Founded on the premise that a group can relate the story of a shared experience better than a single person can, Group Story is a new photo book service that allows groups of consumers who attended the same event to pool their photographs and collaborate online to merge their memories and create multi-faceted, story-telling photo books.

Group Story co-founder George Junginger explains: “Current photo books are focused on photos, not the story, and they only have one editor. Group Story lets you pick and choose those pages from other people that are meaningful to you and that experience. Whether kids on a sports team, family reunions, group travel—anytime you have a group, you have a Group Story.”

Here’s how it works: group members upload and tag photos to a shared workspace. Each member then uses these pooled images to create pages of photos. Users can select single or multi-photo layouts, change the background colour and add text to their pages. Group members then pick and choose from other members' pages to assemble their own unique photo book. Online photo books can be created free of charge, and sharing will be available soon with Facebook integration for inviting group members. Printed photo books can be ordered for USD 12.99 for 20 pages in softcover format, and USD 24.99 for hardcover. Additional pages are 50 cents each.

Launched into public beta in March, Group Story currently only prints and ships within the US but is in the process of developing partnerships with printers in other countries to expand the service, and is open to partnership inquiries. (Related: Personal photo magazine made easy through boxed kit — Mini web-to-print photo albums — Free photo books for Facebook and Bebo users.)

Website: www.groupstory.com
Contact: george@groupstory.com

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

OK, so pedal-powered coffee retailers aren't entirely new—we saw one back in 2008 in the UK, after all—but we can't resist sharing one more, spotted this time on the streets of New York City. Brooklyn-based Kickstand Coffee uses two bicycles, a fold-up stand and a hand-cranked grinder to serve up sustainable hot and cold coffee at events around the city.

The brainchild of three baristas, Kickstand Coffee relies on two 160-pound rolling carts that are each towed to location by a custom-built bicycle, according to a report on NYDailyNews.com. Once there, the carts unfold and attach to create a 9-foot-long bar that includes everything the trio need to make coffee. Beans are hand-ground on a cup-by-cup basis, and the iced coffee is cold-brewed; only Kickstand's hot coffee—brewed on location using specially adapted Chemex glass beakers—uses any propane or electricity. The company is working on a mini folding bicycle that customers will be able to use to grind their own beans. Pricing for Kickstand's coffee is USD 2.50 per cup, hot or cold.

With bicycle culture on the rise and coffee going strong, it seems perfectly natural to combine the two for a more sustainable cup of joe. The variations on this theme are virtually limitless—as are the opportunities. Time to get pedaling yourself...? (Related: Solar-roasted coffee.)

Website: www.kickstandbrooklyn.com
Contact: contact@kickstandbrooklyn.com

Spotted by: Verge Manuel / Images by: Big Waste of Time

If businesses can benefit from the help of undergraduate students through UK-based Student Gems, it's a safe bet that MBA students could be even more valuable. 31Projects is a new online platform that helps connect such graduate students with companies and organizations in need of business expertise.

Now in closed beta, North Carolina-based 31Projects bills itself as “a project marketplace connecting organizations with top MBA and graduate students through real-world projects.” The site maintains a network of prescreened students interested in solving real-world business problems—it's open only to full-time students and recent alumni from the top graduate management programs in the US. Organizations in need of assistance can then post those opportunities on the 31Projects site. Postings can take the form either of challenges—crowdsourcing-style competitions whereby a company poses a business-related challenge and students compete to develop the best solution—or short-term consulting projects, which are done by a single student or team of students. Either way, 31Projects plans to charge a small posting fee along with a variable project fee based on the student compensation awarded once the project is done.

31Projects founder and CEO Jon Reifschneider explains: “Our vision is to provide an open platform where all organizations, regardless of size or resources, can easily and effectively identify and recruit the talent they need to be globally competitive. The projects and competitions are win‐win situations for both organizations and students, and can be used by employers to create a highly effective pipeline of top student talent into their organization.”

31Projects will go live in August. One to get in on early—or to emulate in other parts of the world?

Website: www.31projects.com
Contact: info@31projects.com

Spotted by: Preston Hubbard

We've seen numerous twists and embellishments added to the traditional funeral in recent years, including branded caskets, motorcycle hearses and digitally enabled headstones. There's still no getting around the fact, however, that planning a funeral can be an overwhelming and time-consuming task for the bereaved. Aiming to prepare families and make the process easier, death-care provider Stewart Enterprises has launched an online tool called the Virtual Arrangement Conference.

The Virtual Arrangement Conference's interactive presentation is designed to walk families through the key points of what they should expect during a meeting at the funeral home. In addition to explaining the process step by step, the interactive tool can also facilitate the collection of information required by the funeral home, using integrated forms to transmit information such as data for the death certificate or facts to be included in the obituary. No information is required to be submitted using the tool, but hundreds of families have already used it to begin the funeral planning process for themselves, the Louisiana company says, cutting down significantly on the in-person meeting time required. Nearly 200 funeral and cremation service providers in 24 states have launched the Virtual Arrangement Conference, which can be seen in action at Florida-based Baldwin-Fairchild Cemeteries and Funeral Homes, for example (login required).

Consumers are increasingly accustomed to researching online ahead of time in anticipation of a key decision to be made, so it makes perfect sense to bring such capabilities to the world of funeral preparation as well—particularly if you can do it in the form of a free brand butler that's designed to help, not sell. Funeral homes, health care workers, hospice volunteers, financial planners—an extra service to offer clients of your own...? Meanwhile, development-minded entrepreneurs—time to start work on a mobile version...?

Website: www.stewartenterprises.com
Contact: dwesterfield@stei.com

Spotted by: Blake Killian

Mobile ticketing may offer myriad benefits for both event managers and consumers, but most options still require specialized scanning hardware to read the ticket from the user's device. Not so Twicketer, a new service that delivers event tickets that can be verified and validated right on the smartphone.

Now in beta, Wisconsin-based Twicketer is powered by technology from its Danish parent company, ScreenTicket, that uses a patent-pending system called On Device Verification. How it works: Event managers can send out links with a shortened URL to their events through social media including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. From there, attendees can buy their mobile tickets online by simply following the included link. Once it's time for the event, the mobile ticket can be scanned and verified onsite without any scanning hardware. Twicketer charges a service fee of USD 0.99 for every ticket sold; it can also be used to distribute mobile coupons and vouchers.

Currently, Twicketer can deliver mobile tickets to more than 200 countries via more than 800 mobile carriers. Custom branding is available, as is a comprehensive API. One to try out for your next event, coupon or other paperless promotion...? (Related: Ticketing marketplace makes prices negotiable.)

Website: www.twicketer.com
Contact: info@twicketer.com

Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski