by Robb
This is Why We Need Universal Legal Citation
. . . if you want to cite to judicial law, you must pay to access the Reporter’s opinions.
Sounds crazy, but it’s true.
As a law student I wasn’t aware of the problem. But it frequently holds me back, now that I’m building online information systems. E.g., say some text on oregonlaws.org contains a citation to an opinion, such as
PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 859 P2d 1143 (1993)
. . . one of the most important Oregon cases; and of course law, owned by all of us.
To make the website more valuable to my visitors, I want to grab the text of that opinion and display it. Or, failing that, I’d like to simply hyperlink to it, online.
But neither of these are possible. The unique identifiers we’re provided to this public law: “317 Or 606″, “859 P2d 1143″ — point to resources accessible only behind a pay-wall. If you’re skeptical, try googling for ”859 P2d 1143” or ”317 Or 606“. Zilch.
by Robb
Our first app for the iPhone - Quisitive name screening and trademark search
Quisitive is a one-of-a-kind app for screening name ideas, searching U.S. trademarks, and learning about branding, naming, trademark, and copyright.
We’ve developed it to the same high standards as OregonLaws.org: citations for every piece of information, high readability, and excellent user experience.
See the Quisitive website for more information.
by Lisa
We’ll be doing it right when we’re doing it like Big Fish Games
I get inspiration from many places for customer service and web app ideas. It’s cool to observe how to make customers feel good about themselves and you.
I love gaming. So I subscribe to Big Fish Games for $6.99/month. For that I get one game per month, and a discount on extra ones I buy. Yesterday I checked up on my account and what I saw made me love Big Fish.
I hadn’t logged in for six months, and so hadn’t taken advantage of my monthly game download. But it turned out that I hadn’t wasted my money: I had six months’ credit waiting for me to use. Plus, for getting six games (even though included in the subscription price), they gave me credit for a free seventh. Plus, as thanks for being a member for a year, they’re sending me a plushie. They are awesome; I’ll probably never cancel my service.
Big Fish is doing it right: rewarding customers for their loyalty and giving them the feeling that they’re getting something for their money. I want our customers to feel like they’re getting an incredible value too.
by Robb
Want Satisfaction?
Then get satisfaction. We’ve created a Q&A site with Get Satisfaction; an excellent platform for building community and responding to peoples’ needs.
If you’ve got questions, gripes or feedback you’ve been wanting to share, now’s your chance.
by Robb
167% Growth over Last Year
The webserver’s been getting pretty busy lately, and we wondered if traffic had rebounded so soon from the yearly Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Year’s lull. We jumped over to our Quantcast page, and — wow.
One year ago, we were serving around 75,000 page-views per month. We’re now doing 200,000. Looks like it’s time to upgrade our server plan and do some “scalability” and throughput testing to see how the current architecture is holding up.
