Filmaps is rapidly creating a crowd-powered database of filming locations around the world. Users can search by location or film title to bring up a Google Map that features location photos from Panoramio and videos from YouTube. Since its launch in January this year 998 films have been mapped in 2363 locations. Filmaps adds social elements through Facebook and Twitter connections, as well as embeddable location widgets.

We've seen maps used for everything from virtual jogging to erotic spending statistics. As described by our sister-site trendwatching.com, "geography is about everything that is (literally) close to consumers, and it's a universally familiar method of organizing, finding and tracking relevant information on objects, events and people."

There are hints on the website that Barcelona-based Filmaps may have plans to offer film location tours, which would make sense. Its members are already mapping out the routes, and the site would be a perfect marketing tool. What other niches could you map your way into?

Website: www.filmaps.com
Contact: www.filmaps.com/contact.php

Spotted by: Leticia Pérez Prieto

Seat Geek is a free service that helps users find tickets when they're cheapest. Currently focused on Major League Baseball games and select concerts in the US, Seat Geek employs a sophisticated algorithm to predict whether the price of a queried ticket is set to rise or fall—similar to what Bing Travel (formerly Farecast) does for flight tickets. If the price is expected to go down, users can sign up to receive a free email alert when it's at rock bottom. Seat Geek also scours the web in for the best deals at any moment, linking to affiliated ticket merchants like StubHub, RazorGator and eBay.

Seat Geek's patent-pending algorithm draws on a large pool of data that includes millions of historical ticket transactions. This data is crunched together with other factors, such as, for baseball games: team statistics, the weather, the venue, the price-level of the seat—even who'll be pitching. According to SeatGeek co-founder Jack Groetzinger, the algorithm is accurate 80% of the time, and it's also self-training, meaning it gets better every day.

As our sister-site explains in its latest briefing, consumers increasingly expect instant gratification. Seat Geek and other 'prediction engines' take that one step further, by drawing on the web's informational riches to tell consumers how things will be, enabling them to make better decisions now. The future has never been as near, and opportunities abound for entrepreneurs that can bring it even closer. (Related: Zigabid ticketing marketplace — Real-time pricing error alerts for consumers to pounce on.)

Website: www.seatgeek.com
Contact: admin@seatgeek.com

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

There's no shortage of real-world games that use technology to add a virtual element, as we've already seen in such examples as Treasure World, The Hidden Park, LocoMatrix and Swinxs. What's less common is to see classic board games add technological features to their game play, yet that's just what Hasbro has done to its decades-old game Clue.

Clue: Secrets & Spies is a new twist on the classic board game that adds text messaging to its game play. Players in the game are challenged to stop the nefarious Agent Black, who is plotting an assortment of evil capers. To do so, they must go undercover as international agents, complete missions and attend secret meetings. An included "spy light" can be used to reveal secrets, while players' cell phones can be used to receive Spy Text messages that could help or hinder their game. Players need only text the word "SPY" to 90445 to start receiving messages, which will number six in total during the course of a game. Participating mobile operators are AT&T, T-Mobile US, Nextel, Boost, Virgin, US Cellular, NTelos, Dobson, Sprint, Verizon Wireless and Cincinnati Bell Wireless; the cost of text messages is not included in the game's USD 24.99 price.

By adding a thoroughly modern twist to a classic game, Hasbro not only stands to attract a younger crowd of mobile-minded users, it also provides yet another illustration of what our sister site calls the OFF=ON trend, whereby the lines separating the online and offline worlds are increasingly blurring. Other game makers: what about you...?

Website: www.hasbro.com/clue/default.cfm?page=Products/Detail&product_id=24609
Contact: hasbro.custhelp.com

Spotted by: nytimes via Judy McRae

When we recently reported on Verizon's sponsorship of the New York Mets' interactive big screen, we noticed that the telecom giant is also bringing social media to the small screen, with a Twitter widget for its FiOS fiber optic TV service. The widget, freely available to all FiOS subscribers, is displayed on one half of the TV screen, allowing viewers to continue watching their favourite show while following a related feed or discussing it with their followers on Twitter.

The Twitter widget, available to the approximately 2.5 million households with FiOS TV, has been very successful so far, with some 1 million users in the first few days. It's part of a suite of applications available to FiOS customers through the service's 'Widget Bazaar', which also includes a Facebook app—proving popular for picture sharing—and Blip.tv, which hosts user-produced video content. Following in the footsteps of Apple's trendsetting App Store, Verizon has announced that it will also be opening the Widget Bazaar to third-party developers.

Older technologies that have sought to integrate the web and TV have failed to make much of an impact, and it remains to be seen whether new television interfaces will be able to compete with the laptops, netbooks and smartphones that have already joined their owners on the living room couch. The larger implications are less uncertain: by giving viewers real-time connectivity as they watch, Verizon is tapping into a growing consumer trend. More about that in our sister-site's latest briefing on nowism.

Website: www.verizon.com/fios
Contact: www22.verizon.com/content/ContactUs

Spotted by: Duncan Rickelton

A new crowdsourced initiative invites fans to remake Star Wars. People can sign up on Star Wars: Uncut to recreate up to three of the 1,313 fifteen-second clips that make up the epic space film. They then have 30 days to film and upload their segment before the slot is offered to someone else. The 337 contributions submitted so far range from live action and animation to stop motion and cardboard shadow-puppetry. Submissions can be viewed on Star Wars: Uncut, side-by-side with the original. Eventually, the site's administrator—Casey Pugh, a Vimeo staff member—will stitch all of the pieces together, letting the project reach its ultimate goal of recreating the the entire movie.

No word yet as to when the finished product will be available and in which formats. However, it will definitely be available on the web, attracting, at the very least, hits from those who participated in its creation. Claiming to be the biggest fan recreation in the universe, Star Wars Uncut is one of the most amusing attempts at crowdsourcing we've seen so far, with its organizer stating more uncut films are in the works. Will the DIY remake genre be able to sustain itself? For the time being, it's definitely a novel way of getting fans involved, and one to experiment with if you're in the entertainment business.

Website: www.starwarsuncut.com
Contact: casey@starwarsuncut.com

Spotted by: swissmiss