Matt Waterworth

Biography

Matt Waterworth is an experienced web developer and second-rate Jack Osbourne impersonator. He specialises in devising and implementing PHP-based web applications. He is an advocate of practical pattern-based object-orientated design.

He is a part-time internet marketer, blogger and domainer who catalogues his entrepreneurial misadventures on TakeMoreRisks.com.

Contact Matt

Fake project idea

Weight Watchers For Weirdos.com

This website would list the Weight Watchers Point Values for some uncommon 'food' items, for people with unusual eating habits.

It would aim to answer questions like how many Weight Watchers Points are there in the average domestic cat? Or in a fortnight's worth of oxygen?

Three Project Ideas

Belief Based Social Networking Website

Up until now social networking websites have encouraged their userbase to divulge relatively inane information above themselves. I propose to create a social networking website that will encourage people to state exactly what they believe in, whether it's related to the existence of Ghosts, the Loch Ness Monster or God.

Each of these beliefs will be represented by a database entry which can subsequently link in with a 'system' effectively allowing anyone on the website to create their own belief systems/philosophies from a set of ideas.

These 'beliefs' will be similar to how 43things.com represents 'things', anyone can create an idea. However, users will be encouraged to comment upon and develop each belief into something more significant.

Beliefs will be categorized to help give the site a more rigid structure. For instance there will be one on the Afterlife, Nature of the Universe, Meaning of Life, Nature of Gods (if any), Holy Books and potentially many, many more.

To make the site more interactive I could implement a lookup facility for the Holy Books category where the user can search the Amazon Catalogue via it's API selecting a book (or books) that encapsulates the philosophy behind their belief system (for Christianity it'd be the Bible, Upanishads for Hinduism etc..)

I'll develop it in PHP5 with an MVC framework (either CakePHP or Zend Framework) with support from PEAR. RDBMS = MySQl. PHPDocumentor for class/method documentation. Basecamp for project management. Either Dreamweaver or Zend Studio as the IDE.

Pros

  • Religions / churches could sponsor their establishment for more transparency on the website. This will provide a core business model which could be augmented with contextual ads from Adsense, Adbrite, AuctionAds or Chitka.
  • Since people will be able to search for users based upon individual beliefs they may well come into contact with people of different faiths who share the same basic ideals.
  • Religious discussion is a popular topic on major social bookmarking websites like Digg, Reddit and Stumbleupon which could help the site gain exposure.
  • Everyone believes in something, therefore there's (potentially) a large target market.

Cons

  • It'll be difficult to produce a data model that can potentially encapsulate every type of belief system on the planet. I'll therefore need to spend time researching and dissecting the individual components human belief is comprised of.
  • Need to establish filters that'll stop extremists from sabotaging the website. An extensive 'User Agreement' will also need to be written to help ensure that all of the user submitted content is lawful.
  • I'm inexperienced with server management and I don't have very much money. Will I be able to afford a dedicated server plan when the site becomes popular? Will I be able to manage the server effectively if this is the case?

Emo Gaming Site

This idea involves building a gaming website where the user can adopt an emo kid as a pet and care for it. It'll be like a mashup of a Tamagotchi virtual pet with aspects of the emo subculture thrown in for good measure. Instead of feeding your emo food, you can feed it vodka. Instead of your emo thanking you for taking care of it, it'll blame you for everything that's ever went wrong in its life.

The user's success in the game will be measured by how depressed they can make their emo. For instance it'll be possible to buy your emo kid depressing albums. Each of these records will be stored in a database table with an attribute measuring how much it'll contribute to the emo's depression.

Artist Album Depression
Bee-Gees Any of Them 5000
Blondie I'm Hairy Debbie -5000
Radiohead Kid A 50000000000000000000000000000000000 (for the depression attribute we'll need to declare it as a TEXT type rather than an INT in order to compensate for all of Radiohead's albums)

I could make money by storing real albums in the table and then linking to the desired product page of an online CD trader with an affiliate program.

As well as caring for your emo, you will be able to play online Flash games which give you the opportunity to earn money to buy more booze / ridiculous clothing for your kid. After the user has finished playing a game Flash will store their score in a MySQL database and their money total will be adjusted accordingly.

Pros

  • Developing Flash Games will be a healthy challenge and will give me some much needed experience in that area.
  • Emo-based memes are constantly circulating around the internet. This could be another one if it's executed well.

Cons

  • Might be deemed as controversial by self-harm groups who will think that the site trivialises self-harm.
  • There's also the possibility that I'll receive poorly written death threats from Emo Kids ala "U suk Im gnna kill u LOL"
  • Prospective employers mightn't be readily impressed by a site which promotes making virtual depressed teenagers even more depressed.

Worst Bands

Ever bought a music CD that you really hated but didn't have the heart to take it back to the shop? Then you might be interested in this idea..

Worst Bands will cater for disillusioned music lovers who can make lists of the bands and albums they consider to be the worst on the planet. Users will also be able to rate various artists on several criteria such as "Talentlessness", "Ugliness", "Inability to Sing In The Studio", "Inability to Sing Live" etc.

It'd be cool to stage contests like 'Worst Myspace Band" and "Worst Overall Band" were the band that receives the most votes wins an award. It would also help drive a lot of interest to the site in a short space of time.

In terms of a individual Worst Band Lists I could implement each band as a div which can be dragged into position on the list. It'd be easy enough to do this with script.aculo.us.

Pros

  • Large target audience. Most people hate at least one band.
  • Fans of the Worst Bands will be likely to defend their group thus partaking in the debate more. More content = more food for Google = more potential hits.

Cons

  • It's possible that some of the content might violate the Adsense TOS meaning I'd have to rely solely on affiliates like Amazon or Allposters for income.
  • May attract negative publicity from the bands who are featured as the worst on the site (thankfully The Beautiful South aren't around anymore so this shouldn't be much of a problem).
  • I'll have to hard code conditions into the application to stop Mick Hucknall being upvoted relentlessly by mischievous users for "Talentlessness", "Ugliness", "Inability to Sing In The Studio", "Inability to Sing Live"
  • Again, prospective employers mightn't like this one (especially if their favourite artist is Mick Hucknall).

Five Inspiring Websites

YouOs

http://youos.com

Does the future of the operating system lie on the internet? It's very possible judging by how well YouOs.com is executed. It mimics a window system through a lightweight javascript library which has to be seen to be believed.

Whilst it seems to be a proof of concept more than anything else, I'm sure this will pave the way for more sophisticated web based operating systems in the near future.

Of course the whole idea of web based operating systems brings with it the question of privacy and the future capacity of distributed computing which is entirely another issue altogether!

Rating : 5 / 5

Control

http://controlthemovie.com

Controlthemovie.com is the official website of the new Ian Curtis biopic 'Control'. Unfortunately, like most movie preview websites it exhibits a beautiful, technically-accomplished front-end, dogged by a poorly thought out site architecture.

Firstly the website loads with a splash page, which inhibits access to the crux of the content. For some reason the trailer is embedded on this page and starts automatically which will likely infuriate many users. Why couldn't they have linked to a separate trailer page?

Instead of labelling the splash skip link "Skip" they've opted for a 'Begin Site Transmission' button instead. I realise that this ties in thematically with the movie (Transmission is one of Joy Division's most popular songs) but to a first time user it's just confusing. This lazy stab at congruency between site and film detracts from the site's otherwise compelling design.

The main navigation is comprised of a horizontally scrolling wave with each part of the site appearing somewhere along it. In order to find the appropriate section, you must scroll from side to side until the correct page title appears in the pink box. It's confusing, irritating and a perfect example of why mystery meat navigation should be loaded into a shopping trolley and wheeled into the Lagan.

Is it coincidental that I feel like I'd lost Control when I use this website? I'd be better off asking Corbijn myself...

Rating : 2 / 5

TryRuby

http://tryruby.hobix.com

TryRuby is a 'hands-on tutorial' for Ruby, which offers you the opportunity to program interactively in the language via a web-based interface. The helpful onscreen instructions are especially useful for people with no previous programming experience and will no doubt convince more people to convert to Ruby.

Whilst it covers all of the language's basics including selection and iteration techniques, it doesn't offer any material on the Rails framework, Ruby's killer-app.

With that said I was very impressed with the implementation of the GUI. At first glance I thought it must have been made with Flash however upon closer inspection I realised it relies on Ajax to send the command you enter to the Ruby interpreter, which is then executed, with the response appearing on the interface.

Rating : 4 / 5

43 Things

http://43things.com

Are you tired of failing to achieve your goals? Then 43things.com might help where a hearty boot up the arse can't. 43things.com allows its userbase to specify and share their goals with one another through an interface dominated by a tag cloud.

It's inspiring to read about other peoples attempts to achieve the same goals you've set yourself and with such a large userbase nearly almost 'thing' is covered.

One minor criticism lies with the analogous colour scheme. I can't help but think that the layout is lacking the wow factor. The design might work better with a complimentary or a split complimentary colour scheme to add more contrast to the design. On the same note they might want to experiment with resizing the header fonts for the same effect.

Rating : 5 / 5

Last.fm

http://last.fm

What do you get if you couple an amazing idea with a stunning implementation of that very idea? Last.fm of course! Last.fm is a Media Player plugin based service, which records what music you listen to and shares it with the world. Its plugin is supported by a myriad of different players including Windows Media Player, iTunes and Winamp, meaning almost anyone can broadcast their vile taste in music to the world.

The compatibility feature, which compares your musical taste with another members is extremely well implemented. It compiles a list of the bands that you've both been listening to and provides a clever 'Compatibility Rating' based upon how many mutual artists you share.

Aesthetically speaking, the site implements a monochoromatic colour scheme offsetting a light red against various shades of gray. Sounds boring doesn't it? Well surprisingly it isn't, thanks to the variation in the size and spacing of the typography.

Rating : 5 / 5