Team-licensed caps, T-shirts and watches may be all very well for the average sports fan, but what of the truly ardent supporter? Working on the assumption that there are enthusiasts out there wishing for bigger and better ways to express their passion, Stadium Associates is now giving fans of the New York Yankees a chance to bring nothing less than a piece of the stadium into their own back yard.

Indeed, Yankees fans can now buy grass seed and sod drawn from the very same farm and crops that have supplied Yankee Stadium for the past four decades. The proprietary sports turf—specially grown for the Yankees by DeLea Sod Farms on an 80-acre farm in Southern New Jersey—features the same 100 percent Kentucky Bluegrass used in Yankee Stadium and "grooms easy and stands tough," in the words of Stadium Associates; "you will never feel a stronger connection with the team or the game than with this Authentic MLB product." Yankees Grass Seed is priced starting at USD 14.99 for a 3 oz. bag, and is available both online and through Yankee Stadium, Yankee Clubhouse Stores, and select Home Depot stores in the New York metro area. Yankees Sod is available through New York Home Depot stores as well as DeLea Sod Farms.

Is there any underestimating consumers' enthusiasm for the teams, artists and performers they love? We think not—nor has their fondness for a good status story and some (still) made here appeal faded at all. For sports teams around the globe, this is one to emulate; for all others: look around you, and be inspired!

Website: www.stadiumassociates.com
Contact: www.stadiumassociates.com/Pages/Contact

Spotted by: Judy McRae

We’ve covered the value of worm poop, and now it’s time for the merits of cow dung to come to the fore. EcoFaeBrick turns cattle waste into bricks that are greener, stronger and 20% lighter than regular clay bricks.

The Indonesian organization was set up earlier this year to tackle the problem of excessive waste in farming areas. From this, the ecological and economical solution of the Cow Dung Brick was born. There's no visible difference between a traditional brick and the dung brick—and before you ask, there's no smell either. Instead of using wood fire the dung bricks are fired using biogas, helping to further reduce carbon emissions. The new product also lets land be retained for farming, rather than being excavated for clay for conventional bricks, or becoming a health risk due to ‘too much dung’.

A green product that boosts the wealth of rural Indonesians, it's not hard to see why EcoFaeBrick came first in the 2009 Global Social Venture competition. The company has identified 22 areas around Indonesia that they want to expand the project to, plus 22 more in other parts of the world. One to support, or otherwise get involved with!

Website: www.ecofaebrick.com
Contact: yusufaria@ecofaebrick.com

Spotted by: Tais Reis

Targeting consumers who want to consume less energy but also enjoy shiny new gadgets, Canadian Ecobee has developed a smart thermostat that enables easy remote control of a home's energy use.

Installation involves hooking up the device to a customer’s existing wifi network and then registering it online, so that users can log in to Ecobee's portal and control their thermostat from wherever they can access the web. While regular programmable thermostats stick to fixed routines, Ecobee’s online access means that users have flexible control over home heating and cooling, adjusting as needed if they’ll be home earlier or later than expected.

The Smart Thermostat is priced at USD 385 plus shipping and installation, plus USD 35 per year access to Ecobee’s portal. Besides direct sales to consumers in Canada and the US, Ecobee is also pitching its device and platform to utility companies. By adding pricing visualization to the thermostat's information mix, utilities can make consumers even more aware of their energy use, which could have the added benefit of reducing peak loads. (Related: Home security with an energy-monitoring twist — Home energy monitoring, delivered by Google.)

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

Spotted by: Amanda Bond

We've written about several tools that help apartment tenants notify landlords of the need for repairs, but recently one caught our eye that focuses on the flip side instead. Specifically, Tenant Txt gives landlords a simple, paperless way to keep tenants informed.

Tenant Txt, based in Houston, is a mass alert and reminder system that allows rental communities of all sizes to easily communicate with tenants, maintenance workers and office personnel about maintenance repairs, criminal activity or community events via email and text message. Landlords can maintain an unlimited number of contacts along with their emails, mobile phone numbers and addresses; the online service uses a flat-file database, making it easy to import such information. To send an email or text message, users simply type or paste in their communication and submit; Tenant Txt then broadcasts it to the relevant list. Following a free, 15-day trial, Tenant Txt is priced starting at USD 25 per month. An autoresponder and a personalized Tenant Txt URL and email address are included with each subscription to the service.

By giving landlords a faster and more eco-minded alternative to distributing paper notices and other communications, Tenant Txt offers significant benefits on the user's end. Tenants, however, will also surely gain a better sense of immediacy and connection. Seems like a win-win all around and a no-brainer to be implemented—or emulated—in housing communities around the globe. Another paper-based process bites the dust! ;-) (Related: Web tools for landlords — Using pictures to help tenants request repairs.)

Website: www.tenanttxt.com
Contact: www.tenanttxt.com/contactus.html

Based—where else?—in Sweden, I LOVE IKEA is a new online marketplace for consumers looking to buy and sell secondhand IKEA furniture.

Buyers can search by region and city to find items nearby, or by category: bathroom, kitchen, office, etc. Product descriptions include the usual: photo, price and contact details, but are generally brief—after all, buyers can easily find more information in IKEA's catalogue. Placing ads is free until August 1st. After that, the site will charge sellers a small fee per ad.

On every general classifieds site, from Craigslist to preloved.co.uk, there's an abundance of secondhand IKEA goods on offer. According to I LOVE IKEA, they're included in over 20,000 ads per month in newspapers and online marketplaces. And that's just in Sweden. So it makes sense to create a marketplace dedicated to IKEA's wares, making it easier for consumers to locate items by name or type. I LOVE IKEA isn't affiliated with the object of their affection; as they put it, they're "a tribute to IKEA's amazing range, and a response to recent developments towards a more sustainable society." Following its launch in Sweden, I LOVE IKEA aims to expand to the rest of Europe soon.

Enduringly popular around the world, IKEA will no doubt continue to spawn businesses that offer complementary goods and services. Need more inspiration to start an IKEA 'feeder business' of your own? Check out slip covers for sofas by Bemz, delivery to Nasheville by ModerNash, decorative adhesives by Grippiks and add-ons by Parts of Sweden, all of which have built successful companies on an IKEA foundation.

Website: www.iloveikea.se
Contact: info@iloveikea.se

Spotted by: Robert Olzon

There's nothing like a sudden flurry of like-minded contenders to suggest an idea is a good one. Case in point: The proverbial ink had barely dried on our story last week about Spareground, the site that helps UK consumers rent out unused space, when we were alerted to not one but two similar services.

Los Angeles-based Homstie, for example, bills itself as a community marketplace for storage space. Launched by a team of UCLA students, Homstie aims to provide an alternative to the USD 22 billion storage industry and its rental fees of USD 700 per month or more. Listing and searching for space on Homstie are both free; the only fees the company charges are for making listings featured or highlighted—priced at USD 3 and USD 2, respectively—and for a custom lease agreement, which is priced at USD 19. Homstie does not facilitate rental payments, but it does offer member profiles, identity verification and a feedback system. Users of ad-supported Homstie can browse for listings by proximity to major California universities or by region across the United States.

Store at My House, meanwhile, also serves US consumers with listings of parking and storage space nationwide. Users can search the ad-supported site by ZIP code for the space they need; if they can't find it, they can also create a request. Reputation ratings for space providers on the site, meanwhile, help ensure safety.

Enough said? The economy doesn't look to be making any dramatic improvements anytime soon, so there's still plenty of opportunity to spread this concept around the globe. So far, just the US and the UK seem to be covered; one to bring to cash-strapped consumers in a market near you?

Website: www.homstie.com — www.storeatmyhouse.com
Contact: www.homstie.com/contact — www.storeatmyhouse.com/contact.php

Spotted by: May Almero-Cruz and Susannah Haynie

Back in 2006 we wrote about iscape, a British company that manufactured stand-alone offices for installation in the user's home garden. The company since merged with rival Garden Lodges and has begun offering an expanded line, but now it's also gained a new competitor: the OfficePOD.

Whereas Garden Lodges aims its offices and other structures primarily at consumers, the OfficePOD focuses on employers who want to give their staff the option of working at home. The unit is a 2.1-by-2.1-metre structure that can be installed in less than a day and typically requires no planning consent. Designed to maximize efficiency in its use of space, the OfficePOD features innovative storage and desktop solutions using high-quality materials chosen for their visual, physical and environmental characteristics. Recycled and recyclable products have been used wherever possible and natural materials chosen over man-made. Power is provided via a protected connection to the house or garage; IT and phone connectivity are generally wireless but can be similarly cabled. The POD satisfies the most stringent energy performance benchmarks with its low energy consumption, high levels of insulation and innovative cooling system. Also included on the OfficePOD is a secure locking system. The OfficePOD is available to employers through a flexible leasing arrangement with full service including all surveys, enabling work, installation, help-desk support, health and safety assessments, repairs and removal. Pricing is GBP 5,000 per POD per year, and general availability will begin January 2010.

There's no shortage of arguments in favour of flexible work arrangements, ranging from financial and environmental considerations to workers' quality of life. For employers, the OfficePOD can even create demonstrable property cost savings of GBP 9,000 or more per employee per year, its maker says. The OfficePOD will be officially debuted in London later this month; one to check out, partner with, or otherwise get in on early....?

Website: www.officepod.co.uk
Contact: enquiries@officepod.co.uk

From unused parking spaces to extra beds to arable land suitable for gardening, consumers are increasingly finding new, recession-busting ways to make the most of what they have. While we've covered several examples of marketplaces that focus on one of those sharable assets, we hadn't yet seen Spareground, a UK-based contender that aims to cover them all.

Spareground bills itself as "the one-stop shop for finding somewhere to store your sports equipment, keep your caravan for the winter, park your car, graze your horse, find somewhere to display your art or find somewhere to stay near that sports event or festival." In essence, it's a place to advertise or look for just about any kind of unused space, including accommodations, parking spaces, driveways, garages, storage facilities such as attics or sheds, unused land, spare rooms or car share spaces. The site is free to use by both businesses and individuals, and space is organised by category: property, land, parking, storage or other. Consumers with space to share simply create a listing with its description, location and price; those seeking space search by category or keyword and then contact the owner directly to arrange the terms. "Space wanted" ads are also available.

Launched last summer, ad-supported Spareground hopes to expand beyond the UK in the near future. Given the current economic woes around the globe, it's fairly sure there will be healthy demand. One to get in on early in a market near you...?

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

Spotted by: Rachael Mallender

Several years ago we covered junk-removal companies 1-800-Got-Junk and Any Junk?, based in Canada and the UK, respectively. Though we didn't know it then, turns out a like-minded company was being launched in the US around the same time. Epitomizing the brand name that says it all, College Hunks Hauling Junk has since grown from a temporary summer gig into a multi-truck, multimillion-dollar franchised business with locations across the United States.

Washington, D.C.-based College Hunks Hauling Junk taps local colleges and universities to find what it calls the friendliest and most trustworthy junk haulers in the industry. Serving both residential and commercial clients—past ones have included US Airways and the SEC—the company offers comprehensive service and upfront pricing that includes labour, disposal fees and travel time. College Hunks says it recycles more than 60 percent of the junk it collects, and it also donates a portion of its revenue to College Bound, a nonprofit scholarship program. Since its original founding in 2005, the company has expanded to employ more than 100 people in 14 locations including Orlando, Denver, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and has been featured in SmartCEO Magazine, The Washington Post and on Oprah.com. This year, it expects to grow to 30 franchises, with overall sales of USD 10 million. Meanwhile, a new sister business—College Foxes Packing Boxes—was launched last year.

College Hunks is actively seeking franchisees across the country; one to bring to a junk-laden territory near you? (Related: Helping seniors relocate.)

Website: www.1800junkusa.com — www.collegefoxes.com
Contact: www.1800junkusa.com/aboutus-and-contactus — service@collegefoxes.com

Spotted by: George Palmer

The word "commune" may connote images of long-haired hippies and failed experiments, but in today's ailing economy, that's no reason to abandon the concept altogether. So goes the thinking behind Wanna Start a Commune?, a website now in beta that's dedicated to promoting a fresh take on the communal-living idea.

Wanna Start a Commune aims to provide members with the tools they need to share resources of many kinds, whether or not they actually live together. The site's 24-page "Tools for Commune Starters" pamphlet—downloadable for USD 3—includes a "get started" checklist, resource-sharing guide, potluck and workshop planning tools, organizational documents and technology tips for managing and growing a commune. Commune-related events are in the works; meanwhile, interested consumers can follow the organization's three pilot projects currently underway in the Los Angeles area at CuldesacCommune.org. In one pilot in Topanga, for instance, members are taking a communal approach to planting wildflowers, rodent control and building a new well, as well as carpooling and installing a communal pizza oven. The other two—one in Hollywood and one in Rustic Canyon—are teaming up to barter services, install a shared solar array, create a disaster preparedness plan and offer salsa dancing lessons. The group invites consumers interested in starting pilot projects of their own to contact the site for help.

There's nothing like necessity to make once-discredited ideas gleam anew with fresh possibility, and that's particularly true in this case given that neighbours are already forging new connections online and shoppers have begun teaming up to wield their crowd clout for discounts and other benefits. The communes of the '60s may not have lasted, but who's to say a modern approach won't make them just what we need today? (Related: Neighbourhood approach to renewable energy.)

Website: www.wannastartacommune.com
Contact: us@wannastartacommune.com

Spotted by: Alex Warren