This morning I was granted access to the secret Strutta Laboratories to peek over the shoulder of Senior Developer Mike Holly, to talk about the leaderboard he's working on for our soon-to-be-released online contest platform.

As we sipped our coffee and periodically glanced out the window at a sunny, calm Burrard Inlet...who am I kidding- I had 89 seconds left of his attention before he delved back into his work. So like the hounding reporter I once was, I started firing questions at the tall, ginger-haired genius.

We conducted a very brief audit of USA Today's Ad Meter, the rating system charged with the task of choosing America's choice for best Super Bowl Ad. That's something of a high water mark for this kind of user voting, but our man Mike was quick to find errors with the Ad Meter, and seemed anything but impressed. To be fair, it's the off-season for Super Bowl Ads (and the Ad Meter) until during and immediately following the big game, so we turned our focus toward the features of our product, and how it measures up. 

When drilled about the specifics of the Strutta Leaderboard, Holly spoke of its flexibility, and how any third parties' use of it could be vastly different from the next. "Potentially, we're going to be ranking on any number of criteria, he stated. "We can rank not only by user popularity like votes or views, but also by groups like by school or by company." 

He pauses for a moment, and then quips with an ironic tone that is certainly not lost on me. "It's sophisticated sub-ranking technology." I can tell he's itching to get back to work, so I quickly blurt out one last question. 

I ask about the visualization and design of the way the data gets displayed, and Mike nods and assures me that clients will have plenty of control over the way the data is displayed, too. I notice he' already turned his gaze back to the lines of code on his screen. I've lost him, and it's now time to take the 15 step trek back to my own desk, a few feet further from the gorgeous view of the North Shore.

While we will still be launching examples of Strutta's platform at work in the very near future, our team has turned their attention to the the finishing touches of our software and the new .com site, which means the wait will be over soon!