Robot Josh is always looking for the secret sauce, that special combination of ideas or implementation that makes one site successful where others might fail.
One secret sauce is chocolate and peanut butter, the two great tastes that go great together. That is, two ideas that on their own may be fairly common but that when blended together form something unique. I think 43 Things demonstrates this process remarkably well, combining blogging functionality with social and community features. The result is a site that lets regular people, in effect, create a blog without even realize they are blogging.
We are currently looking for that secret sauce for our latest project. In one of our discussions, Robot Daniel wondered which of the ideas we were taking about was the chocolate and which was peanut. After all, he reasoned, the chocolate always has to be on the outside, or your fingers will get quite sticky.
This afternoon I was in the local Bartell's to get my afternoon bottle of water (why don't I just buy in bulk and keep some water in the refrigerator?), when I noticed a bag of limited edition Reese's Peanut Butter Cups--inside out. Yes, they had the peanut butter on the outside.
I would have preferred to just get an individual packet to prove the point, but all they had were the larger bags. And so I return to the office with a bag of inside out peanut butter cups. Fortunately, the other robots were around to help make short work of the candy, and thereby sparing me a rather nasty sugar rush.
You'll note that I'm the only Robot who hasn't taken you up on the bastard inside-out Reeses. Everyone knows that the chocolate has to be on the outside. Bob, don't make me think outside the peanut butter cup.