|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
||
|
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 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 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 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 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 Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski |
|||
|
|||
|
|
||
|
The “buy one, donate one” initiatives are coming fast and furious. Hard on the heels of our stories about two such efforts targeting children—namely, Happy Blankie and Whitten Grey's Project Little Grey Dress—comes news of one designed to help homeless pets. Launched this spring, the Plus One Movement from Canadian pet food maker Darford International aims to provide fresh, quality food to abandoned dogs awaiting new homes. How it works: Attached to every Darford box of treats and food is an extra meal of the company's Zero/G dog food intended specifically for donation to a dog in need. Specially designed collection hampers have been placed in-store at the roughly 3,000 US and Canadian retailers that carry the Darford brand. Consumers can simply drop their donation meals into those hampers, and participating animal shelters will pick up and use the donated food for local homeless dogs. The video below explains the project: Some 4 million dogs are euthanized each year in the US and Canada alone, primarily for lack of room and food, Darford notes. Other pet-friendly brands and retailers: time to step up and do your own generous part...? Website: www.ilovealldogs.org Spotted by: Peter von Hahn
|
|||
|
|||
|
|
||
|
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 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 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 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, Flipboard's 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 Spotted by: nytimes |
|||
|
|||
|
| |||
|
|
|
|
