Most women have some: earrings, necklaces, rings or other jewelry given to them by an ex-boyfriend. Once treasured, the items become an irritating post-breakup reminder of a relationship gone bad. Fortunately, a new site offers a place to unload such relics from the past: ExBoyfriendJewelry.com.
Launched in February, ExBoyfriendJewelry.com facilitates the buying and selling of "ex" jewelry, as well as providing a place for users to share the stories behind it. Along with basic details such as description, condition and price for each item—including a "for good karma give away" option—users are asked to provide the story behind it, such as whether the breakup was a bad or amicable one. They are also asked to provide a rating, such as "Loved it but just can’t stand to see it anymore," "Great gift, wrong guy" or "New boyfriend asking questions." ExBoyfriendJewelry.com's blog section currently features thoughts from the team behind the site--favorite "post-breakup activities," for example—but will soon be expanded to permit users to blog as well. Items for sale on the site range from a USD 20 beaded necklace to a USD 11,000 diamond engagement ring. For users who received something other than jewelry from their ex, there's also a category entitled "Gifts that should have been jewelry." Once they've sold their goods, users can even donate some of the proceeds to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation through a button on the site.
Los Angeles-based ExBoyfriendJewelry.com does not charge any fees or commissions, and it does not get involved in sales facilitated on the site (eventually, it aims to be ad-supported). By early May, the site had already reached almost 3,500 registered users. There are similar sites out there—Ex-cessories.com, for example, which does charge listing fees and commissions—but ExBoyfriendJewelry.com's emphasis on the stories behind the jewelry makes it less a pure marketplace and more a community. Purveyors of female-focused goods and services: this is an advertising opportunity you won't want to miss!
Website: www.exboyfriendjewelry.com
Contact: exboyfriendjewelry@gmail.com
Spotted by: Maria Dahl Jørgensen and Philip Hoffman
Travellers who need internet access on the road typically have two choices: either limit their use to the confines of hotel or café wifi—which can be pricey—or subscribe to long-term and expensive broadband data card services. New York-based RovAir now offers a third option with its day-pass wireless mobile broadband service.
Founded last fall, RovAir provides wireless mobile broadband aircards, data cards and evdo cards for internet access without an extended contract. To do that, the company itself maintains the necessary long-term subscriptions for data services with Verizon, Sprint and AT&T. It then offers those services in a day-pass format for those who need short-term but continuous access on the road. Coverage extends anywhere the provider's cellular range goes, which can be searched on RovAir's site. RovAir will ship the data card to the consumer express or by courier, and also provide return packaging. Costs depend on the number of days of use, beginning at USD 5.95 per day. There is a three-day minimum.
Until wireless access is universally available and universally free, there will clearly be demand for a variety of plans like RovAir's. More choice is always a good thing—who will bring it to mobile warriors in the rest of the world?
Website: www.rovair.com
Contact: sales@rovair.com
Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen
Earlier this year we wrote about Walkit, an advanced route planner for UK pedestrians, and now Simpatigo has launched a similar service in the US that adds a wealth of information about local attractions.
Simpatigo creates personalized tour guides complete with directions and markers for attractions along the way. Users select beginning and ending points for the trip they'd like to take, along with which categories of attractions they're interested in—historical, budget, kid-oriented or restaurants, for example. Simpatigo then returns map-based driving or walking instructions along with descriptions of the relevant points of interest along the route. Not only can users search for and get travel routes, but—in Wikitravel fashion—they can also input local attractions of their own, which then get added to those Simpatigo includes on its routes. So, a user seeking to get directions from point A to point B in San Francisco, for example, will see not just a standard list of mainstream attractions described by sources like the New York Times and TripAdvisor.com, but also others that have been input and described by users.
Simpatigo is still rough around the edges, with attractions listed mostly just for select, well-populated areas in the United States, but its premise is a good one, promising to give users focused, relevant information along with a way to shape what others see. As the site gains traction, advertisers and local businesses will surely be clamouring to add their own locations as points of interest. After all, the restaurateur who skips an opportunity to reach users who have specifically said they're interested in local restaurants may not be a restaurateur for long...! ;-)
Website: www.simpatigo.com
Contact: ted@simpatigo.com
Back in 2006 we wrote about Babyplanners, a UK firm that helps parents-to-be prepare for the arrival of their first baby. Now Oregon-based Itsabelly provides similar services but with an eco twist.
Launched last year, Itsabelly offers personalized plans that can include whatever services an expecting couple needs, such as identifying the best baby items to buy or request as gifts; help finding a good doula, midwife, birthing center or prenatal yoga classes; guidance on baby-proofing at home; maternity clothes shopping consultation; private cooking classes focused on making homemade baby food; and assistance designing and decorating the baby's nursery. For families interested in taking a green approach to raising their children, Itsabelly can also help choose baby products that are eco-friendly and made from natural products—the Itsabelly Boutique has collected a range of organic and natural products from a variety of manufacturers. Itsabelly offers a complimentary consultation to discuss expectant parents' current situation and lifestyle needs, while the Itsabelly VIP Hotline offers clients unlimited consultation via phone or email. Pricing for Itsabelly's services can be by the package or a la carte.
Itsabelly currently serves families in the Portland and San Francisco Bay areas—which leaves how many other markets still to be tapped...? To make it easy, Itsabelly offers a Baby Concierge in a Box Kit to help entrepreneurs launch their own services. One to bring to your neck of the woods!
Website: www.itsa-belly.com
Contact: info@itsa-belly.com
Spotted by: Nancy Grossman
Consumers travelling by plane are increasingly faced with flight delays and cancellations, which is why a new start-up aims to help them spot potential delays. Much the way Farecast predicts whether ticket prices are tending up or down, Delaycast can now tell travellers the chance of encountering delays on a particular trip.
Delaycast was established to provide information about possible difficulties in flight itineraries and to give travellers realistic expectations about their travel plans. Unlike the historical flight performance statistics found on many travel sites, Delaycast uses predictive modelling technologies that model historical patterns in flight delays and project them into the future. Its Delay Profiles tool provides broad overviews of the best days, times and airlines to choose for a trip, based on selected airports, while its Delay Predictions tool provides information about delays and cancellations for specific airports, airlines, dates and times. The site does pretty well, too, with accuracy within 15 minutes of actual performance between 80 and 90 percent of the time, it says. The ad-supported site features direct links to travel planning tools like Travelocity and Priceline, and is free to use for consumers.
Delaycast launched into beta early this year, and currently includes just the top 60 US airports and 11 key airlines. It also makes predictions for trips only about four or five months into the future. Looking forward, however, it hopes to expand its coverage of airports and airlines, as well as adding predictions for security checkpoint wait times and updating predictions within 24 hours of a flight based on real-time conditions. Delaycast currently covers only the United States; who will bring this to the rest of the travel-weary world?
Website: www.delaycast.com
Contact: contact01@delaycast.com
Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen
Back in 2006 we wrote about Dutch Postbank's campaign to facilitate the efforts of kidpreneurs, and now a Florida-based company is taking the notion a step further by offering mini-franchises for kids.
Founded last year, Florida-based FranChild enables kids ages 5 to 15 to go way beyond lemonade stands and operate a "grownup-style" business instead. Parents and kids begin by picking a product to sell: beeswax candles, organic soap, jewellery or apparel. The initial startup cost is just USD 25, which gets the child a FranChild Company Certificate to acknowledge his or her business launch; business cards ready to print from FranChild's ready-made templates; how-to instructions for marketing and selling products; access to the My First Franchise Resource Center, a USD 75,000 marketing system for creating customized packaging products; discount pricing on inventory and supplies; and access to newsletters, updates and a members-only forum. For an extra USD 2 per month, kids can also get their own business webpage. Kids then order their inventory and create their business cards and packaging, and they're ready to start selling. In addition to extra spending money (which can be considerable, according to the testimonials), FranChild gives kids valuable business and life lessons, and it provides an educational context in which parents and kids can spend time together.
FranChild's founders stress that the time commitment is small for both kids and parents, though overscheduled families may still want to think twice before stretching those schedules even further. Nor should earnings be the primary motivation, FranChild warns. Far be it from us to promote child labour; on the other hand, could be a fun way to while away the time during those long summer months! FranChild operates only in the US—one to bring to a country near you?
Website: www.franchild.com
Contact: info@franchild.com
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
Slated to launch this summer, Wells Fargo’s vSafe is a secure online location where customers can upload and store copies of everything from the deeds to their homes to precious family photos. The bank also uploads each customer’s bank statements to the vault, which can be accessed by logging on to customers’ regular internet banking accounts.
Reported fees of USD 4.95 for 1 gigabyte to up to 14.95 for 6 gigabytes might seem high when you consider that webmail accounts like Gmail and Yahoo offer multiple gigabytes of storage space at no cost. But Wells Fargo adds layers of security and throws in a dedicated phone help line. Plus it provides a single, central location for an individual’s or family important documents. Wells Fargo claims it is the first large financial services company to offer virtual storage of vital documents. In the Netherlands, ABN Amro Bank offers a similar service: Digitale Kluis (digital safe). ABN Amro’s safe stores a maximum of 500 MB of storage for EUR 14 per month, and is accessible to anyone who has access to an account holder’s online banking—including authorized accountants or family members.
The focused service is an order removed from the general purpose online storage services that have been available for years. Whether or not the US bank can make the service pay, imitators are sure to enter the space. Besides competition from other financial service providers, look for online storage firms to bundle-in virtual vaults as part of their regular offerings.
Website: www.wellsfargo.com — www.abnamro.nl
Contact: www.wellsfargo.com/help
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
When it comes to choosing a career path, it's one thing to think about the job from the outside, but quite another to experience it day to day. Back in 2006 we wrote about Vocation Vacations, which helps career-changers test out different waters, and now UK-based Figuring Out offers a combination of career coaching and trial work experience to achieve a similar end.
Launched earlier this month by the team behind Striding Out, a support network for entrepreneurs, UK-based Figuring Out aims to help people at all stages of their work life figure out what they want for their next career move. The coaching part of Figuring Out's service focuses on clarifying career goals, mastering interview techniques and learning new job search strategies, among other objectives. Such career coaching programmes can come in packages of three or more one-hour sessions in person or by phone or e-mail, and are priced on average between GBP 80 and GBP 100 per hour. The work experience portion of Figuring Out's services, however, is where clients can begin testing out their options. Tapping into its Striding Out network of businesses, Figuring Out identifies and connects clients with flexible, part-time work placement opportunities that can provide the right type of work experience for their needs. The work experience service is charged at an additional fee, depending on the range and type of placements required. The result, however, is a realistic, hands-on feel for what each career possibility would really be like.
Figuring Out currently operates just in London, but it's in the process of signing up licensee coaches across the UK to take on the brand in their local area. The company also plans to develop its work experience brokerage service into a short-term recruitment agency, Managing Director Heather Wilkinson says, and is already forming partnerships with full-time recruitment agencies to help secure full-time employment when clients are ready to take that step. One to partner with in an area near you?
Website: www.figuringout.co.uk
Contact: info@stridingout.co.uk
