My wife and I have been married for 5 1/2 years now, but we still struggle through the question of "where do you want to eat tonight?"

Here's how the conversation goes?

Husband: "So hon, where do you want to eat tonight?"

Wife: "I don't know, how about you?"

Husband: "Well, I kind of feel like Chinese...but I'm open to whatever you want."

Wife: "I don't feel like Chinese."

Husband: "Okay, where do you want to go then?"

Wife: "I don't know, do you have any suggestions other than Chinese?"

I'd be very interested to see the results of a research project on this social interaction. Both husband and wife have their own self-interests, but they don't want to impose it on the other. In fact, both of them don't want to come across like they always get what they want.

Let's add another element to the conversation. If a mutual and objective friend recommended a restaurant, I guarantee you that the wife and husband would quickly agree to try to the new restaurant provided that they both weren't completely against the category of food.

This use case is similar to getting together with a friend. If my friend lived in Seattle, and I lived in Everett....for those who don't live in Seattle, the two locations are about 45 minutes away. Where should the friends meet? Naturally, it would be fair to meet in the middle provided that there are a few good restaurants in the location.

So, I guess my point is that location, type of food, and objective feedback all play into figuring out where to eat. I know it sounds simple, but we battle this every day. I'd like to solve this problem. Just a small hint, can a computer help us with this decision? Well, I believe so.

Is this a new trend, computers helping people make all types of decisions? Big companies have been using supercomputers to help make strategic decisions for a long time. Sites like Farecast.com have made it easy to make the decision of when to book a flight. Well, maybe the new trend is a compilation of vertical programs that help make vertical decisions.

I was at a party recently having a discussion with another gentleman about the "Revenge of the Nerds Movement." You might be wondering what in the world is the Revenge of the Nerds Movement. Well, it was my first time hearing those specific words as well. The gentleman was talking about how the internet and technology have made rock stars out of computer geeks. He wasn't saying it in a disparaging manner, but he said that it was cool to see the old high school geeks living the lives of the rich and famous now.

I'd have to agree that the internet space has made millions and billions of dollars for people in technology. I remember growing up when computers and math was very uncool. It was not cool to love either subjects. Despite my love for math, I tried to play it down with my "cool" friends as a little kid. After all, I wanted to fit it.

Now, I want to surround myself with math and computer geek types all day long. My Chief Software Architect recently told me that there are only 10% of all the computer science majors that are true geeks with serious math skills. He said there are only a few that are true purists. Well, he also has high standards after graduating from Caltech.

After meeting many people in the technology space, I'd have to agree with him. I'm not sure what's happening in the industry, but it's very difficult to find a programmer who is also trained well in mathematics. There are many, many developers who can script and put together widgets, but very rare is the software developer who can actually think through algorithms and computations.

I think this is sad to see what's happening. If the Revenge of the Nerds is truly happening, where are all the purists? If you are one, please send your resume to us. Thanks.

I used to hate reading book maps (like the Thomas Guide), but for whatever reason...I love online maps. I love seeing interesting information overlayed on a map. Am I the only one?

During the summer, we had an intern and she strongly suggested that we buy a map for our office. At first, I didn't really care either way. What's the big deal, right? Well, I didn't realize what a big impact a map could make. After putting up the wall size map of the US/Canada, my whole perspective and feeling changes when I walk into the office. I can't explain exactly why...but something definitely happens inside of me when I look at the map every day.

With my fascination and love for maps, we plan on offering a very cool and valuable search tool on Zoodango. You will be able to do some interesting similarity search queries with the user interface of a map.

Not only do we want to help you find cool places to hang out with your friends.....but we can offer even more creative solutions. For example, how cool would it be to see a map of where all the lawyers in town have lunch? You wouldn't be able to see the actual individuals for privacy reasons, but it would be cool to see the data as an aggregate. You'd be able to search for almost anything....who is like me, and where do these types hang out? I'm a CEO...where do other CEO's have dinner? How about car fanatics...where do they hang out?

Just some interesting stuff that you will be able to do on Zoodango...coming very soon.

Okay, let me give you a scenario. You come home from a long day at work, and you just finish eating dinner. You turn on American Idol for some background noise in your home. I understand...it's a bit eerie when it's silent. You hop onto your laptop and open up the World Wide Web (oh, it sounds so archaic). You either go to Yahoo or Google to see what's new. Then, all of a sudden, you don't know where to go next....

Am I the only one in the world that runs out of things to look at on the web. My pattern of usage is Yahoo for general news, CNN for hard core news, Seattle Times for local news...then the national headline stuff gets over-repeated on all the sources. After these 3 sites, I hit this brick wall. It's the brick wall of "what else should I search for?" Maybe I'm just not creative enough, but I actually run out of things to look for.

So, what would life be like if we added social features into search. For example, what if I could search for everything that my buddy Steve searched for? I know what you're thinking. You probably don't want to know everything that Steve searched for. After all, search is private, right?

Well, it depends. I think this type of search based on your social graph or friends could be interesting and very useful in some vertical categories. For example, wouldn't it be interesting to find out all the books that your friends found on the web. Wouldn't it be interesting to find out all the "good travel deals" your friends found as well. How about great restaurants or hang outs?

Social search could be very interesting. In fact, there are some sites that help you find things that your friends found interesting. If you really think about Google's page rank...it is a little bit of search based on what others thought of the page through the quality of links.

Well, we've been discussing this topic at Zoodango quite a bit. In fact, we are already working on some interesting technology that will help you search based on your social context. But not only social context, but also answering social lifestyle questions.....like "I'm sad, what should I do today" or "I want to hang out with Steve, what and where should we go?" Search can go beyond the web. Search can be multidimensional in our lives. The reality is that we are always searching...even in our sleep.