A team of ex-Microsofties left to create Jackson Fish Market, with the tagline “Handcrafted Software Experiences,” in November 2006. In their introductory blog post, co-founder Hillel Cooperman talks about his grandfather’s fish store, Jackson Fish, a “small businesses was run by family, with everyone pitching in as best they could” and which sold “handcrafted products” that “that both address a core customer need, but also make them feel emotionally satisfied, content, and… happy.” They credit 37 Signals with much of the inspiration behind the company.
They’re working on a number of projects, and “They’re Beautiful” is the first to launch. It’s a free virtual flowers site. Users can send a virtual bouquet to any email address (even without registering). The recipient sees the bouquet and can choose to put it in their Greenhouse on the site by registering. They then must return every few days to “water” the flowers and keep them from wilting.
The coolest feature is the ability to embed the virtual gifts in another website, as I’ve done above. The “products” are visually stunning, and if they can get significant enough distribution through the widgets it would be a simple step to add premium, limited edition items in the future for a fee.
The timing of the launch is perfect, as Facebook and others are testing virtual goods (HotOrNot has sold virtual flowers for years) and the market seems set to explode.
I’m going to refrain from watering my flowers. I’m hoping the wilting process is as visually interesting as the flowers themselves. Can’t wait to see if they actually show dead flowers in the widget.
Not a bad idea, specially the Green House twist.
But are you a ‘bad’ person of you let your flowers die?
Nice idea.
I love their branding and design work.
not bad.. guess we’ll be getting more of this virtual gift/flower/spam in our mailbox in the future. well anyways for me, nothing beats “the real thing”
Their embedded stuff doesn’t work as intended in Firefox, and their site is down due to “capacity issues”.
Is this a joke? I thought microsoft only hired smart people, but these people can’t even handle more than one browser and can’t keep their server up from a TC feature? It’s not *that* much traffic…
Interesting execution of a very simple and saturated market.
I’m seeing it fine on firefox/mac and on my shiny new iphone.
When you mouseover the embedded content at the top of this post, it’s off center.
Their site finally loaded for me, and the site itself looks fine in FF, just an alignment issue in the embedded code I suppose.
I’ll take back my insult.
Visually stunning?! Those flowers look like they’re from cs_italy…
I came back 2 years later to find and upvote this comment… the flowers look exactly like something in counterstrike. Why not use, oh I don’t know, a JPEG if you can’t rotate them in 3d?
Perhaps its my cheapness talking, but if a lot of people are like me out there then this whole “industry” is never going to take off. Perhaps I’m being ignorant about it, or maybe I’m missing something.
Virtual goods do have a market but I don’t think they are set to explode. There is a certain cache to them with people who may not be as social as others but on the flip side, there is a growing backlash to what people see as plain stupidity. The Empreror’s New Clothes are finally here.
This kind of thing is one of the reasons I read TechCrunch. A simple site, well designed and executed, and I get to find out about it (and start using it) before most other less geeky web users – which includes most of my friends.
Thanks.
It’s a neat site, but I don’t see it being much better than traditional greeting card sites yet. Also two suggestions: make the “send” buttons fully clickable in Firefox 2.0 and change the color of the box next to the captcha field – it’s hardly visible.
Good luck!
Cool idea. It would be great if they could do this with cartoons and comics as well.
I mean who wouldn’t appreciate a little more laughter in their day, right?
I wish the team that thought this up all the best!
Steve, cartoonist and team member at ComicsZ
http://www.comicsz.com
The problem with the Emperor’s New Clothes analogy is that most people bought into the Emperor’s New Clothes. One little boy is not a major advertising demographic. The issue is not whether something is stupid or not, but whether people will buy something stupid (or, more accurately, whether you can make money out of something stupid).
Personally, I don’t think this site is remotely stupid. It’s cute, and people like cute. I’ll use it to send virtual flowers to my friends, and they’ll think it’s cute, and I’ll get kudos from it, which will bring me back to the site. And the Greenhouse idea is a great one to keep other people coming back.
The key to the future will be adding more variety and options, without losing the simplicity of the concept.
Whether “premium” virtual goods that people have to pay for with real money will take off or not is more doubtful. But as long as this kind of thing is free and monetizes using non-intrusive advertising, it will definitely explode.
Yes Jay, as r3solution told you, people are simply ridiculous. You, me, and bob cobb are “cheap skates”…obviously not the target market. You’ve actually admitted the existence of this demographic before, and I’m not surprised level headed people balk at the idea of paying for “cute”. Were you aware how much of the population has prescriptions for amphetamines, and the like? They have all sorts of names and are prescribed for things like ADD, ADHD, HAD, depression, etc. We should call start-ups with this kind of appeal “meth-starts”.
Oops, a bit drunk perhaps, “Meth-ups”
I don’t get it. 37Signals is their inspiration? They make things that make our work life and communication better. And this does… what exactly?
god, this is a stupid idea – I can picture about 1 person out of every 1000 who “gets flowers” going back to “water” them.
I like the site. Its working fine on my ff.
Looks to me like a very good idea. Site also worked fine with Firefox.
> Can’t wait to see if they actually show dead flowers in the widget
…unless they will let visitors of “your” flowers to feed them at own cost, while alerting you with names of such benefactors. Once you are “in”, there are many ways to get you back
I like this … It’s cute and it costs nothing. I wonder if it has the same effect on women?
I’m sorry but that flowers thing is so ’90s. Can’t believe people are impressed with that. A realistic looking 3D flower that seems to grows out of the page, maybe, but the execution looks as if it was done by a 9-year-old.
Nice biz name, though, Jackson Fish Market. I look forward to checking out their site when it’s back online.
I have to admit, it would be interesting to see how these virtual flowers actually wilt after not having been watered for some time. But is it possible to “bring them back from the dead?” Like start watering them right before they completely die?
Great concept though. Really fascinating stuff; I’m definitely going to try it out.
I think they should have spent a little more time, effort, or money on making the flowers look good, especially since they are the focus of the site. The edges of the images are very aliased, and overall have a cheesy look.
Good Idea with a lot of personality.
Vijay
So if your a super high tech – ex microsoft employee … you go out and start a design company – then while you have no clients (becuase you probably have to charge an arm and leg to make what you made at microsoft)
– you create a virtual Flower shop … hmmm –
– I don’t think they even have a portfolio page up..
the flowers are truly ugly, and the vases look like a 3 year old made them.