“Damages,” making a sensational premiere tonight on the FX network, thoroughly justifies adding yet another high-powered law firm to the prime-time population. The firm is not only high-powered but it’s also “high-stakes,” we keep being told — and so is the show. “Damages” is also emphatically, and almost tortuously, high-tension, and the pilot script is one of the most artfully crafted since the debut back in the 20th century of “The Sopranos.”

FX decided to include our social podcasting application, FanPodCast (via API, design by Big Interactive), for the launch.  Check it out here.

Hopefully ServiceGuy grows on you. It is not certain that ServiceGuy will catch on outside of Dallas, but the team is excited enough to invest a week of their lives to see. The guys are in Portland for RailsConf and should start in earnest next week.

I had always hoped that as the team here at Big in Japan grew the interaction between our people would result in great new ideas.  In reality we all get busy with projects and rarely have time to just ‘hang out’.  Yesterday I woke up and decided that I would work on the business, instead of in the business for the day.  Quickly I realized that I needed to engage the team directly in order to figure out what was ‘next’. 

I tried to get everyone engaged, but with PDAs, cell phones, interruptions, Twitter, email and computers just laying around everywhere it was almost impossible to get everyone’s attention at the same time.  One by one the team began ‘fiddling’ with the Lego parts on the table and our meeting shifted from a speech to a discussion.  Mike came up with a great idea.  Jake had a good point.  Scott added a bunch.  It was great.  The Legos provided the guys with a harmless distraction from their ‘personal technology’ devices.  It was still hard, my phone must have rang once every five minutes ~ I resisted the temptation to even look who was calling.  Perhaps this will become a regular thing: harmless distractions to increase engagement!

Anyway, thanks Ethan!  Great idea. . . 

Starting May 1st we are asking that users pay an annual fee of $25 to use PodServe via PayPal.  We certainly won’t make any money with this fee (if every active user paid we would generate $50,000 per year, hardly enough to pay someone to provide basic support), but it will help defray the costs of operating the service and allow us to continue to use PodServe as a marketing tool for Big in Japan.  We have a plan to make PodServe better:

Our plan: a) add additional dedicated servers and a larger SAN, b) integrate updated code base to PodServe code for increased stability, c) add statistics, and d) provide basic support to users.

Interested?  Go ahead and send $25 via PayPal to sales@biggu.com, providing your user name with the payment.  Alternatively, you can wait until April and signup on the site.  Remember, if you are not going ‘Pro’ you will need to move your podcast before May 1st.

Is this a good deal?  If PodServe works for you it is a great deal.  If you need additional features like a flash creator, http://www.hipcast.com might be a better fit.  They have three plans ranging from $49.97 to $119.40 per year.

LEGO has partnered with NetDevil to create the game, and Big in Japan is helping out with community management. You see, this game takes a different tact to most games. We’re helping LEGO to engage various enthusiast groups in the actual development of the game. It is a LEGO game, after all!

Details are still thin due to confidentiality issues, but if you’re interested in finding out more, or pitching in on the project sign up for updates at:

www.lego.com/mmog

More and more details are going to be revealed in the coming months, so stay tuned. From what I’ve seen of the early development, this is going to be one fantastic game.

(On a related side note, check out this hilarious fan-created comic)

Now we never really considered that some folks would launch our tools and then put them up for sale.  Several folks have slapped on a new name and then posted them on ebay as fully functional businesses.  For example,

[XYZ].com is a URL redirection service that has been operational for over a year.  It generates $3,000 per month in ad sales from various startups.  I need cash and will sell the site for $9,000 right now. You get pay back in six months.  Who knows this thing might even grow faster. Email me right away at scammer@gmail.com.

Of course you don’t need to pay this scammer for the site as you can download the code and run your own version for free.  Additionally, I know they have only been running for a month or so and the likelihood they have advertising revenue is very unlikely.  I suspect that the ads are from shills and will go away once you buy the property.  I thought about linking to these “scammers” here but thought better of it when my inner-lawyer came out.