Supposedly, Thomas Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." Apply that to patent litigation, and a successful patent suit should entitle the lazy patent holder to no more than 1% of the proceeds of their brilliant idea. That's being generous.

I used to be involved in the video game industry. I went to a conference or two, and involved myself in a handful of discussion forums. I just didn't sign NDA's (non disclosure agreements) just to here about somebody's amazing game idea. Unless I was being offered a salary, there was no point. People who think that sitting on a great idea has any value whatsoever have lost already. The only valid reason for an NDA is if a legitimate game studio has a licensing deal for some real IP and a contractual agreement to keep a lid on things. People who believe their brilliant idea has an intrinsic value are forgetting that it is all in the execution.

The really delusional ones were those who thought that they were going to create an MMO. The sheer technical and artistic manpower required to build even a mildly immersive multiplayer digital reality is staggering. Small teams need not apply.

Now, that's not to say that you can't build things and be successful. But to build amazing things, you need to be a builder. By far, the most delusional folks at video game conferences were those who had no skill in building games themselves, but were looking to recruit others to build their ideas for them. If you are independently wealthy, you can hire people to build your ideas for you. Until that time, you have to build it yourself.

I've been thinking about this, and thinking about building something. Not a game, necessarily, but some piece of software that fills a need that people have. I've always been a fan of the advertisement model. It's not that I love television ads, or ads on hulu.com, but I do love not having to pay for the programming out of pocket. I pay enough each month for my cell phone and internet connection. I won't buy cable television. If I had it, I don't think I would ever get around to building things in my free time. My problem is that I'm not an entreprenuer. I think that's ok. I don't really want to be the marketing guy. I don't want to be the hype machine, or the guy who can sell anything to anybody. I don't want to be that guy.

But, I do want to build things and share them with other people. I don't really like the idea of shrink-wrap software. I don't buy software (I use free software) and so I don't think I would try to sell it to other people. I don't pay for using gmail, facebook, or google maps. Instead, there are ads on the page. So, if I created something for people, I would feel OK about putting up ads to generate a little income. That seems reasonable.

I don't have any amazing ideas yet. I've been thinking about the idea of lists. There are so many things in our life that revolve around lists of things, and there is no easy, centralized, generic list management thing on the internet. Or, at least, none that I've heard of. I figure if I haven't heard of it, it must not be that great. There are little mini-lists here and there. There are TO-DO list webpages, there are Facebook apps that allow you to manage lists of books or other media. There are ways to manage lists of bookmarks, and other things. Sometimes, I just want to have a virtual notebook of lists that I can quickly get to, add items, reshuffle, add new lists, etc. I want lightweight lists that don't need a bunch of meta-data. I want text lists. When I brainstorm, I create a list of ideas. When somebody tells me about a great movie, I want to add it to a mental list of movies to watch. Invariably, that mental list deteriorates over time. My lists cannot always be catagorized. Where do I keep a list of career ideas, or classes I'd like to take, or programming topics I'd like to investigate further?

So, maybe I'll build the ultimate list application on the web for my own benefit and the betterment of mankind. Or maybe somebody else will. In either case, I'll be happy. Whoever does the hard work can reap the financial benefit. I'll get my uber list application in the end, and that's all that matters.