So there are a lot of links in the first two sentences, but Amy and Thomas (who are now husband and wife) are really incredible people, and were a joy to work with.  Amy is the founder of Slash7, and a force to be reckoned with when it comes to usability design on the web.  Thomas is the man that wrote the JavaScript library scrip.taculo.us – which is immensely popular.  They developed Let’s Freckle together, along with recently publishing their first e-book on JavaScript development.

So they had gone ahead and developed Twistori, which people f-ing love.  Problem was, their users wanted to be able to put in their own keywords, do searches, etc.  So we developed what we hope is an evolving answer – Twistori Desktop.  It allows users to create keyword “clusters”, do instant searches for keywords, and has theme support built in.  It ships with a few themes, but we’re hoping some people will pick up the reigns and get to developing their own themes shortly – we’ll be releasing a *cough* “SDK *cough* shortly, which is simply a CSS/XHTML/JS template that can get developers started.

I’ll write more here later about the integration of Objective-C and WebKit, which is simply stunningly cool.  I’ll be presenting on the subject at an upcoming meeting of Philly Cocoaheads, and will post the slides here after I’m done.

Go try out Twistori Desktop – discounted price, and a nice two week trial!

At the center is the idea that stuff can be built and sold, by loose collections of individuals who want to work together on projects.  Each project will have different participants, to varying degrees of input, with varying talents and levels of contribution.  So instead of creating an organization from the top down, with bosses and whatnot, the organization is built to facilitate and make easier the coming together of these people to create an entire array of amazing products with no bounds or limits.

To start out with, we’re talking software.  RipIt, the awesome ripping utility built by Jason Allum, is up first.  Following closely on its heels is Multiplex, a Mac app and generic conglomeration of awesomeness.  The project is led by yours truly, along with Jason Allum, Johnny Bilotta (yes, the one and the same, the other half of Two Guys On Beer), who is a talented designer, and Jason Tremblay, user experience mastermind (and math wiz!).  Somewhere in there is the co-founder of IndyHall Labs, whom we all know and love – Alex Hillman, founder of the coworking space of coworking spaces, Independents Hall.

The organization goes a little something like this.  There are participants, and each participant does a certain task or set of tasks, is part of the team decision making structure, and based on that, gets a share of all proceeds.  There is no salary – you make money based on what you build and sell.  Sometimes – quite often, actually – there will be a micro-financier involved in the project, but that person usually comes from WITHIN the project.  The investment earns some shares, but it usually comes along with active participation as well.

Each project acts independently of the other.  Shares are divided per project, people can participate in multiple projects.  The end goal?  Get everyone off of the J-O-B.  We want all the people we work with (who happen to be independent minded people, entrepreneurs, etc.) to be able to free themselves from the daily grind and be able to become self-sufficient.

When, however, that self-sufficiency is tied to others, it means that teams will usually be based around a group of like-minded people – like minded in that no one will take crap from the other people in the team, team members are hand selected for their talents and ability to deliver, and a project’s success is directly tied to everyone involved.  Truly, this model exemplifies that the success of all will be tied to the output of the weakest member.  No one wants to be that person.

Anyone can start a projects.  Have a dream?  Want to build cool software?  Find people that want to be involved.  Get to work.  Done.

Multiplex will be released shortly – the first of many apps to come out of IndyHall Labs.  After that, expect a flood of amazing software.

IndyHall Labs is a whole new type of business.  Success is tied directly to your ability to deliver.  You are held to account by your team members.  But build enough stuff, be involved in good projects, and see things through – and success will follow, almost guaranteed.  All throughout the process, more and more people will get involved.

Want to be a part of IndyHall Labs?  First, check out Independents Hall.  Then prove what you can do.

The coolest part of all of this?  I’m a part of it.  Watch out for IndyHall Labs.  We’re going to be all over the map.