Dandelife is a social biography network: a social network built around telling life stories.

Building on the notion that stories are best shared, Dandelife offers everyone the opportunity to write and share their personal memoirs online, one story at a time. A user's 'vanity page' shows a horizontal timeline, with events neatly placed in history, as well as photos, videos, tags and favourite stories.

Tagging is an important part of storytelling on Dandelife, allowing users to create common threads within their own stories, and connect with those of other members. Besides regular tags (relevant keywords for a camping trip could be 'camping', 'hike', and 'grizzly bear'), a user can also tag stories with the names of people involved in the story.

Being thoroughly Web 2.0, Dandelife works seamlessly with Flickr and YouTube, letting users import photos and videos to illustrate their narrative. San Diego-based Dandelife, launched two months ago, is currently in beta and free to use.

Other recent ventures in the same arena include OurStory, WikiBios, and Eternity4All (featured in Springwise in April 2006). It's all about what trendwatching.com calls life caching: collecting, storing and displaying one's entire life, for friends, family, or the entire world to peruse.

Aarstiderne delivers boxes of organic vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and bread directly to the doorstep of customers every week or fortnight. Thirty thousand Danish households subscribe to the system of receiving a mystery box of organic food products on a regular basis. Customers pick a type and size of box, prepay one month in advance, and the content of the box is composed by Aarstiderne based on what's in season.

Farmer Thomas Harttung, and local chef Soren Ejlersen, started Aarstiderne with the idea of partnering with local households to change the general perception on farming, food and sustainability. By sourcing organic products from local farmers and growers, Aarstiderne aims to raise awareness for sustainability and food quality.

The boxes come with recipes and stories about growers, farms, the company, the food products and quality. The communication is honest and transparent – Aarstiderne lets the customers know how the farmers and Aarstiderne are doing whether the news is good or bad.

Combining high quality organic produce with the sense of surprise that accompanies each box, and creating a sense of community by sharing recipes and stories, Aarstiderne has both created a niche and filled an existing need in the organic food market. Similar concepts exist in the US (Door to Door Organics), Sweden (Ekolådan), The Netherlands (Odin), and the UK (Riverford), to name just a few. Not an entirely new idea, but one whose time has come to be widely adopted!

Website: http://www.aarstiderne.com
Contact: info@aarstiderne.com

A PlayPump is a children's merry-go-round/roundabout attached to a water pump and water storage tank, that provides clean drinking water to children and families in rural Africa.

PlayPumps aren't new (the non-profit venture was founded in 1994), but considering that more than 300 million people in sub-Saharan Africa lack adequate access to safe drinking water, and more than 4.5 million children worldwide will die of diarrhea and water-related diseases this year, this is one smart business idea that can't get enough coverage.

The idea is brilliantly simple. Children spin on a merry-go-round, water pumps from below the ground, up into a storage tank just a few feet away, creating a safe, plentiful supply of water. Each installation pumps up to 1,400 liters per hour with less effort than any other manually operated pump.

For an initial investment of USD 9,000, PlayPumps are installed near communities and schools. Maintenance is carried out by a local entrepreneur trained for the purpose. Maintenance costs are covered by advertising: billboards on two sides of the 2,500 liter storage tank are reserved for commercial advertising, while other two carry social and public health messages.

Beyond the immediate health benefits provided by access to clean water, PlayPumps also significantly improve the situation of girls and women, who would otherwise spend hours each day fetching water instead of going to school.

PlayPumps are manufactured and installed by South-African Roundabout Outdoor Ltd., with funding coming from an international coalition of governments, NGOs, companies, foundations and individual donors. Last September, Roundabout started expanding its operations to Mozambique, and Swaziland is next in line. Now what bottler, beverage brand, and/or toy manufacturer is going to jump on the opportunity to sponsor, even brand these things?

Website: http://www.playpumps.org
Contact: info@playpumps.org

Earlier this year, we wrote about Japanese retailer Ranking Ranqueen, which takes a radical approach to sales. Every product in the store is part of a top 3, 5 or 10 list. Whether it's the top 3 bath powders, the top 5 nose hair removers, or the top 10 pasta sauces. Popularity and ranking are based on sales data from parent company Tokyu's department stores, and numbers from independent research companies. Needless to say, the store is an excellent place to survey the latest consumer fads and crazes.

Ranking Ranqueen takes curated consumption to an extreme, and caters to people's love of numbered lists (to see how popular lists are online, just check out web buzz tracker popurls.com). The stores are tiny, and located in high traffic areas like train and subway stations. Although Ranking Ranqueen hasn't released sales figures, Tokyu recently announced that monthly revenue per store is up 10 to 20 percent over the past year, and there are plans to double the number of stores to 15 by 2008. Time to bring the concept to the rest of the world?!

Austria's first bank for women was recently opened by Raiffeisen in the ski resort town of Gastein. The concept was developed in association with Emotion Banking, which conducted extensive studies about women and finances, and how they interact with banks. Emotion Banking came to the conclusion that women approach finances differently than men do, and that a dedicated bank for women would better serve Raiffeisen's female customers. The current set-up includes an inviting lounge-like interior, that includes a play area to keep children occupied. Female employees assist customers, taking extra time to explain products thoroughly, and to build a strong relationship with their customers.

The concept might be a first in Austria, but isn't altogether new on an international scale. From Citigroup's Women & Co, which we covered a few years ago, to the Royal Bank of Canada, many financial institutions are recognizing that women often have their own needs and goals when it comes to money and finances. And this segemented market is continuously evolving; according to a recent report by research firm Aite Group, "Highly-educated women leaving the U.S. workforce to raise children are creating a new, highly lucrative consumer segment for financial firms." The market, which the group dubbed 'Ivy League Moms', is sized at roughly USD 10 million U.S. households with investable assets of USD 6.5 trillion.

Leading the way are banks for women in Islamic countries. Microcredit providers like Grameen Bank have long placed special emphasis on providing loans to women. In Pakistan, First Women Bank was founded in 1989 and strives for the economic empowerment of women. Saudi Arabian women, although not allowed to vote or drive, have the right to control their own finances, and Saudi banks have been devoting extensive resources to 'ladies banking' over the past few years, with separate entrances, distinct product offerings and a staff consisting entirely of women.

Meanwhile, Bahrain announced it's own first two weeks ago: the first bank for women in the Gulf region. The Masrafy Bank has been granted a licence to start the first Islamic investment bank for women, aimed at targeting high net worth women across the Gulf region. The venture could be lucrative, as studies by backer Abu Dhabi Investment House show that women in the region have funds worth USD 38 billion, with no credible investment avenues for investing those funds in a private and professional manner.

So: is gender-segregated banking the way forward, in all parts of the world? We'd love to hear what you think, so please share your view by adding a comment below, and feel free to include examples of similar concepts that we've left out.