Mapping the best and worst seats in hundreds of airplanes, SeatGuru is one of our favourite examples of transparency tyranny—the power of detailed information to help consumers find the best of the best and leave the rest behind. So we were pleased to hear about TripKick, a similar venture that's tackling another aspect of travel: hotel rooms. While TripAdvisor (which acquired SeatGuru in 2007) gives travellers access to detailed hotel reviews by other travellers, who occasionally include info on which rooms to book, there's definitely an opportunity in getting specific about individual rooms.
TripKick—"your hotel sidekick"—launched with about 250 hotels in 10 US cities, with more to follow. Coverage of each hotel includes detailed information on which rooms to request: which rooms are oversized (rooms ending in 03 and 04, for example), which have great bathrooms or are quieter than others. TripKick, which spent a year gathering all of this information, also points out which floors are better, and which to avoid. Guests are encouraged to add their own reviews and upload photos of rooms they've stayed in.
Given they chose a name that isn't specifically tied to hotels, we wouldn't be surprised to see TripKick branch out to other areas of travel, too. If you're in the hotel business, there's more reason than ever to ensure that each of your rooms has something special to offer. Run a restaurant? Time to make your best tables stand out and rule out any such thing as a bad table. For more tips on how to turn transparency tyranny into transparency triumph, check out the opportunities section of trendwatching.com's briefing on the subject.
Website: www.tripkick.com
Contact: contact@tripkick.com
Spotted by: Grace Hodder
Earlier this year we wrote about idiomag, a digital music mag that's customized to subscribers' tastes. Picking up on the digital-delivery theme, French magazine distributor and kiosk retailer Relay now offers eco-minded consumers a way to receive issues of up to 400 magazines on their computers for one fixed, monthly rate.
Through a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Relay's fixed-price program—Eco forfait—lets consumers receive unlimited magazines of their choice (not including adult ones) for a price of EUR 17.90 per month. Subscribers begin by downloading Relay's special Delivery reader software. The magazines they choose are then automatically delivered to their computers in full multimedia format, complete with sound, video, games, wallpapers, integrated search engine and interactive links. Average download times are between 40 seconds and 4 minutes per magazine, Relay says. Consumers can then access and read their magazines anytime they want, online or off, and set up a digital library, add notes or create special issues. Content can be printed, or it can be transferred via a compatible USB key for perusal on any other Windows device, regardless of whether it has the Delivery software.
By receiving magazines digitally rather than in paper format, consumers help save the water, paper and energy associated with producing and transporting paper-based publications. In addition, EUR 1 of the subscription fee goes to the WWF each month to replenish and protect the forests of New Caledonia, which have been reduced to a mere 1 percent of their original area due to fires and other devastation.
Digital content delivery has long been held up as one of the most promising aspects of the computer age for eliminating paper and helping the environment. Will eco-consumers be willing to read magazines in digital format? Only time will tell. In the meantime, one to watch! (Related: Online magazine publisher for the masses.)
Website: www.relay.fr
Contact: relay.presse-wl.com/Publications/Editorial/Contact.aspx
Spotted by: Florent Lesauvage
Lifelong learners are always in search of new classes to take, but finding them isn't always easy. TeachStreet is a new website dedicated to helping teachers and students connect.
Seattle-based TeachStreet launched into beta a few weeks ago with more than 25,000 Seattle-area teachers, trainers, tutors, instructors, coaches and classes. Students can search for teachers across more than 500 subjects and filter the results according to map-based location, ratings from other students, teacher availability, promotional pricing and more. The free site can be searched by keyword, or visitors can scroll by subject through TeachStreet’s extensive directory of classes. Classes and teachers currently available on TeachStreet cover popular subjects like tennis, piano and cooking, as well as less common ones like break dancing, surfing and Texas Hold ‘em Poker. For teachers, TeachStreet provides a simple yet powerful way to promote themselves online and manage their learning business. Free online tools for teachers include an online profile builder, search engine optimization, and scheduling and management tools.
“We have heard time and again from adult learners and parents how difficult it is to find relevant and up-to-date information to evaluate teachers," explains TeachStreet founder and CEO Dave Schappell. "At the same time, teachers are craving easy-to-use tools to help market themselves on the Internet, manage their student rosters, and find more prospective students in their neighbourhoods. One of our goals with TeachStreet is to use the latest online technologies to facilitate real-world connections and provide anyone who wants to either learn or teach a new skill with a rich, geographically targeted website that features a city’s best teaching resources.”
TeachStreet is currently ad-supported, but ultimately it plans to roll out premium, fee-based services for teachers as well. It also aims to expand to other US cities in the coming months. One to partner with in a city near you...?
Website: www.teachstreet.com
Contact: www.teachstreet.com/contact-us
Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann
UK book publisher Dorling Kindersley has created an imprint that aims to ‘green’ an industry whose dependence on dead trees doesn’t necessarily make it an eco frontrunner. So far, four titles have been released under the company’s Made With Care brand. All deal with eco-aware topics such, including green baby care and organic gardening.
In keeping with their subject matter, Made With Care books are published in a strictly eco-friendly manner. The paper comes from forests certified to be managed in a sustainable fashion. The paper mill recycles 91 percent of the water it uses, and the books are printed—using non-petroleum-based inks—at a plant that has cut its carbon emissions by more than half and produces its own electricity. Combined, the efforts contribute to the books’ perceived value. Other companies tout their own efforts to become carbon neutral or describe the greening of their supply chains in detail. But DK personifies that message by making it an integral part of this product line.
And therein lies a lesson for entrepreneurs: make sure that your environmental strategy isn’t just fodder for press releases, but is embodied and projected by the products you sell. For in-depth coverage of three leading trends for taking an even greener approach to business, check out trendwatching.com’s free briefing on eco-iconic, eco-embedded & eco-boosters.
Website: www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/html/features/madewithcare
Contact: www.dorlingkindersley-uk.co.uk/static/cs/uk/11/about/contact.html
Spotted by: Flemming Birch
It seems a fair statement to say that the art of storytelling has not yet caught up with the internet's capabilities, at least not in the mainstream. A new project from UK-based Penguin Books' digital fiction group, however, is using the power of the internet to tell stories in new and surprising ways.
In mid-March Penguin—along with alternative reality gaming firm Six to Start—launched the We Tell Stories initiative through which consumers can enjoy six digital novels by six different authors over the course of six weeks for free. The first story, which launched March 18, was "The 21 Steps" by renowned thriller author Charles Cumming. "He was the wrong man, in the wrong place, at the wrong time," the story begins, and readers follow the protagonist's adventures step by step across the world using Google Maps, with text presented in the technology's information bubbles at each point along the way.
The second story, "Slice" by Toby Litt, chronicles a teen's fears about the old house she and her family just moved into. Told over the course of four days, the story invites readers to follow Slice's story on her own blog as well as that of her parents. Those who want can even email the characters and follow them through text messages on Twitter.
Week 3's story was Kevin Brooks' "Fairy Tales," an interactive story in which readers name the characters, choose their qualities and make other decisions that shape the story's direction. This week it's "Your Place or Mine," the story of a relationship told by the bestselling author duo who work under the name Nicci French. Each evening this week beginning at 6:30 pm London time, readers can witness the authors writing an episode of the story live and in real time. Still to come are two more weekly stories along with a mysterious seventh one that will reportedly emerge through clues online and in the real world.
As Penguin notes on its site, "these stories could not have been written 200, 20 or even 2 years ago." It's a whole new world for storytellers—one to watch, whether you're in media or not!
Website: www.wetellstories.co.uk
Contact: jeremy.ettinghausen@uk.penguingroup.com
Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen
We've written on several occasions about Blurb, which offers the prolific content producers of Generation C high-quality book publishing. For those interested in creating a magazine, Issuu is a new site that converts users' documents into interactive, magazine-style online publications that can be viewed directly in a web browser.
Whereas most online publications today (other than websites and blogs) are still presented either as PDFs or other downloadable files, Issuu's viewer features full-screen mode and vector graphics to create the online equivalent of a print magazine right from within a web browser. In addition to uploading their own PDF documents for publication, users of the site can browse the works of others and create their own personal libraries; through its community features, they can discuss and share what they see. It's like a YouTube for magazines, and the result is what Issuu calls a "living library" of the best publications on the web—readers can gain access to zines that have a very limited reach, and micro-publishers gain access to a global readership. Which is what blogs already offer, of course. But some still prefer the look of a magazine. All content is hosted for free on Issuu, and once a document has been uploaded, it can also be posted in preview or full size on any website, blog or social network, including Facebook and MySpace.
Michael Hansen, Issuu's cofounder and CEO, explains: "We've been watching how B2B companies charge large amounts for putting documents online with less advanced technology than ours. We want to empower anyone, businesses as well as privates, to publish online using the best technology available. By making Issuu free and providing hosting and viral tools, we see no reason why great publications shouldn't find the worldwide audience they deserve."
California-based Issuu just launched in February, but it already has an interesting mix of users on the site, including designers, editors, agencies and artists. It was also named a finalist in the SXSW Interactive Web Awards. One to adapt on a localized or niche basis?
Website: www.issuu.com
Contact: contact@issuu.com
Spotted by: Heyk
You know a model is a good one when it gets copied far and wide, and one of the best examples today is Netflix. We've recently written about the Netflix model being applied to toys and textbooks, and now a few new contenders are applying it to popular books.
Avid readers are no doubt familiar with what Paperspine calls BCS—Book Clutter Syndrome, in which stacks of already-read books collect dust and clutter up the house. In the hopes of reducing consumers' BCS, Paperspine offers a way for them to develop a list of books they want to read, keep each one as long as they want, and then return them in a postage-paid envelope and get the next one sent out. Monthly fees range from USD 9.95 with a shipping fee of USD 1.49 per book and a maximum of two books at a time, all the way up to USD 24.95 per month with free shipping and a maximum of five books at a time. Issaquah, Wash.-based Paperspine, which launched late last year and is still in beta, was cofounded by ex-Microsofter Dustin Hubbard. More than 150,000 titles are available through the service.
Bookswim, meanwhile, launched about a year ago on much the same idea. Offering more than 200,000 titles, Aberdeen, N.J.-based Bookswim's monthly fees range from USD 14.99 for two books at a time all the way up to USD 35.99 for 11 books at a time. Bookswim hopes to rent out a million books by 2010, representing what it estimates would amount to USD 22,070,000 in subscriber savings over the cost of purchasing those books at list price. Recognizing that 20 million trees are felled each year for American book production, the company also has a partnership with EcoLibris.net to plant a tree for each gift card it sells.
Like book-swapping sites, which have been around for a while, these two start-ups are providing an alternative both to buying books, and to borrowing from a public library. Both are good examples of the transumers trend, catering to consumers who are more interested in using/experiencing than in owning. Paperspine and Bookswim cover just the US. One to roll out in the country of your choice!
Website: www.paperspine.com — www.bookswim.com
Contact: contactus@paperspine.com — www.bookswim.com/contact.html
Spotted by: Bill McMahon
The online invitation marketplace is a crowded one, with heavyweight Evite and a raft of smaller contenders all vying for their share. But a new site recently launched in the hopes of taking online invitations to a new level.
Unlike most of its competitors, pingg is taking an ad-free approach to online invitations. With a library of more than 2 million unique images, it's also focusing more on the appearance of its invitations, and incorporating more Web 2.0 features into managing the process. Users planning a party can use pingg's basic email invitations and event management services for free. That includes choosing pre-designed invitations from among 50 or so event types, creating an event page with photos and video, managing RSVPs, accessing event reporting, linking to charity or gift registries, collecting money and sharing event details on Facebook. In addition to its basic services, however, pingg offers several customisation services for a fee, such as access to unique invitation designs and invitation printing, as well as use of photos from the pingg Plus+ library. pingg users can also choose to communicate with guests using SMS/text for a fee of USD 1.50 per 20 messages. pingg gets a commission from its gift registry partners (currently just Amazon); other revenue-adding features on the way include offering the ability for users to sell tickets to their event, and a white-label service offering pingg's core functionality to other businesses.
Cofounder Lorien Gabel explains: "We know that unrelated banner advertising detracts from the user’s experience and is one of the fundamental reasons online invites have not evolved. Our approach from day one has been to identify revenue sources that actually add value to the invitation and event planning process." New York-based pingg just launched in February, so it remains to be seen how well its ad-free model will work. If nothing else, however, the site is further evidence of one of our favourite refrains: everything can be upgraded!
Website: www.pingg.com
Contact: mspiritus@pingg.com
