Food trucks such as Kogi Korean BBQ and Coolhaus have been claiming an increasing proportion of our virtual ink lately, fueled not just by their use of social media like Twitter but also no doubt by economic conditions, which clearly favour low-cost fare. Now aiming to review, highlight and uncover the best of such curbside cuisine nationwide comes VendrTV, a video podcast that profiles a different street vendor each week.

Hosted by twenty-something foodie Daniel Delaney, VendrTV consists of episodes seven to 10 minutes long, each highlighting an individual vendor along with its food and locale. The premiere episode covered the Treats Truck in New York City, for example—a name regular Springwise readers may remember; others have included The Magic Carpet in Philadelphia, Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco and The Brunch Box in Portland, Oregon. Each episode airs on Wednesday, viewable both online and as an iTunes podcast. Ad-supported VendrTV also maintains a Facebook community and a presence on Twitter. Coming soon, according to the site, is an online "schwag shop" with apparel and "gear to help you eat the street." VendrTV also recently signed a deal with Next New Networks, which will distribute episodes beginning later this year.

Between curbside cuisine and "anti-restaurants" such as BookOfCooks and Charlie's Burgers, there's clearly growing demand for lower-priced (and more unusual) alternatives to the traditional, sit-down, full-service meal. Now it's time for the reviews, guides and profiles such as those that have been bringing transparency (and new patrons) to restaurants for years. VendrTV is ambitious to include the whole nation in its domain; one to adapt or emulate with a localized or niche approach?

Website: www.vendr.tv
Contact: tips@vendr.tv

Much the way UK publishing house Faber & Faber lets readers order books that have gone out of print, Kirtas Books specializes in digitizing and selling rare and out-of-print books as downloads or hard copies printed on demand. Now, when consumers pay for a book's digitization, they can also share in its future sales thanks to a new initiative launched earlier this month.

Kirtas's new Invest in Knowledge program allows "anyone to subsidize the digitization of the world’s knowledge one book at a time," as the company puts it. Consumers first pick what book they'd like to support and then make sure on the Kirtas site that it's available for inclusion in the program—meaning, primarily, that no other investor has already selected it. If it is, they then order it through the Invest in Knowledge option. In addition to the regular USD 1.95 price for a downloadable copy of a digitized book, subsidizing it through the Invest in Knowledge program costs an additional USD 28.05—not too much more than the usual USD 8.05 or USD 18.05 prices for soft- and hard-cover versions, respectively. When they do support the Invest in Knowledge program, however, users get not just a soft-cover version, but they are also entitled to 5 percent of all future sales of that book through Kirtasbooks.com. So, when a future user orders a copy of the book for USD 8.05, for example, the subsidizing user would receive some 40 cents. Kirtas even supplies "investors," as it calls them, with a link from their account to track the total sales and total revenues earned through the program. Users can invest in as many books as they'd like, and are encouraged to spread the word and help market the digitized versions they've supported.

“This is such a tremendous opportunity for the average consumer to help support and fund the digitization of some amazing collections of books,” explains Tom DeMay, the Rochester, N.Y., company's vice president of business development. “So not only are consumers doing the right thing, but if they want to ask, ‘what’s in it for me?’ we can give a great answer. Several titles or one popular book could provide a nice return on investment over time, creating a true lifelong investment in knowledge.”

Indeed, beyond supporting the very worthy goal of eventually making all books available digitally, Kirtas's Invest in Knowledge program also happens to tie beautifully into what our sister site calls the sellsumer trend, through which consumers the world over are finding new ways to earn a little extra cash. A model to be inspired by!

Website: www.kirtasbooks.com
Contact: kirtasbooks@kirtas.com

Spotted by: TeleRead via Judy McRae

We've covered several examples of services that help online consumers stay in touch with their offline friends, including Postful, PeggyMail and Presto. Zeroing in on photos, Picwing now offers a service that automatically sends prints of consumers' photos to their loved ones once or twice a month.

Users of San Francisco-based Picwing begin by giving the service the names and addresses of the people they'd like their photos to be sent to on a regular basis, along with how often. Then, as they take photos they'd like to share, they either email them to their personal @picwing.com address, or they simply upload them. At that point there's nothing more the user need do; Picwing takes over and automatically prints out the latest bunch of photos, sending them to the recipients the user requested. Prints are made on 4-by-6-inch glossy Kodak paper, and a personal message can be added to the back of each. Picwing offers unlimited storage, privacy settings and automatic backup; international shipping is available. Prints can be purchased at 19 cents each; alternatively, flat-rate plans begin at USD 4.95 per month for 15 prints to a single recipient.

Also available are widgets to synchronize with Chumby devices and create slideshows on the web. All the world may seem to be online, but there are still plenty of opportunities keeping those who aren't in the figurative loop. How can your brand help smooth the OFF=ON and ON=OFF connections...?

Website: www.picwing.com
Contact: support@picwing.com

Spotted by: Florent Lesauvage

On a sidenote: when it launched as a Y Combinator startup last summer, Picwing was selling a different product/service—a wifi-enabled smart frame. As Techcrunch noted at the time, the frame's price was probably too high. Picwing currently lists the frames as sold out, and states that it's looking for a production partner—presumably one that will be able to lower costs. Meanwhile, kudos to Picwing for changing course in midstream to keep their company moving forward.

Over the past few weeks, thousands of Twitter users tinted their profile pictures green to show support for protesters in Iran. In a similar vein, UK-based Lovebox encourages charity-minded social network users to replace their current profile picture with one of its digital Lovebox icons and then make a donation to the charity it represents.

A different charity is selected for support each month, represented by an icon of a different colour, making it the digital equivalent of silicone 'awareness' bracelets/wristbands. The green Lovebox, for example, supports WWF-UK, while the pink one signals support for Cancer Research UK. As the site explains, "social networks and the internet help us share information quickly. Lovebox is a simple but effective way for you to show your support for charities." Recently Lovebox also launched #charitytuesday, a Twitter-based effort to mobilize supporters one day each week.

Will Lovebox icons become as ubiquitous as awareness bracelets? Time will tell. Meanwhile, it's an interesting experiment in using the power of social networks and the viral effects they can create—both for commercial or for nonprofit purposes. (Related: Users choose ads for their social web pages — One-stop-shop for creating viral promotions.)

Website: www.lovebox.org.uk
Contact: info@lovebox.org.uk

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

If a Twitter user tweets, but no one is following them, do they really tweet at all? Aiming to make such philosophical gymnastics less necessary, Tweet My Bumper helps Twitterers recruit new followers by targeting one of life's few remaining captive audiences: drivers in traffic.

Twitterers seeking followers need only visit Tweet My Bumper, enter their Twitter user name along with the usual other basic information, and Tweet My Bumper will print and ship them a bumper sticker that shows their Twitter name along with the tag line, "Follow me in traffic. Follow me on Twitter." A standard bumper sticker—which also shows the Tweet My Bumper URL—is priced at USD 5; without the promotional URL it costs USD 6.

Offroad, Twitter users already have StickyTwits; now, courtesy of BlakeMakes.com's Blake Killian, Tweet My Bumper makes the most of onroad audiences as well. It's all part of the OFF=ON melding of the offline and online worlds. What can *your* brand do to include, support and further the efforts of the Twittering masses? ;-) (Related: Food blogger turned intermediary and purveyor.)

Website: www.tweetmybumper.com
Contact: www.tweetmybumper.com/contact.htm — @tweetmybumper