Ignighter is a Finalist in the Mashable Open Web Awards!

The startup I work for, Ignighter, was just nominated for a Mashable Open Web Award. Please take a second and vote Ignighter:

From Mashable:

Mashable is proud to announce that voting has begun in the 2nd Annual Open Web Awards, a unique opportunity for the most accomplished websites and services to receive international recognition for their achievements.

During the nominations round, we received over 43,000 verified nominations. We narrowed down this huge pool to the 10 most-nominated sites and services in each category (where 10th place was a draw, we allowed more than 10 nominees in that category).

Please vote for Ignighter to win and pass it along to your friends and family members!

Mashable Open Web Awards

Some tips for newbie iPhone Developers, from someone who’s been there.

For the last several weeks, I’ve had the blessing (or the curse) of being in charge of the development of an iPhone application for my startup.

The development tools are based heavily on OSX development tools. Get to know Objective-C and Cocoa. If you, like myself, primarly program on the web with tools like PHP & Ruby on Rails, you will need to understand the nuances of ObjectiveC up-front. It is a client-side language, based primarily on C.

1. Understand how Interface Builder hooks into Xcode. If you don’t ‘get it’ at first, don’t fret. You’re not alone. There are three basic things you need to do to connect your IB Interface to your Xcode class (otherwise known as a ‘view controller’)
   1. Set your XCode class as the ‘files owner’ of your IB Interface. Do so in the ‘Application Attributes’ tab of IB.
   2. Declare a method (or attribute) in the header (*.h) of your class definition file.
   3. In IB, find the ‘Application Connections’ tab, Click the oval next to the method or attribute, and drag a connection from the Application Connections tab to a element on your interface.
   4. You’re all set! If you declared a method, that method will be called when a user taps that button on the interface. If you delcared an UIElement, and you want to access the text, or any other attribute of that UIElement, you can now do-so in Xcode.
2. Establish a mentor. But, if you can’t find one, find a place you can go if you need help. I recommend this iPhone Dev Forum.
3. Take advantage of posted sample code. There are many examples available on Apples Official Developer Center. If you are not very good at RTFM development, I recommend the tutorials available at iPhone Noob, and iCodeBlog, and the Stanford iPhone Developer Course Webpage.
4. Understand iPhone standard design patterns. Like it or not, iPhone users have developed expectations on how their user interface will behave. Bill Westerman has an excellent guide on how to implement these standards here.
5. Apply to the Apple Developer Program. And, do so early. As soon as possible. They’re slowwwwwwwwww.
6. Understand Objective-C memory management And understand it from the beginning. When you deploy to your iPhone, you’ll be thankful. Meet dealloc and release, they’re your new best friends.

Happy iPhone-ing! You’re developing on one of the most innovative devices out there. We are at the dawn of the mobile internet, and you’re developing for the best mobile device available today. Enjoy it

Reflections from an awesome Philly compa.

This past Saturday night I had the great privilege to host a group date at the Noddinghead Brewpub in Philadelphia, PA. As some of friends & colleagues already know, I have been working as the Lead Developer for Ignighter.com for the past 6 months. Ignighter is an online ‘group dating’ service, aimed at young people who have just left college, moved to a big city, and having a tough time meeting fun new young people.

I’d always knew, since I first sat down with Dan and Adam, that group dating as a webservice had major potential. It’s already a huge phenomenon in Japan, where young people go out on ‘compa dates’. I mean, on an intellectual level, it just makes sense. Meeting people with your group of friends is safer, less awkward, and more fun than one-on-one meetings.

But, this Saturday night, I realized, on a whole new level, how much potential there is for group dating in America. The date this weekend was fun. And, I mean, F-U-N. For the two years I lived in Philadelphia, my group of buddies had a very routinized nightlife. Every weekend, it was the same bars with the same group of friends. About halfway through my group date on Saturday night, watching my friends mingle with the group of girls we’d just met, watching the smiles, the high fives, the positive body language, I realized on a whole deeper level: this website could really change the way young people meet. Along with that realization, came a few other insights about Ignighter:

• It’s not about finding a life partner. It’s about improving your social life. – The group atmosphere doesn’t lend itself to much romance, but it is an opportunity to meet a whole new group of friends. Chances are, you’re going to hit it off with at least one of them
• It’s easy, I mean: really easy – All I had to do was send a few messages, pick a time and a place to meet, show up, and holy cow: I just met 5 new ladies who live in my town. And shit: they’re interesting too.
• No matter how you slice it, it’s a whole freakin’ lot of fun – If you have a social bone in your body, you love meeting new people.

I came away from this group date feeling energized about my job, and bullish about the future of online group dating. Perhaps even more telling, my roommate, who has been cynical about online social networking and dating, but reluctantly accompanied me on the group date, came away raving about how great of a time he had.

I’m interested in comments from readers. What elements of a night-out make it the most fun? How do you meet new people when you’re out-on-the town? Would you use a webservice that is designed to set you up with a group of young people in your area?