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

The failings of survey panels are nothing if not well-known to market-researchers and clients alike, but still they remain widely used—albeit expensive and slow—tools for collecting data. Aiming to provide higher-quality results at a lower price, Chicago-based Lab42 conducts its clients' surveys not in artificially assembled panels but in the social networks where target respondents naturally spend their time.

Clients begin by telling Lab42 about their products and their target consumers. Lab42 then helps to craft a survey, with the option of focusing it based on gender, age, location, lifestyle and interests. Next, Lab42 takes the resulting survey to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and smaller niche social networks, using highly targeted incentives to garner attention and responses while consumers go about their day-to-day activities. Two packages are available from Lab42: a premium one for USD 500, with results in three days or less; and a preliminary one for USD 300, with results in 5 days or less. Custom arrangements are also possible.

It's always refreshing to see services that have traditionally been performed slowly and expensively rethought and remade to reflect new technologies and new societal shifts. One to try out when researching your next big thing...? (Related: Advice from the crowds, with a market-research twist — Open polls gauge popular opinion in minutes — Brainstorming service uses Twitter to crowdsource ideas overnight.)

Website: www.lab42.com
Contact: info@lab42.com

Spotted by: Sara Robinson

We've already seen a variety of open education initiatives—including, recently, Betterfly and the University of the People—but we couldn't resist sharing news of one more. Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is an online community of open study groups for short, university-level courses.

Aiming to enable “learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything,” P2PU creates small groups of motivated learners and supports the design and facilitation of free courses. Currently, the project is in a pilot phase, and offers scheduled courses that run for six weeks and cover university-level topics. Each course package—organized by a volunteer—contains the syllabus, study materials and a schedule; learning takes place in small groups of between eight and 14 students. Peers in each course assess each other's work, and online certificates are granted upon completion of a course; P2PU is working towards gaining format credit as well. Ultimately, the goal is to become more of a platform so anyone can use P2PU to organize, design and offer courses. In the meantime, signup for the next round of courses will begin in September.

P2PU is supported in part by the Hewlett Foundation, the Shuttleworth Foundation and the University of California at Irvine. Social entrepreneurs: another one to be inspired by! (Related: Platform lets anyone create and monetize an online school — Five new business ideas focused on education & learning.)

Website: www.p2pu.org
Contact: www.p2pu.org/contact-us

Spotted by: Diricia De Wet

P.S. And be sure to check out the Khan Academy, too! Different set-up (one-man faculty), but also free and definitely worth sharing.

Helping consumers around the world locate everything from mislaid car keys to runaway pets, Finnish startup FinderBase is a global social search engine for lost or found belongings, powered by its member community.

Built on a Google Maps foundation, Finderbase lets users post a listing for an item they have lost or found and geo-tag it to a specific location. Listings include the date an item was lost or found, a description and a photograph if available. Listings for lost items can also include a reward for the finder. The site uses a credits system to reward object finders and manage payments from object seekers. Finders can post found object listings for free and receive 5 FinderBase credits for every found item. Seekers pay 1 euro (20 credits) to place a lost item listing. Upon registering, all new users are given 20 credits, making their first lost item listing free.

Launched into public beta in May, Finderbase has already attracted hundreds of listings worldwide. It's big challenge, of course, is to become the destination for anyone in search of an object or its owner. (Related: Worldwide bicycle registration scheme — Lost & found in the 21st century.)

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

Spotted by: John Greene

Much the way New York's Park Avenue seasonal restaurant is reborn every three months, so New Jersey-based Canal House's cookbook is published three times a year.

Canal House Cooking aims to present “home cooking by home cooks for home cooks,” as it says on its site. Recipes included use ingredients found seasonally in most markets, and all are easy to prepare. Canal House Cooking Volume No. 4, Farm Markets & Gardens, is the fourth book of Canal House's series of recipes and the latest one available. “Grilled leeks with romesco sauce,” “Grilled quail & fresh figs,” and “Patty Curtan’s famous apricot jam” are all among the seasonal offerings served up on this latest edition's pages; up next will be editions for fall & holiday, winter and spring. Individual cookbooks are USD 19.95, while a yearlong subscription—including all three cookbooks in a year—costs USD 49.95.

At a time when appreciation is increasing for all that is homegrown, seasonal and (still) made here, it makes good sense to adapt virtually all food-related offerings to nature's rhythms. Such notions should already be standard for individual menu items, but most restaurants, cookbooks and gourmet stores could all stand to reflect more closely what each new season brings. (Related: 52 recipe contests to spawn crowdsourced cookbook — Members club for artisanal ice cream in Manhattan.)

Website: www.thecanalhouse.com
Contact: mail@thecanalhouse.com

Spotted by: Bethany Bailly

Regular Springwise readers are already well-acquainted with the concept of product stories and the way they can enhance the value of virtually any good. Similar to the way the Daily Grommet shares the story of one product each day in its curated marketplace, so Itizen provides a place for artists, gift-givers and owners of any item to share and track its story over time.

Minnesota-based Itizen aims to let anyone associated with a particular keepsake, gift or interesting thing tell, share and follow its life story. Those interested in beginning a story for a particular good start by affixing an Itizen TRACKit tag to it—both stick-on and sew-on versions are available. Then, they can either type in the tag's alphanumeric code or scan its QR code for automatic connection with its record. There, they can share the item's story—where it came from, how they got it, what made them want it, and whatever other details seem relevant. Such stories can be made either private or public; either way, subsequent owners or borrowers of the product can add to it later and those with its code can see where it's been. Everyone who adds to the product's story, meanwhile, gains Itizenship Points, which ultimately can be used for free product giveaways.

Now in beta, Itizen seeks to forge partnerships with independent artists, crafters or retailers that facilitate selling, swapping, exchanging and sharing interesting things. As it moves out of beta—a full launch is scheduled for Aug. 1—it aims to include features specifically tailored to small retailers and to develop a mobile version. One to get involved in...? (Related: Tracking & tracing fashion brands' product stories — Columbia reuses shipping boxes, tracks their stories — Yak down: luxury yarn with a story and a cause.)

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

Spotted by: Petz Scholtus

There's little doubt mobile phones can have an empowering effect on those in developing nations, and we've already seen efforts to use such technologies for improved income opportunities and healthcare, to name just two examples. Now Finnish Sibesonke—a spinoff from Nokia Siemens Networks—is doing something similar to give underprivileged consumers new access to classifieds, chat and social networking services.

Sibesonke's vision is to empower the 2.5 million or so disadvantaged mobile phone users in emerging and developing countries. Specifically, it has built a service that's accessible with even the simplest mobile phone using interactive telecommunication protocols. There's no need to upgrade a phone or establish an Internet data connection; rather, Sibesonke works using SMS and the USSD text-based browsing protocol, both of which are part of the GSM technical standard. With Sibesonke's proprietary service, even users of 10-year-old GSM phones can browse content and make posts online. In South Africa, for example—where Sibesonke has focused its first efforts—users need only dial *120*686# to establish a data call that gives them a text screen on their phone. From there, they can access job ads, buy-and-sell services, health information and social connections, among many other offerings.

Sibesonke is a for-profit company; its first commercial service is iBOP, a phone-based market research tool designed to gather consumer insight about products, services and advertising from less wealthy South Africans. Meanwhile the company has already won several awards, including the Red Herring 100 Europe 2010. After a pilot in South Africa last year, Sibesonke is now working towards expansion, and it seeks partners on both the technical and socially focused ends.

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

Spotted by: John Greene

For those who want to learn a new language—or even brush up on a current one—there's already Popling for instruction one small bite at a time. Now a new alternative from Berlitz takes a similar approach but adds a social element with multimedia instruction and Twitter-like capabilities.

With support for 15 different languages, Vocabu offers a social way to build vocabulary. Users begin by entering the words they want to master—input can be done manually, or via the “Vocabu Wordclipper,” which lets them highlight any word on a page and drag it to their browser for automatic inclusion. A series of preset libraries are also available. Users can set goals as well in terms of the number of words they'd like to master each week, with badges to look forward to when they do. From there, Vocabu helps users learn the words from their “wordstreams” by trawling the web for visual references using sites like Flickr or for examples of the words used in sentences from real-time tweets on Twitter. Users of Vocabu can form groups for mutual learning and inspiration, and a “follow me” function mimics the one on Twitter for sharing and comparing the wordstreams being studied. Vocabu will soon be available as a desktop application, with an added word trainer function. Apps for iPhone and Android are on the way, too. Currently free and in beta, Vocabu will operate on a business model that offers both freemium and premium services.

When we wrote about Popling early last year, we were impressed by its bite-sized approach to educational instruction; now, Vocabu's addition of social elements makes just as much sense. Purveyors of other educational material—time to bring a social element to your own instructional offerings?

Website: www.getvocabu.com
Contact: vocabu@berlitz.dk