My Current Projects
Big in Japan™ builds cool applications for mobile devices, including Apple’s award winning iPhone and Google’s open source Android platform, think of us as the mobile idea factory. Our latest application ShopSavvy™ won Google’s Android Developer Challenge and is currently available on T-Mobile’s G1 and soon to be released on the Apple iPhone. Big in Japan is not just a development shop, we manage and support our applications for millions of users for major brands including FX Network and LEGO.
Founded in 2001, Architel is one of the largest IT infrastructure outsourcing companies focused on medium-sized businesses in the North Texas area. Our ‘managed IT outsourcing‘ offering provides a compelling alternative to traditional ‘outsourced talent’ solutions. We provide our clients with a turnkey solution to their IT headaches. Architel doesn’t simply deliver a technical resource, we deliver an entire staff dedicated to helping your business leverage it’s IT assets. Managing technical resources is a skill most medium-sized companies simply don’t do well. Architel’s ‘managed IT’ model provides not only the IT resource, but also the resource necessary to manage his activities. By offering our services for a flat, monthly fee, our team is able to dedicate the necessary resources to meet your business objectives.
WhiteBox™ provides technology enabled finance and collection products for the automotive industry. Our customized solutions provide warranty providers the ability to offer car dealers products such as new and used warranties, gap protection and after market to consumers who do not qualify for traditional finance products. Our ACH collection system, married to our state-of-the-art web interface and electronic signature collection technology create a seamless finance solution. Our software engineers work closely with our clients to customize our offerings to meet the specific needs of each product. By combining our robust banking interface and our hosted web application, car dealers are able to generate significant profits without extensive training and related overhead. Contact us today to learn how WhiteBox can help you grow your business.
ServiceGuy™ is designed to help consumers find service providers who are available NOW! After extensive focus group research, we learned that homeowners don’t want to fill out demographic data so that service providers could call them back. They don’t want to leave messages, they don’t want to send or receive emails. Instead consumers want to dial a phone number and talk to a real live human being who can help them right then. ServiceGuy utilizes patent pending technologies to a) find available service providers and b) immediately connect those providers to the consumer’s telephone. Visitors to ServiceGuy’s website simply select a city, a service and are presented with a local phone number. When the consumer is ready to talk to a provider he can dial the number and immediately talk to a service provider (no messages, no waiting, no call backs). ServiceGuy will call up-to 750 service providers in a given area based on time of day and consumer ratings. Available service providers who answer their phones are asked to dial a number if they are available. The first service provider to dial the number is immediately connected to the consumer.
PAST PROJECTS
Our team has been building applications written using the Ruby on Rails framework even before Version 1.0 or RoR was released. More than four million people in thirty-two countries have used one or more of their programs. We have released most of our public work using the GPL open source license. Here are a few:
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Fancast, was originally developed by the Big in Japan team for FX Network to help promote various television programs including Nip/Tuck, The Shield, Rescue Me, Damages, Dirt, The Riches as well as several other original series by the network. In 2006 we sold Fancast to Comcast Interactive Media LLC. To check it out visit Fancast.com. | |
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egorcast™, written using Ruby on Rails, is a unique mashup that combines the transcription service Jott and the popular social mo-blogging service called Twitter. Sign up for egorcast, call Jott and your message will be sent to Twitter. Try it out for yourself here. | |
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elfURL™, initially written in PHP and ultimately converted to Rails, shortens URLs. Just enter a long URL and elfURL will make it smaller. The tool also provides click-through statistics. Feel free to extend, modify or remix the sourcecode yourself. Learn more about the project here. | |
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FrankenFeed™, written using Ruby on Rails, was built to merge multiple RSS feed into a single ‘monster feed’. Initially released as a free web service, we released the source code in 2006 using the General Public License (GPL). Learn more here. | |
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FeedVault™, written using Ruby on Rails, provides a safe way to share and store OMPL reading files. Feel free to extend, modify or remix the sourcecode yourself. Initially released as a free web service, we released the source code in 2006 using the GPL. Learn more here. | |
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InstantFeed™, written using Ruby on Rails, allows users to receive RSS feed via various IM clients. Initially released as a free web service, we released the source code in 2006 using the General Public License (GPL). Learn more here. | |
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QwikPing™, written using Ruby on Rails, allows blog users to ping multiple news services when they update their blogs. Initially released as a free web service, we released the source code in 2006 using the General Public License (GPL). Feel free to extend, modify or remix the sourcecode yourself. Learn more here. | |
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SocialMail™, written using Ruby on rails, allows users to receive email via an RSS feed. Initially released as a free web service, we released the source code in 2006 using the General Public License (GPL). Learn more here. | |
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PodServe™, written using Ruby on rails, allows users to create and host regular or social podcasts. We released the podcasting platform as a free web service and have based several other initiatives, including FanPodCast on the system. Check it out here. | |
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FanPodCast™, written using Ruby on rails, the system is based on PodServe. The system is currently used by more than six television series to manage social podcasts created by their viewers. Learn more here. | |
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43 Best™, was our anwer to the proliferation of ‘best blog sites’. We created a simple wiki that allowed anyone to nominate themselves or someone else as one of the 43 best blogs. It was a joke. Check it out here. | |
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hResume, is a WordPress plugin, written using PHP, that allows a WordPress blog user to create a resume page on their blog that utilizes the hResume microformat. We built the plugin to help spread the idea of microformats. Learn more here. | |
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SimpleTicket™, was the first application we wrote using the Ruby on Rails framework. The application was built for Architel, Big in Japan’s parent company, and provides a simple solution for tracking issues. We released the source code in 2005 using the GPL. Learn more here. | |
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MotorSport Ranch, is a reality television show we created and produced. The pilot aired on INHD and the first season (yet to air) was sold to VOOM (owned by DISH Network). The series was filmed in 1080i HD and profiled the members of a country club designed around a race track. Learn more here. | |
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Gahbunga™, was a simple application that created a community around the ‘hot or not’ concept. Very briefly the application allowed someone to take a picture of their date with their camera phone and have their friends or the community rate those dates 1-10. The system would provide a real-time evaluation of the date. Learn more here. |
