Few would dispute the benefits of eating locally grown food, both for the environment and for human health. Access is the challenge, which is why we've seen such goods sold in vending machines, delivered by bicycle and packed in five-dollar bags for commuters. The latest spotting? Local Dirt, a Wisconsin-based site that connects buyers and sellers of locally grown food nationwide.

Farmers and other vendors begin by creating a profile page to promote their produce, as well as listing the quantities and prices of the products they have to sell. Individual and organizational buyers can then search for local food sellers and products in their area—searching by address, ZIP code or via map—and browsing the listings of those near them. Once they've found something they like, buyers can order food for pick-up at farmers' markets or farms. A purchase order is automatically generated and mailed to them for use in picking up the food and paying the seller. Listing, ordering and bidding on items in Local Dirt is free; yearly memberships for more sophisticated features—such as wholesale capabilities—begin at USD 360.

Whether it's by bringing the food to the consumers or the consumers to the food, there's no doubt the resulting boost for local food consumption is a win-win for everyone—and the planet. One to emulate in your neck of the food-producing woods...?

Website: www.localdirt.com
Contact: www.localdirt.com/contact_us-a194.html

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

Billed as a 'virtual taste search engine', Aromicon lists thousands of wines categorised by every imaginable detail. Wines can be browsed by region, grape variety or food pairing, as well as searched by keyword. There's also the option to browse according to taste, featuring a huge range of subtleties to satisfy the requirements of the most practiced palette—everything from 'kiwi' and 'butter', to peculiarities like 'animal' and 'blood' (luckily you can opt to exclude those).

Although the site is in German, it's almost navigable by its icons alone—hence the name. And in a visually innovative twist, a short animation graphically displays a wine's unique blend of flavours, showing berries, chocolate, pipes, etc swirling around in a glass. The concept is a spin-off from the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design, and features a vintage revenue model: the site essentially functions as a fully-featured affiliate sales portal linking to several German wine merchants. One to serve up for wine-lovers who don't speak German, or to partner with if you're in the wine business?

Website: www.aromicon.com
Contact: kontakt@aromicon.com

Spotted by: Franziska Luh

Back in 2007 we covered Hitchsters, the New York site that combines social networking with ride-matching to help airport travellers share taxi rides and split the expense. Now, along very similar lines comes Taxi2, a beta project from Virgin Atlantic that's currently being tested in New York and London.

Touting the financial and environmental motivations for sharing a cab, Taxi2 is a free service for passengers of any airline. Users simply log on to the Taxi2 site and input their flight and destination details. From there, the system matches them with suitable cab-sharing companions and provides a protected way to contact them, allowing the travellers to decide whether to agree to the match. The system offers a way for female travellers to be matched only with other female travellers; it also protects all personal details. Once travellers agree on a match, Taxi2 even provides a printable and foldable sign to help them find each other at the airport. A mobile version of the technology is coming soon.

Much the way carpooling makes sense as a way to reduce the cost and impact of commuting to work, so cab-sharing seems like a no-brainer for all the many travellers heading in the same direction. One to emulate at a heavily frequented airport near you...? (Related: Londoners share lifts to Luton airport — Tweet to hail a green ride in London — Nationwide taxi booking & payment via mobile phone.)

Website: www.taxi.to
Contact: info@taxi.to

Spotted by: Raymond Kollau

P.S. Hitchsters is either temporarily offline, or permanently out of business. We'd love to know what happened to the company. If you have any information, please leave a comment. Thanks!

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

Anyone who's ever tried on lipstick knows that the way it looks once it's applied can be dramatically different from what the manufacturer's colour guide would suggest. With that in mind, BeautySwatch aims to give consumers a true-to-life view of lipstick shades by showing how they look on real people.

Much the way Stitsh highlights the outfits of real-life consumers in its street-style fashion blog, so BeautySwatch relies on uploaded photos from makeup fans to help uncover the true appearance of lipstick shades. A team of self-proclaimed "shopaholic bloggers" of varying skin colours and ethnicities are constantly adding new swatches to the site, featuring photos of themselves wearing various lipstick shades and brands. Readers of the blog are also invited to contribute their own photos, including not just product information but also a rating of their own lip pigmentation. The result is that BeautySwatch visitors can preview colours before they buy as well as participating in community discussions about lip products and related topics.

Akisa, the Australian site's founder, explains: "If you're like me, I always google the makeup product for swatch images before I purchase online. Most times I can't find the shade in high quality images, and other times a totally unrelated brand or shade appears in my search results on my favourite blogs!! Hence the idea sprung on me one day to start up BeautySwatch.com, and build a colour swatch library with high quality images."

With its focus on real-world consumers' experience of products—rather than manufacturers' descriptions—BeautySwatch is yet another testament to the power of twinsumers and web-enabled transparency in guiding consumers' purchase decisions. Next, we'd expect BeautySwatch to add e-commerce capabilities like those on Stitsh's site, partnering with lipstick retailers or brands to capitalize on visitors' buying intentions. One to team up with, in Australia or elsewhere, to help make that happen...?

Website: www.beautyswatch.com
Contact: akisalove@gmail.com