Fo.rtuit.us & Actionable Brainstorming
by Gil Rosen

I ran into Fo.rtuit.us on Techcrunch. In a nutshell, a service for meeting new people NOT based on typical matching algorithms but on random matching that you opt to accept …or not. A friends matching service based on serendipity.

Innocent match making service? I wonder…

Is Fo.rtuit.us  Fa.bulo.us?  OR  us.ele.ss? 

Does any simple, clean service deserve traction or do you actually have to try hard, build something complicated, find three barriers to entry and a viable business model to deserve a mention? And does Fo.rtuit.us meet the right criteria?

I call that “Actionable Brainstorming”. Build what you can and let people decide whether it’s useful or not. The basis of any brainstorming session is that you let any idea – as stupid or crazy as it may sound, out in the open. This is the only way unrelated hooks, mediocre or crazy ideas meld and mature to solutions that wouldn’t have been created if the ideas were censored to begin with.

Its not just about the ideas, but about the way they are carried out. If they are simple enough, flexible enough and harmless enough they will probably develop into something else, merge with other existing services or just fade away. The point is not to hold back because you never know.  I believe these type of products can create change, bring about innovation in much the same way as a well designed “heavy duty” idea.

A few months ago Michael Arrington covered i4giveu.com  - a web2.0 confession site. 
Is i4giveU  - Fa.bulo.us?  OR  us.ele.ss?  depends on who you ask, and many people criticized Michael for even giving it a mention on Techcrunch. I4giveU is another “actionable brainstorming” type of service. As I also know its founder (Alon) and even gave him a tip or two regarding how it should work – I know it was a quick set up, “walk the walk” and not just “talk the talk” type of idea. As with Fo.rtuit.us, I say bring it to light and let people decide.

Some, if not most, of “these” services will just fade away, others remain under the shade of the long tail and the rest will see more light under the ‘main stream bell’. The point is:

No one holds the keys to the “gateway” of good ideas except the public at large.

Fo.rtuit.us doesn’t strike me, but I can imagine a good take given its simple and clean philiophy. Who knows. We’ve all seen colossal ideas and projects fail only to prove that:
Time+Money+Many people+Detailed_design_+Big_corporate_name  does NOT EQUAL Success.

I personally will try simple services that I can register to in a second and use. Much more then yet another My Space clone or other Big mama.

Gil Rosen
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