/*

Never B. Bored is from an idea I had while writing Shadow Rapture. I wanted to flesh it out a little and get it published. I really do think this could work, and I'd love to do it - but I'd need some friends to help me populate it. If I'm lucky somebody else will steal the idea and run with it and I'll get the benefit without having to do all the work.

*/

Never B. Bored

"You could've been a billionaire…" my wife whispered, then nipped at my ear playfully with her lips. She stood behind me, leaning over to see what I was working on. "...that's what Dad says."

"Too much trouble," I replied, "I'd have to get me a trophy wife."

"Grrrrr," she said, biting down on my ear. Then she put her head against mine and gazed at my monitor. "Almost done?"

"Ten minutes."

She moved playfully down to nip at my neck - after twenty seven years she knew all my ticklish spots. I shrugged her away - It was impossible to work with that kind of distraction. She giggled and left me alone.

* * *

I never wanted to be a billionaire - but I wouldn't mind having a million. A million dollars isn't the riches it used to be, but it's manageable. A millionaire doesn't have to hire somebody to help him spend his money, he can keep a low profile. With our kids raised, we don't want a big house or a fancy car. But I wouldn't mind having a little summer place in Maine, and in a year or two we'll have one - if things go as planned.

For now, I have the job I always wanted: I work from home, I do what I love, and I get paid. It's enough.

Never B. Bored was my idea. Boredom was my curse, one shared with most of mankind who lived above the poverty line. Nobody is bored when they don't know where their next meal is coming from - but once the necessities are satisfied, boredom becomes a plague. I sought a cure.

NBB was originally survey driven. I set up a website that asked people what they did to cure their boredom, and combined their answers with the results of a personal survey. My plan was to match people to things that would amuse them. My selfish ambition was to let other people cure my boredom for me. I wasn't looking for money - I was looking for delight.

It started as a hobby for me and some friends. After I got the original crude interface going, we spent a month loading it with our favorite diversions. We also refined the surveys and expanded the site. At first, we kept it a secret among ourselves - but that didn't last. It turned out to be so much fun, we couldn't resist bringing others in. In the end we decided there was no value in secrecy and we opened it up to anybody.

Then it went viral. Last February we went from less than a hundred participants to more than a hundred thousand. March saw us break the million survey mark. That's when Eastern Noggin Smackers shut us down.

ENS claimed to have a patent on anti-boredom devices. It didn't matter that their case was absurd - judges see only precedent - and Cease and Desist orders are easy to get.

But we were lucky that among our fans were a group of fanatics at the Electronic Frontier Foundation - and they offered to represent us against ENS.

ENS does indeed have a patent on a web application that was similar to ours. A case could be made that a small part of what we did fell under their patent - but their primary aim was selling advertising, and ours had always been more like Wikipedia - ad free and run by the people who cared about it.

The EFF had us going again by late March, and by then we were in the news. April was huge - I was glad that I'd kept the software plain and clean. I had chosen PHP and mySQL running under Apache - mainly because it was free. It also turned out to be efficient and scalable, as did my interface and database design. I hate bells and whistles and I diciplined myself, and kept it simple. We were able to add ten million participants in April - and all I had to do was move the site to a bigger server. The software never have to be changed.

We made changes, of course - or I should say I did. We're small enough that I personally write all the code. We continued to refine the surveys and the interface. In July I released Recipie for Fun, so that our users could more fully describe their entertainments, and I could tag them for easy profile matching.

The scheduling app came in August - and that's when things with Noggin Smackers got nasty. ENS wanted royalties - one dollar for every survey taken, one dollar for every recipie, and one dollar every time a profile was matched to a recipie. That would have been more than a billion dollars a month, and we were operating on hundreds of dollars out of our own pockets.

So we negotiated. The EFF knows some fine mediators.

ENS wanted to make money. Never B. Bored wanted to cure boredom. The mediators wanted us both to win.

The deal was finally struck in October, just in time for the Christmas season. Never B. Bored would remain free to anyone who wanted to use it. I would continue to write all the code, but I would hire an assistant of my own choosing to act as my backup, in case I became incapacitated. ENS would develop ways to integrate advertising into the application such that that our users would see it as a service, and I would write the code to implement it. ENS would get all the revenue from the advertising, and I and my little team would be paid a handsome salary, plus an outrageous bonus depending on how much revenue was generated. But we wouldn't get the bonus for two years.

I was hard nosed about the ad-integration. I held out for absolute veto power, and I got it. In exchange, ENS insisted on the salary and deferred bonus structure instead of a straight revenue sharing. It took time to work out the details and make the lawyers happy, but we all got what we wanted. And I got a sweet signing bonus, plus a little unexpected something for my friends who had helped me get it going.

Eastern Noggin Smackers are actually not bad to work with. I have good friends there now, people I trust. I've learned that all business is based on trust. I think as long as I continue to deliver my part, they will continue to treat me like royalty. I'm happy with that.

The ad-integration worked out better than I ever would have belived - it expanded the usefulness and effacacy of the site in ways I didn't anticipate. Our advertisers say we're better than the Yellow Pages, and most have added whole new product lines just to cater to our members. Now we are working on a new inititive, one that caters to the education industry - and to people who just like to learn.

Never B. Bored has become the go to place for a good time - all over the world. We add new users every day. They tell us about themselves, they enter their locaion and schedule, identify their friends who are already members, and we pack their to do list with things that will delight them - alone or in groups. And it's all kept fresh with new recipies and feedback from our members.

* * *

It took longer than ten minutes to finish - it always takes longer than I figure. But I'm statisfied that it works, and I know it'll make my friends at NBB happy. Time to check our to do list. Never B. Bored is a success, I haven't been bored in months.