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

Just as Foursquare allows consumers to keep tabs on each other's current activities, so Plancast lets them track what their friends are planning to do in the future.

Plancast, the brainchild of San Francisco-based Worldly Developments, bills itself as “the easiest way for you to share events and other activities with friends.” Toward that end, the web application allows users to create inclusive location-based plans and share them with friends via Facebook and Twitter. Consumers begin by signing up with Plancast—something that can also be done via Facebook Connect or Twitter. From there, they can easily find other friends using the service and browse all the plans and events those people have in the works. Sharing plans is simple and quick, thanks to a simple posting prompt; so, too, is getting more details about what friends are planning. Users can follow the plans of people they're interested in, and they can also limit their own profiles to a select set of friends, according to a report on VentureBeat. Widgets are available to display upcoming plans on a website or blog, and Worldly Developments just recently released a read- and write-enabled Plancast API. A free iPhone app is available, as is one for Android. Future revenue plans focus primarily on targeted advertising, The Next Web reports.

There's no shortage of event-planning sites out there, but most of those tend to focus on formal ones; when it's just drinks and dinner being planned, Plancast is there to help make it happen. Keep the mass-mingling innovations coming! (Related: With social media check-ins, guests earn hotel rewards — Five online services for getting together offline.)

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

Spotted by: John Greene

Air travel may not be the most sustainable mode of transportation, but it's becoming increasingly easy for consumers to choose a greener ride to and from the airport. Back in 2008 we saw the Seattle-Tacoma airport begin offering free electricity for plug-in cars, and now the Portland International Airport has set up a bike assembly station.

Located on the airport's lower terminal roadway, the new bike assembly station will enable people travelling with bicycles to more easily assemble and disassemble their bikes before and after flights. Portland is already well-known for its bicycle-friendliness, of course—it even has a bike path connecting to the airport. Accordingly, the assembly station can now be used by travellers and airport employees alike to get ready for a commute along that path, as well as by visitors to the city needing to disassemble their bike for a return flight home. As an extra service, Travel Oregon and the Port of Portland have made basic bike tools available for check-out at the airport's State Welcome Center along with literature about bicycling resources in the region.

With many travellers visiting Oregon and southwest Washington to take advantage of bike tourism and to participate in the region’s many bicycle events, the Portland airport's bike-friendliness makes extra good sense. Given the countless universal advantages of the bicycle, however—and the corresponding explosion in its popularity—Portland's example is ripe for emulation in any bicycle-friendly city around the globe.

Website: www.portofportland.com
Contact: contactus@portofportland.com

Spotted by: airlinetrends.com

The ability to pay for purchases by mobile phone may be common in some parts of the world, but it's by no means ubiquitous. Similar to the way RideCharge lets consumers book a taxi and pay their fare by phone, TabbedOut lets them open a tab at their favourite bar and then close it out by phone when they're ready to go.

The brainchild of Texas-based ATX Innovation, TabbedOut is available as a free app for both iPhone and Android; Blackberry support is coming soon, the company says. Currently, consumers in Austin and Dallas as well as Chico, Calif., can use the app to manage their bar tabs at participating venues. They begin by downloading and setting up the application, including entering account information for one or more credit or debit cards; once stored, those accounts are displayed only via the last four digits. Next, when they're ready to visit a bar, they can use the app to see which ones near them are linked with TabbedOut. The software is integrated directly with participating restaurants and bars so as to allow consumers to open and view a tab directly from the point-of-sale system. Opening a tab with TabbedOut essentially provides the bar with the consumer's stored payment information up front; in return, he or she is given a code that the bartender uses to keep track of each drink. When it's time to go, the consumer simply opens the app, enters a tip and selects “pay.” TabbedOut can send a copy of the receipt via email; it also archives the information for later use in expense reports, for example. ATX charges consumers 99 cents for each tab paid using TabbedOut.

Aiming for a nationwide expansion, ATX is currently seeking strategic partnerships with POS providers, resellers and hospitality vendors; one to get in on early...?

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

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

There may now be myriad ways to take online content and repackage it attractively for offline presentation, such as through the News from YOUs Facebook application. Those reading online, however, are typically still stuck with the same, dispersed set of online feeds they always have been. Flipboard is a new iPad app that aims to integrate and spruce up all those tweets and updates in a single, personalized online magazine.

Just launched this week, Flipboard for iPad bills itself as “a social magazine that brings to life the stories, photos, news and updates being shared across Twitter and Facebook.” The free app automatically creates a magazine from the user's social content. Sections devoted to Facebook and Twitter, for example, let readers quickly flip through the latest stories, photos and updates from friends and trusted sources. Links and images are rendered right in the digital magazine, so users no longer have to scan long lists of posts and click on link after link; instead, they instantly see all the stories, comments and images in one place. Flipboard also lets readers easily create sections around topics or people they care about. Suggested sections include sports, news, tech and style, all featuring content hand-curated from popular and interesting Twitter feeds; alternatively, users can create their own. Ultimately, material from sites including Flickr, Foursquare and Yelp will also be included, according to a report in the New York Times.

Mike McCue, Flipboardʼs CEO, explains: “With over one billion messages posted every day, social networks are quickly becoming the primary way people discover and share content on the Web. The result is a huge influx of incoming messages and links people must sort through across multiple web sites just to stay up to date. We believe the timeless principles of print can make social media less noisy, more visually compelling and ultimately more mainstream.” California-based Flipboard just acquired semantic analysis company Ellerdale, with an eye toward helping future versions of Flipboard extract, categorize and feature highly relevant and hot trending content from across a variety of social networks, it says. Eventually, it aims to accept advertising and to charge for certain content, the NYT reported. App-minded entrepreneurs: one to get involved in... or emulate with an offering of your own?

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

Spotted by: nytimes

It may now be possible to add digital data to a traditional cemetery marker, but that's not necessarily the same as creating a full-fledged online memorial. Aiming to enable the latter, 1000Memories provides a place for friends and family to gather and remember deceased loved ones.

To create an online memorial, users of 1000Memories begin by customizing a homepage for the deceased, including a full-screen photo. They then invite family and friends to the site, where a dedicated page allows everyone to see all the activity there so far. Stories and memories about the deceased are easily shared on the site, as are photos from a variety of sources. An online guestbook, meanwhile, lets all visitors leave a brief note to share their thoughts and feelings. 1000Memories even allows users to start a project in someone's honour or direct donations to a favorite charitable cause.

While the field of online memorial services is a crowded one, many of those sites were clearly created in the early days of the web. With its fresh design and more current feature set, 1000Memories sets itself apart and could attract a sizeable audience. Using 1000Memories is currently free, and it appears that's not likely to change: ultimately, San Francisco-based Hampshire St. Experiment—the startup behind the site—is considering creating and selling print books of the content on individual sites, according to a report on TechCrunch. Who will step up as partner to help make that happen...? (Related: From online baby blogs to printed baby books.)

Website: www.1000memories.com
Contact: contact@1000memories.com

Spotted by: Margarita Barry

“Buy one, give one” initiatives are increasingly common forms of corporate generosity, but it wasn't until recently that we began seeing them involving children. Much the way Happy Blankie lets recipients of its animal blankets help decide where the donated ones get sent, so Texas-based clothing maker Whitten Grey aims to let the girls who wear its dresses participate in donating similar ones to girls in far-off lands.

Through Whitten Grey's Project Little Grey Dress, buyers of any eco-friendly dress from the company receive a unique code along with their purchase. When they enter that code online, they can then choose what country they'd like to donate a dress to—currently, the choices are Liberia, Guatemala, Malawi and Zimbabwe. After choosing the colour of the dress they'd like to send, girls can then enter a message they'd like to include for the girl who receives it.

Generosity has become increasingly important to the Generation G masses, so it stands to reason they'd want their children to learn that virtue too. Purveyors of other kids' products, large and small: time to bring some charity-minded capabilities to your own pint-sized patrons...? (Related: Buy a onesie, donate one to a baby in need.)

Website: www.whittengrey.com/give/
Contact: give@whittengrey.com

Spotted by: Inhabitots via Judy McRae

Stuffed animals and security blankets tend to be favourite sleeping companions among young children, but the Happy Blankie—one of the cutest innovations we've seen in some time—combines both into one. Not only that, but for each Happy Blankie sold another is donated, resulting in not just double but quadruple the comfort and quadruple the fun.

Ohio-based Happy Blankie offers a line of four animal blankets made of luxurious plush “minky" fabric and silky charmeuse satin. Available in puppy, pig, frog and teddy bear versions, all feature an embroidered cheek-to-cheek smile and a plush embossed ribbon nose. Pricing ranges from USD 29 for an 18-by-18-inch size to USD 99 for a 48-by-56-inch version; personalization with a child's name is also available. Best of all, however, is that for every Happy Blankie sold, the company will donate another to a child in a hospital or orphanage. It even lets the buyer of the first blanket choose where the second one is given by following the instructions on the blanket's "giving is cool" tag.

Who says there's no more room for innovation in the world of children's blankets and toys? Throw in a dash of buy-one/give-one generosity, and there will surely be sweet dreams all around! ;-) (Related: Personalized baby blankets, reborn — Bespoke baby blankets — Personalized books starring a child's favourite toy — Buy a onesie, donate one to a baby in need.)

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

Spotted by: Sara Al Mulla

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 love our pets. US consumers spent USD 45.5 billion on them in 2009, according to the American Pet Products Association. Increasingly, a good chunk of this money goes toward treating domestic animals in ways that reflect their owners' own lifestyle choices. Here are five products and services that reflect this anthropomorphic trend:

1. FIDO FACTOR — Fido Factor is a US directory of dog-friendly restaurants, venues, bookstores and other establishments. The site encourages user-generated content through its iPhone app, Facebook integration, and with the promise of a donation to San Francisco SPCA when new content gets added for that city.

2. COUNTRY DOGS — Country Dogs forms partnerships with farm owners near US cities to create boarding facilities for dogs in disused barns, stables or other outbuildings. Touting itself as a more stress-free alternative to urban kennels, the service emphasizes fresh air and exercise for customers' pets in a spacious, rural environment.

3. VET CARE EXPRESS — Vet Care Express provides emergency and non-emergency transport for sick and injured pets in the Florida area. They also provide a taxi service when pets need to be moved from A to B without their owners. Their 'animal ambulances' are fully equipped with appropriate cages, gurneys and first aid facilities.

4. VIYO — Prebiotic drinks such as Yakult and Actimel have become highly successful in recent years by combining some fairly sober medical rationale about immune systems with upbeat and positive lifestyle marketing. Inevitably, there's now a Belgian prebotic for pets. Viyo comes in a cat formula and a dog formula, with varieties for different ages. Like its equivalents for humans, the drink contains friendly bacteria plus nutrients, vitamins and other supplements.

5. PET SPEAKERS — Cats and dogs are sensitive to a much wider sound frequency range than their owners. Pet hearing specialists Pet Acoustics have created a music system designed to please man and beast alike: My Pet Speaker eliminates frequencies that go unnoticed by human listeners but could unsettle cats, dogs, and horses too. Plus the controls are all positioned so they can't be flicked by passing tails.

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann, Tom van Daele and Bill McMahon

Not everyone has an eye for interior design—or the budget to hire a full-fledged, custom service. Enter California-based Avenue Interior Design, which recently launched an online offering that aims to give consumers a lower-cost way to get a professional look for their home.

Consumers begin by choosing the room or rooms they want to make over. They then browse through Avenue's I Heart Design site, which offers nine very different looks chosen by its designers. Each is represented by a door with a corresponding style; when clicked, users can see inside for a closer look. Once they find a look they like, users tell I Heart Design about their goals for the room and any special considerations, such as pets with a penchant for muddy pawprints. Measuring the room comes next, followed by uploading a few photos including any furniture that will be reused. For a fee of USD 3.50 per square foot, I Heart Design will then send out a custom box including two space plan options for each room; a spec card for each piece of furniture the designers selected; a paint card with recommended colours; a window treatment card with recommended styles; and a tape measure and other small tools. I Heart Design chooses items from a mix of flea markets, national retailers and trade-specific vendors, according to a report on Daily Candy. Consumers can buy those they like directly from their personal online design board on the site.

This fall, I Heart Design by Avenue will launch a similar offering aimed at hospitality providers. One to try out on your own hotel or restaurant—or emulate in another part of the world? (Related: 3-D tool helps students decorate (and shop for) dorm rooms — Home enhancement service focuses on senior citizens — Social shopping meets interior design.)

Website: www.iheartdesignbyavenue.com
Contact: service@iheartdesignbyavenue.com

Spotted by: Heidi Heifetz

Thanks to GPS-enabled mobile technologies, neighbours are communicating as never before. Where BlockChalk facilitates geo-tagged messaging in general, Anttenna focuses on creating a new, location-aware alternative to the traditional classifieds.

Using a free iPhone application, Anttenna enables real-time, location-based, person-to-person exchanges by turning traditional classified listings into geo-tagged, Twitter-sized “microlistings,” as it calls them. With a platform that's actually built on top of Twitter, Anttenna lets users quickly connect with people nearby to buy things, sell things or just reach out. Things for sale get posted to the site's “supply chain,” while wanted goods go to its demand side; either way, posting takes less than a minute, the company says. Listings can be sorted by keyword, category, location and proximity; examples might include finding a concert ticket on location at a music festival, helping a lost pet reunite with her owner, or finding a free sofa right down the street. Following pilot tests in San Diego, Seattle and Austin, Anttenna is now available in most major metropolitan areas across the United States and Canada.

Marcus Wandell, Anttenna's cofounder and CEO, explains: “With the exception of posting ads online and making them searchable, classified ads really haven't evolved all that much since they were introduced 300 years ago. Anttenna fully leverages the smartphone platforms and new communications standards to give people a whole new way to use classified advertising. Anttenna delivers a constant stream of hyperlocal, real-time listings, always relevant given the moment and location in which they are seen.”

For businesses, of course, the advertising potential is at least as compelling. Mobile-minded entrepreneurs: time to grease the location-based buying-and-selling wheels near you...?

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

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

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.

The internet may have already brought new transparency, accountability and ease to myriad aspects of consumers' lives, but auto repair is not typically among them. Aiming to provide an alternative to the time-consuming process of driving from shop to shop collecting estimates, DentBetty is an online system that lets users upload photos of the damage to their car and receive competing bids from local repair shops in return.

Structural damage typically requires a physical inspection for a realistic estimate, DentBetty notes; for that reason, it focuses on dings, dents, scrapes and scratches instead. Users begin on the free system, which is currently in beta, by simply entering their ZIP code and uploading at least two photos of the damage to their car. Local auto body shops can then examine the photos and come up with bids for getting the repair done. Whenever a shop makes an estimate, DentBetty notifies the user by email; all estimates received so far (up to the maximum of seven) are presented together on a personal DentBetty page. The DentBetty Quality Scoreboard, meanwhile, keeps a running record of consumer feedback and other information about the various vendors involved to help consumers evaluate their reliability. When the consumer selects a bid, he or she then contacts the shop directly to schedule an appointment.

There are currently more than 100 shops nationwide in the DentBetty Network, each prescreened against DentBetty’s rigorous standards. Such members get notified every time a new consumer within driving distance requests an estimate. Since some repairs are difficult to estimate by photo alone, shops can indicate a level of confidence along with their bid. DentBetty's staff also prescreens every photo to make certain that it's from a legitimate consumer—“not just some teenager having fun with his camera.”

Of the USD 36 billion spent each year in the US on collision repair, some USD 3 to 5 billion takes the form of out-of-pocket expenditures for cosmetic damage. One to partner with or emulate in other parts of the world? (Related: Home-repair bidding site prescreens contractors — Premium tire chain focuses on transparency.)

Website: www.dentbetty.com
Contact: thebetty@dentbetty.com

It's long been recognized that celebrity endorsements can help sell products, but typically it's only the biggest brands and the brightest stars that are lucky enough to strike such deals. Aiming to bring celebrity endorsements into the realm of possibility for all the other brands and professional athletes out there, Brand Affinity Technologies has created a platform focused on creating the right match.

Founded in 2007, California-based BAT gives advertisers of every size and shape the ability to quickly and easily launch endorsement campaigns using its endorsement platform, which currently includes more than 3,300 contracted athletes and celebrities covering every U.S. DMA. BAT's celebrity roster includes Olympic athletes and marquee active and retired players in nearly every sport, including Drew Brees of the NFL, Jorge Posada of the MLB and the NBA's Rajon Rondo. Advertisers can browse that talent based on geography, branding and targeting considerations; included in the platform are detailed talent profiles with photos, videos and personal information—what type of cellphone they use, for example—as well as proprietary metrics that can help compare talent by region, sport and status. Endorsement offerings include digital, radio, outdoor, print and television advertising as well as appearances and virtual memorabilia that advertisers can provide to consumers as incentives and rewards. The BAT platform's interface mimics an “iTunes experience,” the company says, and standardized contracts help get campaigns up and running quickly. Pricing is on a pay-for-what-you-use, CPM or flat-rate basis with no long-term lock-ins or additional costs for talent or targeting.

Some 80 percent of all Americans are self-proclaimed sports fans, and half of all U.S. adults closely follow sports, BAT says. One to emulate for all the fans and brands in your part of the world...?

Website: www.brandaffinity.net
Contact: www.brandaffinity.net/contactus

Spotted by: Wired Magazine

Just as chefs are forever seeking out new ways to fill our bellies, the food industry shows a insatiable appetite for novel concepts, as can be seen in our food & beverage database. Here's a selection of new innovations designed to appeal to those hungry for a more unusual dining experience:

1. LE TROISIEME LIEU — Stealing a tradition from music and comedy clubs, Paris bar Le Troisième Lieu has declared Mondays as 'open kitchen nights': any aspiring chef can register to be the venue's cook for the evening. All meals cost EUR 12.

2. PUBLIC PIE — Dutch mobile kitchen Public Pie features ovens that are integrated into the outdoor benching that is provided for patrons, meaning customers get exactly what is promised by the company motto: 'Fresh apple pie with a hot butt'.

3. PATTY'S PIZZA — Santa Monica pizza maker Patty's has done away with its brick-and-mortar eatery altogether, and moved its retail operation entirely online. On top of that, customers can choose to have their gourmet pizzas delivered baked or par-baked, giving them the option of completing the process their own oven.

4. LOBSTER PUSHER — How to make a sandwich more exciting to consumers? The Lobster Pusher's answer is to make the act of buying one emulate a drug deal. Customers interested in The Merchandise—a lobster bun—must first become a member of a Facebook group. Orders for product are conducted by SMS, and handovers take place surreptitiously on street corners.

Spotters: Elisabeth Dien, Food Inspiration, Jim Stewart, Erin Lindholm