients RMB12 per acquisition of coupon will be difficult.  Getting any money out of them would be hard.  So he sees value in the Clickboard but not for this.  This is a conundrum.

He followed up his argument with a colleague he helped try to take print coupons to the mobile media for use.  He said there was little success.  However I am going to follow up with this person Andrew Collins of MailMan.com to see if he sees the light in what I’m doing.

We concluded by saying that I need to do my own stand alone website that would act as the hub for Clickboards and that I could on a trial basis use his website as an extended portal.  And again use my free number in which these discounts would be accesses through MMS.   This he said he would do on the basis of a friend.  However to build this standalone website with full Java applications could take three months with ten people working solely on the project for a grand total of RMB300,000.  This is currently what his mGuanxi.com website is worth.

I then asked what he is doing with mGuanxi.com and he said it was simple the social tool of his service.  I began to understand that not too many people are that involved with this site as their choice for a social media.  We then went into behavioral advertising and that kind of tailspinned as he did not see people interacting heavily enough with the site to truly allow it to work for the clients.  I see that and asked why there was no advertising on the site now and he said he did not want it to be overbearing to the user at this point but that is in the plans.

Currently Alvin is working more in Search Mobile Advertising which I agree is where most people see the potential for the mobile devices in the future.  He is working with some big names and I think that is where his aim is.  Maybe he will apply the Clickboard to this service in the future.  He liked the idea and I’m sure he is thinking of ways to utilize it.  One day I hope I still get credit.

He left me feeling encouraged that the idea has potential but told me the more you do the more pitfalls you will discover.  He is reluctant to change, that is one of the number one pitfalls that occurred during this meeting.  However if I was to start he would go with the flow and help me out.  So as he said keep talking to investors and get their advice.  So keep talking about it!

Alvin wrote me, “Quickly scanned your materials, but didn’t have time to fully dig in and digest all the materials. Would be helpful if you just sent me 5 slides telling me what you are proposing, how we could help each other and the benefits/cists to each side.”

The last part got me thinking, ‘the benefits to each side.’  My current thinking has been very one sided.  I wanted him to hire me and support me as I developed and integrated Clickboards into his platform.  But what do I get out of it? A salary and advertising shares?  Well that is not exactly a trade.  I mean I have to do business with the guy and show there is a future with my involvement and provide some measure of growth for his products.

So it struck me.  I can approach Alvin saying that I want to add a Clickboard portal to your website.  I could explain the benefits to him and how this will help spur his current business.  But here is where the real opportunity comes in.  The Clickboard portal can be added to any community site whether it be local, national, or global.  People can manage their Clickboards at any and everyone of these portals no matter which website they are on.  Granted each Clickboard portal will be tailored to the site that it is on and the management of the coupons will be more in line with the site they are on, but the access to all their coupons from Clickboards across the Internet is universal.  And this will be key to Alvin.

Any and all Clickbaords can be redeemed using Alvin’s mGuanxi mobile media application.  So now I am not stuck to supporting one website but able to grow the Clickboard portal across the web while it is hosted by other people’s websites, now all of them will be integrated for the use of one easy to use phone application, produced and manned by Alvin.

Now I just have to come up with those five slides.

The problem however is when they visited the Clickboard page.  The Clickboards are supposed to be ads.  Now Google Analytics will track ads but they have to be registered.  My Clickboards are not registered, so I was unable to see if they clicked on them and how many times and how far they went through the Clickboards.  Very upsetting because that was kind of the point of their visit.  Tomorrow I will have to find out how to register my Clickboards with the Google Analytics.  My first assumption is to add the tag to the Flash coding and then repost them.  And another way is somehow with this Wordpress site.  It has an ad tracker too but haven’t explored this in detail yet.  Both options seem viable but I like the new Google Analytics tool so I am going to explore that first.

So that said I needed new options, I was going to re propose to him but now that I think about it, that would have been futile.  So as the opportunity came to my attention when talking to Don Stewart, an indirect colleague of mine here in the office, who at one point offered himself as an angel investor, he brought to my attention several services that are in the same field I am pursuing.  One of which was mGuanxi.  Unlike the other text discount services he put before me, this media had a very unique web portal.

This web portal had the ability for people to come together and add contacts and join groups, take polls, blog, and send messages.  Much like other social media sites.  However this had no connection to their mobile outlet and the benefit to the users over Facebook and local forum websites was quite minimal.  But to me, this was a perfect platform to develop Clickboards.

By adding another tab which would represent Clickboards, using the clicker icon, users would enter a section of the website where they could manage their mobile coupons and acquire Clickboards.  Here they could share with their groups or contacts and friends and redeem points for luxury vouchers.  Really this is the high dive that could really put Clickboards on the map.  These are the top four reasons I had Don tell Alvin of mGuanxi why he should listen to me and my proposal:

Gives a reason for people to interact (to share their coupons, rewards, freebies and earn more)

Makes service free for user and adds performance for clients

Advertisers can decide what and to whom they reward

Breaches the gap between behavioral marketing and static impressions

So far, I have no response and neither does Don from Alvin Graylin from mGuanxi owner of the parent company mInfo.  He may think he is a little taller than me in his high heeled boots and can’t see the relevance of a Jin Magazine editor having come up with a good idea for him because he is a dual major MIT graduate.  But if he could stop himself a minute and so could the rest of you to review what I keep going on about, he may see the true validity that my project has.  Or maybe he is just on vacation and I need to sit back myself for a second.

The real reason I am going after my boss and mGuanxi is so that I don’t have to develop my own brand image.  Jin has a name which would make the Jin Card more recognizable here in Tianjin, and although mGuanxi isn’t a true silver dollar in terms of user interaction, it does have some strength in its name, something that I could definitely build upon.

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So, I have changed the name to reflect more of what a Clickboard does.  In four clicks you are still free to surf the Internet without being dragged into a buying process or printing off coupons.  Four clicks is pretty powerful when you think about it, what will you accomplish in your next four clicks?

I need to do more research but sounds like a plan to go after.

But when I start talking to local restaurants and stores and say you need to pay me to make you a Clickboard and pay for the space on the websites it will be posted, and make some sort of discount for the customer (and rent the portable receipt printing machine); well that begins to sound like a long shot.

The machines I will probably have to give to them, or like in the conversation I had last night, find a way to get rid of them and use something else.  Not only that try to find a way to get rid of the card.  Yes I want to do this, but the fact remains that although most stores already have their static discount cards for themselves, their cards don’t do what mine do; connect ads on the Internet to the users purchase.

So my model is probably not going to make money, at least not enough to pay for the machines.  And that is a big thing to think about.  How much online advertising can I give to a store that purchases the machine.  $400 dollars is quite a lot of advertising and also quite a big sale to sell to a small restaurant or store.  Although the machines are an easy way to prove my model works.  I need a simpler method.  Without the machine I’m afraid my idea is still long in advance.

Next option: create apps for phones that could bluetooth information to store computers and give the stores the software to run in the background.  Paperless transactions would be nice, but small shop owners may be wary of this type of coupon redemption.

So now, do I prove the model works, or do I proceed to the next step?

At this link you can see how one website is embedded in another.  The secondary site is completely functional within its embedded location.  The only thing that refreshes is the embedded site.

Now imagine a site that is made up of several embedded sites.  For easy understanding take the ads as my first example.  All the ads on the site will be there own websites.  When I sell advertisements I will give the buyer a list of sizes for the Clickboard spaces on my site as they will change depending on interaction.  Then the advertiser will create various websites based on those sizes able to transform if the workspace transform but continue with their current operations where it left off from the last interaction.  They will be completely functional all the way to acquisition of coupons or even redemption of coupons and sale.  All without disturbing the rest of the site.

Now imagine all the coupons you will be receiving.  They will all have to be filed and organized for better use and sharing.  Part of the window will be a file folder system that one is instructed to create to categorize coupons into various folders as business, shopping, groceries, and leisure to name a few.  Then to manage the folder the contents can be exported to the main platform, again a different website, in the middle of the screen.  There you will have options to tag, find out more, share, extend expiration dates, etc.

I really need to draw a picture.  But the seperate windows all have to be able to take on different sizes as users switch between contents.  It is much easier to explain in person.

So if there are three websites all making up Clickboards.net, they will all share the control panel platform.  Each linked and able to update themselves based on input from other parts of the control panel.  Even actions in multiple zones will have an overall effect within the control panel.  This allows for much more accessibility, ease of use, and immediate results upon your actions.  I even want a drag and drop option so files and folders or coupons can be placed in desired locations easily without file location menus like on a normal desktop.  The working area is flat.  I think that is the biggest difference from the desktop of most computers.  But the working area can be guided through multiple actions at once, that is the biggest difference than your browser.

And the work area continuously changes. Transforming certain sections in size depending on your current operations.  For example the mail can be listed as to what you are reading, down to in box, down to in folders, down to a menu item on your screen, thus taking up half a page, to a quarter page, to and eighth page, to a one word link.  Thus the rest of your operating control panel also shifts with the information displayed.  This may seem common place actually, and I really hope it is,  basically the changes are a compilation of several operations.  I hope to have a drawn representation soon to post.

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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 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.