Setting interim goals is an important part of achieving any long-term aspiration, and saving is no exception. Much the way SmartyPig makes saving social, so Piggymojo helps to reinforce saving with positive feedback from the user's friends and family.

While many savings sites show users what they've been spending, with a focus on budgeting, Piggymojo offers a concrete way to fight fleeting temptations and reinforces such resolve with numerous sources of positive feedback. Users begin by signing up with the service and declaring a goal, including how much they want to save and by when. They also pick an image to represent their savings goal—a beach sunrise, for example. Next, they can also designate a “cheering section” of supporters to be notified of their progress. Then, when they're out and about on their daily routine and they resist the temptation to spend, they can take out their cell phone and text piggymojo the name and dollar amount of the thing they chose not to buy. That amount then gets counted toward their declared savings goal. Savings partners like spouses also get instantly notified of such triumphs over temptation for mutual inspiration. As Piggymojo notes, “each save creates momentum.” The site tracks savings and goals weekly, with opportunities for users to post stories and for members of their cheering section to post comments. The user's chosen image, meanwhile—which at first is shown overlaid by a black-and-white grid—gradually gets changed to a colour version to represent a goal becoming reality.

Piggymojo is free to use, but currently only U.S. consumers can text their savings to the site; Canadian users must send savings through Twitter. Eventually, we'd expect to see the service hook up with banks to put more incontrovertible substance behind any reported savings. In the meantime, however, one to partner with or emulate for the rest of the savings-minded world...? (Related: Site helps businesses reward consumers for positive actions — Site matches motivation 'buddies' with shared goals — In online auction, banks bid on consumer savings — Bank's free tools help clients pay down their debt.)

Website: www.piggymojo.com
Contact: www.piggymojo.com/index/contact

Spotted by: Surrie Taylor

Back in January we covered Blippy, the Twitter-like site that lets users automatically publish their shopping transactions in real time for all the world to see. Now targeting the same space is Swipely, a Rhode Island-based venture that's planning to do much the same thing.

Currently in invitation-only beta, Swipely aims to “turn purchases into conversations,” in the site's own words. Toward that end, it has developed a secure platform for consumers to share their purchase experiences online. Users begin by signing up and importing purchases from their credit or debit card accounts; email can also be used for purchases made online. Users remain in complete control of the purchases they share. For those they do, they can rate the experience and add comments or photos. Many purchases are automatically geolocated to specific store locations, and Swipely supports product details as well by integrating catalogs and menus from more than 250,000 retail and restaurant locations. The result, it says, is that users can start conversations around “specific outfits, meals, songs, movies, gadgets and millions of other products.” Upon seeing a compelling new purchase, other users can click to see the venue on the map and add the item to their own wish list; for music, movies and apps, meanwhile, they can just press play on select purchases to hear a song preview, see a video trailer or browse app screen shots. Swipely places a strong emphasis on protecting consumer privacy, it says, and has passed reviews and audits from leading third-party security and privacy organizations.

After a recent security glitch at Blippy, it's not entirely clear how concerned users will be about protecting their purchase information. Still, there's no doubt the potential of social shopping is compelling, particularly when combined with a twist of nowism. Another one to watch!

Website: www.swipely.com
Contact: business@swipely.com

Spotted by: LA Times via Jim Stewart

Back in October we covered SeatGeek, the free service that helps users find tickets to concerts and sporting events when they're at their lowest price. Recently the company launched a new feature aimed at season ticket holders that helps them price, sell and manage their entire ticket investment.

TicketPortfolio is a web-based application that allows season ticket holders to treat their tickets much like a portfolio of stocks. Specifically, the service leverages SeatGeek’s extensive database of historical transaction data, market-based pricing capabilities and forecasting technology to give ticket holders a real-time snapshot of their portfolio and a way to track its fluctuating value over the course of the season. With an intuitive online interface, users can easily manage and plan how they would like to use their tickets. Selling recommendations—powered by SeatGeek’s patent-pending forecasting algorithm—are available on a game-by-game basis and are accompanied by direct links to the top secondary markets, including StubHub, RazorGator and TicketsNow. New York-based SeatGeek offers a free, two-week trial on TicketPortfolio; thereafter, it's USD 15 per month.

Given the investment they represent, treating season tickets like assets in a portfolio makes good sense, particularly when combined with a fresh shot of pricing transparency. What other consumer investments could benefit from the centralized view of a portfolio approach...? (Related: Ticketing marketplace makes prices negotiable — Used cars & price transparency.)

Website: seatgeek.com/ticketportfolio
Contact: admin@seatgeek.com

Spotted by: Arie Abecassis

Helping consumers find a certain level of gratification in paying ATM fees, New York-based Choose Change ATM empowers ATM users to contribute a portion of their fees to support their favourite charitable causes.

Launched in February, Choose Change ATM has developed a brand of ATMs that lets users donate USD 1 of each USD 2 transaction fee to a non-profit organization of their choice. Users select from a display of eight non-profits, supporting causes such as disaster aid, poverty relief and human rights. The ATMs are installed at no cost to retailers and Choose Change handles all of the maintenance and refills.

Choose Change ATM provides a convenient way for consumers to support causes they are passionate about. It's a shining example of the kind of embedded corporate generosity increasingly sought after by disillusioned consumers seeking brands that are more in tune with a spirit of giving. Choose Change ATM welcomes partnership enquiries from retailers and non-profit organizations. One worth emulating for socially conscious ATM users around the globe. (Related: Credit union gives people ten-dollar bills to give away — Grocer lets customers direct its community giving.)

Website: www.choosechangeatm.com
Contact: victor@choosechangeatm.com

Spotted by: Victor Ma

Splitting costs among a group of people is frequently fraught with difficulty. WePay aims to make it easier for groups of any size to share expenses of any kind.

Recently launched into public beta, California-based WePay is an online payment service that strives to make it easy for groups to collect, manage and spend money. Specifically, WePay allows users to create free FDIC-insured accounts and share them with others to maintain transparency. From these accounts, users can send electronic bills—payable with bank accounts or credit cards—and spend funds with a WePay VISA prepaid card, paper checks or electronic transfers. Clubs, organizations and associations of all sizes can use WePay to send bills and collect money, solicit donations, send reimbursements and spend money transparently. Unlike PayPal, WePay also lets users create separate accounts for different things—one for expenses shared with roommates, for example, and a totally separate one for a group vacation. Fees for using WePay range from USD 0.50 to 3.5 percent per incoming payment; outgoing transactions are free.

WePay currently supports only U.S. payments, but it's working on international capabilities as well as an API. One to partner with to help make that happen...?

Website: www.wepay.com
Contact: support@wepay.com

Spotted by: Kare Anderson

Back in 2007 we wrote about Zlio, the site that lets anyone set up a web shop in a matter of minutes. Zlio has since seen the launch of more than 350,000 stores using its service, but recently we came across a brand-new contender with a slightly different twist: tinypay.me.

Much like Zlio, New York-based tinypay.me lets any user create a store in 60 seconds. No account is required; rather, users simply indicate what products they'd like to sell, at what prices, and whether they'd like to donate any portion of their sales to charity. Both physical and virtual goods can be sold through the site, with pictures for those in the real world; stores can also be geotagged. Either way, tinypay.me then creates a unique page for each product, and an embed link lets users include those products on their own sites. All payments are handled through PayPal, with a fee to tinypay.me of 5 percent of the total sales price. If a seller donates a percentage of its sales to charity, tinypay.me donates the same percentage of its fee as well. Just last week, Tinypay.me won the Amsterdam Pitch Slam at Innovate!2010.

Whether among minipreneurs or the swelling ranks of sellsumers today, anything that makes selling easier is almost bound to be a success. One to emulate locally or on a niche basis? (Related: Helping minipreneurs sell their expertise — Platform lets anyone create & monetize an online school — Cheap & simple credit card processing for everyone.)

Website: www.tinypay.me
Contact: info@tinypay.me

Spotted by: Astrid Raams

A truism among venture capitalists is that not only do they invest in promising business concepts; they also “invest in people.” Seeking to make that premise literally true, three social entrepreneurs recently united to form Thrust Fund, an online marketplace for personal investments. In an effort to generate growth capital for their social enterprises, the trio are using the site to offer up equity in their life's earnings in exchange for an unrestricted upfront cash investment.

Valuing themselves at USD 10M, Saul Garlick, founder of ThinkImpact, and Jon Gosier, founder of AppAfrica are each offering 3 percent of their future earnings in exchange for a USD 300,000 investment, while Kjerstin Erickson, founder of FORGE, is offering a 6 percent stake in her future earnings in exchange for USD 600,000. Investing in the individuals rather than in the organizations they founded, “Thrust Funders” do not acquire a portion of the entrepreneur's venture; neither do they have any official say in how the investee uses the money.

Thrust Fund aims to attract investors who are interested in meaningful opportunities that return both social and financial dividends. At a time when the transparency provided by social networking makes it easier for investors to examine people’s reputations, we expect to see more examples of the 1-to-1 investment model emerge in social enterprise and beyond.

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

Much the way Kiva matches investors with entrepreneurs in the developing world, so Grow VC brings a crowdfunding platform to mobile and web startups around the globe.

Launched earlier this month, Hong Kong-based Grow VC aims to bring the first truly transparent, global, community-based approach to early-stage funding. Focusing on startup funding needs ranging from USD 10,000 to USD 1 million, Grow VC collects membership fees from its participants and pools 75 percent of them into a community fund. That fund then gets invested into promising member startups. Grow VC manages these investments, but members can control how their portion of the fund should be allocated, allowing them to focus on the startups they feel have the most potential. Grow VC users can follow each other in Twitter-like fashion, while reputation statistics reflect their track records. When a startup fails, the community fund covers its own losses. But when one does well, 75 percent of the returns are paid as commissions to top-ranked members.

The company explains: "We're here to fix the traditional opaque and mysterious startup funding system. Grow VC offers the platform and tools so the process from idea to launch can be managed and communicated with a more structured manner, while at the same time enabling the race to success to start much earlier."

Fees depend on the amount to be raised or invested. Startup and funder pricing starts at USD 20 per month. Others, such as experts, certified partners and business sponsors pay more.

Grow VC spent several months in beta, and by January had already gained more than 700 registered users. One to get in on early...? (Related: Twitter for entrepreneurs — "Open-mic nights" for business ideas.)

Website: www.growvc.com
Contact: jouko@growvc.com

Spotted by: John Greene

We've seen the social shopping trend manifested in various forms in recent years, including TeethYou, the Chinese site we covered back in 2007 that let shopping fans show off their favourite purchases. Adding to that concept a heady splash of so-called nowism is Blippy, a Twitter-like effort that lets users automatically publish their shopping transactions in real time for all the world to see.

Launched to the public just last week, California-based Blippy bills itself as “a fun and easy way to see and discuss the things people are buying.” Friends can select to follow each other, meaning that they'll see a constantly updated feed of those people's purchases. Followers can both comment on and “like” transactions as they move through the stream. Each user decides which purchase categories they'd like to share; they can choose to automatically share purchases at vendors like iTunes, Amazon, Netflix and Blockbuster, for example, or they can publish all those made through a particular credit card, debit card or bank account. They can also deliberately keep more private transactions to a “non-Blippy” account.

There are obviously privacy considerations associated with using Blippy, though the site says it performs “super-human feats” to protect its users' data. The potential benefits, however, are intriguing. In addition to paving the way for affiliate fees through the vendors that get mentioned in its stream, Blippy also stands to increase transparency by facilitating reviews and comparisons. To wit: “Imagine being able to tell if you’re getting ripped off with what you’re paying for a gym membership or on your Comcast bill when compared to what your friends are spending on the same things,” as TechCrunch points out. An API is also reportedly in the works, promising even more transparency in the future. In the meantime, one to watch! (Related: Cheap & simple credit card processing for everyone.)

Website: www.blippy.com
Contact: hello@blippy.com

Spotted by: Benoit Rigaut

The mobile apps continue to come fast and furious in industries far and wide. One of our latest spottings? An iPhone app from insurer State Farm that lets customers look up policy information, record accident details and submit claims.

Available both for the iPhone and the iPod Touch, State Farm Pocket Agent is a free application with features for all consumers, whether or not they're already customers. Its On the Road feature, for example, uses the iPhone's GPS to help users find the nearest hotel or gas station or call a tow truck, taxi, locksmith or rental car service. A built-in checklist, on the other hand, reminds drivers what to do when they're in an accident. Then, of course, there's a way to look for nearby agents. Registered State Farm customers, meanwhile, can do all that plus look up their policy information, record accident details and submit claims, including photos of the accident taken with their iPhone cameras.

Serving as a sort of mobile brand butler, as our sister site would say, Pocket Agent is just one of many examples of the myriad new opportunities enabled by the iPhone and Android platforms. Make consumers' lives easier when they need it most, and they're more likely to become—and remain—loyal customers. (Related: Real-time flight reviews via Android and iPhone — Zipcar's iPhone app finds and unlocks cars — Adidas creates free iPhone guide to Berlin's street art — ING app for G1 phone uses camera & compass to show nearest ATM.)

Website: www.statefarm.com/iphone/index.asp?WT.svl=104

Spotted by: Chris