If you’ve been following along (which isn’t always easy with me) you’ll already know I’ve taken some consulting gigs here in lalaland. One is with a small website called MySpace. The other is with the iPhone app developer MobileRoadie.

Basically they allow you quickly roll your own iPhone app based off their flexible framework. It literally takes an hour, is all done through the web but wait there’s more (RIP Billy Mays). It’s also super affordable.

The inappropriately talented Co-Founder Brock Batten put together a commercial that goes through the process. Check it out below.

Looking do build an iPhone app like this? Let me know.

Yesterday Laurie and I just celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary, yes somehow she’s managed to put up with me that long. We spent the day in typical Percival fashion, attending tech conferences and flirting over Twitter. This is our life. I assume we should have some complaints about being such a hyper-connected couple but we’re just too busy loving every minute of it.

We ended our day speaking on a panel at UCLA. For the first time Laurie was up on stage with me and it I couldn’t help but feel it served as a perfect analogy for our love. There she sat, nervous as all hell but always ready to support me, to support us. Honestly I’ve put her through a lot. Lots of crazy ideas and career changes. Some huge successes and of course massive failures. Through it all she has always been right there, ready for any challenge.

As we pass into our fourth year of marriage we’re at the highest point of both our lives. We have no shortage of money and happiness, two things that certainly help a marriage.  But we know life is much like a roller coaster, things can only get worse or better from here. Either way, I know she’ll always be right there with me.

If you haven’t heard yet, we recently released the official lalawag iPhone app. We used MobileRoadie to quickly build and customize the app (Disclosure: I have an active consulting agreement with them). If you’re looking to build an iPhone app for your website please let me know.

You can download the app here to get a closer look.

Hits at about 49 second in.

The C64 emulator has passed Apple’s review process and is now available in the app store. I just picked it up and I must say it’s very well done.

If you ever got the chance to use one of these beauties you’ll enjoy the flashback. And for you kids (said in my best “get off my lawn” voice), take a look at a life before Xbox.

More info over on Touch Arcade.

I just unfollowed 10,000 people on Twitter and boy are my arms tired. WAKKA WAKKA.

Actually thanks to SocialToo the process was fairly painless. For $25 they’ll run a script to remove all your followers and give you a fresh start. Since I was auto-following everyone back my list had basically become useless.

Thanks to massive Twitter spam and other crap, it had become an experience much like the pop-up wars of Internets past. An endless stream of bots, questionable marketing and get rich quick scams.

I actually opened a second “secret” Twitter account so I could follow a small group of folks I really wanted to listen to. Until now that account was the primary method I used to view the site. Sneaky I know.

But now my main @seanpercival account is once again enjoyable to use. I’ve run a few additional scripts to locate people I want to listen to, but if I missed you please let me know with an @reply msg. As long as you’re real and have something interesting to say, I’d be happy to listen.

Taken today while driving down the 10E.
Somewhere around Downtown Los Angeles.

Scorching temperatures continued to stoke wildfires across Southern California on Friday, creating anxious moments in the mountains north and east of Los Angeles, where thousands of residents fled flames that skipped through canyons, edging toward one neighborhood after another.

More than 2,700 firefighters and a small air force of air tankers and helicopters managed to stop the blazes before they swept into hillside housing tracts. But smoky air from the fires continued to create unhealthful conditions in parts of the San Gabriel and San Fernando valleys.

-Via The Los Angeles Times

So I’m making an exit from my day job at Tsavo. If you’ve followed me long enough this probably isn’t a huge surprise. Three startups in under three years, not a great track record I know. But this is tech, the space moves fast and I’m just trying to keep up. Sometimes the only way to do that is by playing a little leap frog.

I had the experience of a lifetime with these startups. Along the way I learned a few things, did a few things right and have made my own share of mistakes. With each iteration I leveled up, doubled down and left with a new lens on pretty much everything. There is something unique about the startup environment, so unique that you might also call it fragile. Much like the software it produces, there are always challenges scaling its very existence. When you take a group of dynamic people and a few millions dollars you can’t always predict the outcome.

I’ll save you the back story and instead send out a big thanks to the teams at Tsavo I’ve had the pleasure to work with, both here in Santa Monica and our office up north. I’m really proud of the work I’ve done, but even more inspired but what I’ve seen others do. Together we learned how simple it can be to drive web traffic and make an inappropriate amount of money in the process. OK it’s actually needlessly complex, but that’s what makes it interesting, to me at least.

Not ready to announce what’s next, but I would assume you could hear about it first here.

(Tsavo office photo by RatherFancy)

I just got back from an amazing week down in the Caribbean on St Maarten Island. Those are my pale (now sun-burnt) feet in the sand there.

It had been a while since the wifey and I took a serious vacation, it was much needed. I took the opportunity to completely “unplug” and just slow down. I also got the chance to compose my thoughts on a few things. I’d thought I would share some of them here:

• Tune In, Stream Out: Tuning out for a week on Twitter, news, and the web in general helped me realize just how much I was over-consuming these days. Today’s activity streams are very easy to get lost in–I should say drown in. I’m hoping to be more mindful of how much time I spend with my various data sources.  I’m also continuing to look for more ways to optimize the experience, to surface the most important items and cut through the time-consuming noise. Less social networking = more actual working.
• Tech Should Probably Get Over Itself: The amount of news coming out of the tech/startup space is staggering. Since we built most of the new publishing tools we certainly love to use them, don’t we? Of course it’s smart to stay on top of the news, just don’t let it consume you. Big moves are big news, but everything is probably not very important. Don’t obsess over the details and the latest echo chamber trend.
• My Next Steps: Ever since Mike Jones and Mike Macadaan left for MySpace I’ve been getting lots of questions about my future with Tsavo. Of course losing some key staff can be devasting to any company, more so when they are as talented as these guys. Truth is, because of their work Tsavo is setting huge records in both traffic and revenue. It would make sense to stay the course and help see this company to a great exit. At the same time, I’m continuing to get approached for new opportunities each week. These are essentially what you might call dream jobs with epic salaries. It’s not a horrible position to be in, but a difficult one. Things will either change or they wont. If they do it’ll happen next week.
• My Own Thing: A few folks have also asked me why I don’t roll my own startup. Especially now that I’m sitting on some cash. Honestly there is nothing I want more. However like with love, timing is everything. I have big ideas, I just don’t think you’re ready for them. Maybe in 1-2 years.
• The $12 Startup: I received a great response to my story of the $12 startup. As I mentioned in the post, I want to share the details of how I did it. So I’m hoping to release a weekly post that walks you through each step. I’ll take you through it all, from picking a good domain name to SEO and even monetizing your website. I can already think of 100 techniques that are sure to help some of you.

As for now, its back to a life behind the screen. Although to me, the Internet has always been a paradise in its own right.

You can checkout some of my photos from the trip on Flickr.

Big news today, Facebook has acquired FriendFeed. Overall this is a huge win for Facebook, and a super smart buy. But what happens to FriendFeed?

I’ve been an active user since its inception, honestly, I really love the platform. However FriendFeed is a geeky toy, not something the mainstream is likely to go gaga over. It’s just too techie. Normal people want to simply consume content, not program feeds and build aggregated streams. Normal people like those on Facebook for example. So if you can somehow merge the right tech with the masses, you’ll have something really compelling. Best of luck to both teams and congrats all around.

But what is to become of FriendFeed.com? It remains for now but its future is uncertain. I present to you a terrifying look into the the Facebook inspired future. Click to enlarge, if you so dare.