Geeknook Labs

Codename Cinnect is like Omegle, but for SMS messaging.

Built on top of Twilio, this project allows anyone to text the Cinnect number and be instantly connected with someone else in the world. The Cinnect number acts as an SMS gateway between users, allowing them to text others without exposing their phone number.

Because the project works via SMS, it is available on all phones—not just smartphones. By providing additional Gateway numbers, users are able to manage multiple conversations. A Cinnect app would easily manage these numbers and keep track of what conversations are active.

This unofficial Chrome extension for Quora was released in late 2010 and reached more than 3,000 users overnight. It was built before the Quora API existed, but now uses the extension API to ensure quickness and stability.

The extension shows the Quora logo next to your Omnibox, where a dynamic badge displays how many notifications and unread messages you have. Clicking on the icon drops down a Quora UI where you can click through to each notification (opening it in a new tab), or search Quora directly.

This extension can be downloaded for free at the Chrome Web Store.

The source code can be viewed and downloaded on GitHub.

If you’re a busy guy, you can appreciate any time-saving methods out there. TL;DR is a Chrome extension I built on top of a private API provided to me by the guys at Too-Long-Didn’t-Read. In a nutshell, users can submit summaries for any page on the Internet. As you browse with the Chrome extension, you are alerted if a page you’re on has a summary, which you can then view and decide if the page is worth reading more into.

This extension can be downloaded for free at the Chrome Web Store.

The source code can be viewed and downloaded on GitHub.

What has come to be known as 7writers is a project to get together seven writers that are interested in each doing related Thing a Weeks. Because there are seven people, the project has enough content to publish every day, and yet the writers aren’t overwhelmed as they’re only writing one post a week.

In 2012, 7writers will be using a custom Drupal install to manage this collective effort. However, a year’s experience will be enough to know what exactly the requirements are to build a targeted system that facilitates group-building and the actual writing process.

I personally completed a Thing a Week in 2010. To view the results, you can read them on my personal blog. If you’re more into the future, you can also see the system we’re using in 2012.

Every day on Google+ there is a thriving photographer community that curates and posts photos around daily themes. Some of these themes are #SilhouetteSunday and #FrogFriday, and they guide what great photos you’ll find on the site each day.

I built a Daily Photo Theme Viewer to visualize the images that are posted under each theme every day. It can sort ports by +1′s, recency, or randomly. Searching allows you to view the images posted under any subject, not just the daily themes.

Check out the live project at the Daily Photo Theme Viewer site.

What started out as a browser extension to sit on top of websites and award achievements for actions everywhere on the Internet, Awoochi has evolved into the go-to spot for achievement APIs. Site owners and application developers can use Awoochi APIs to create achievements for their users, store and manage progress, and instantly get great looking scoreboards.

To get in on the beta, visit Awoochi.

The project AI Zoo is one I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. The general idea is that I provide a world in which vegetation grows, water flows, and the sun shines valiantly during the day. This world, full of API hooks and leaderboards, provides the basis for programmers to create their own species and let it loose unto to the world to see how it fares in the face of survival, competition, and evolution.

You have a resume that you want critiqued before handing it off to a potential employer. What do you do?

You upload it to this site and wait for comments from others. For every comment that you leave on another member’s resume that they mark as “constructive”, you will accumulate more points that you can spend bumping your resume to the top of the list of ones to be reviewed.

Filling out your profile to inform others of your interests and profession (so they can better understand where your advice is coming from) earns you additional points that you can spend.

Birch is a project into knowledge search engines. It functioned differently than the standard Google search by providing an API to sites directly that allowed them to expose structured data. By using this API, the engine can return the answer to what you’re looking for, rather than links to what might be the answer.

Some examples of what sites might expose through the API are structured profiles (allowing people to find the profiles of everyone who works at a certain company, regardless of site), status updates, science facts, equations, and so on.

The name Birch comes from the site’s unique monetization strategy: allow sites that use the API to pay whatever they want for it. A constant percentage goes towards Birch costs, while the rest goes to seed upcoming charities that are indirectly sponsored by the sites.

LaunchRock lets interested folk sign up for more information about your startup before it launches.

Geolauncher specializes in location-aware startups. When a user first visits your landing page, they are shown a Google Map of the nearby area with markings indicating where others who have signed up are located.

Eventually, Facebook integration will allow friend-based activity markers, so you can quickly find out which of your friends have signed up, and where they are.

Demo: See Geolauncher in action