When Developers Get Loose, This Happens
Viget’s internal development lab has found a way to make pregnancy a little more fun. (Beyond trying to balance a dinner plate on a pregnant belly.) Baby Bookie lets parents organize online pools for a baby’s arrival date, gender, weight and length. It was created over a weekend and it’s just one of a dozen projects that have come out of Viget’s Pointless Corp., an internal lab launched in 2009 that lets the digital agency’s employees experiment with different apps and products without feeling the pressure of a client’s deadlines or demands. Viget founder Brian Williams says it’s not meant as a revenue generator or a marketing tool, but just a way to try out ideas. Some actually roll out for public use and five or six are still active.
Baby Bookie has been its most popular product so far, going from 2,500 users to over 38,000. Ben Eckerson discovered it two years ago when his wife was pregnant and ended up taking a job with Viget as a digital strategist. He worked on the product’s recently released second version and saw the users jump 7,000 since August. The company says it would partner with another company to take it further. Brian says Viget, which has large customers like ESPN and Dick’s Sporting Goods, is expanding its offices in Falls Church and North Carolina and should be at 70 employees by the end of the year.
