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Another week, another array of interesting new business ideas from around the world: component cooking in New York, audiobooks for cellphones in Sweden, fractional car ownership in the UK, a haute couture wallpaper boutique in Paris, and more. Our next edition is due on 1 August 2006. In the meantime, check out our daily postings on www.springwise.com, send us your tips, and please don't forget to tell your friends and colleagues about us. Much appreciated! |
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In Turkey, online music store MuziPlay has forged itself a larger market by selling prepaid music cards. Much like prepaid telephone cards, 'MuziKarts' are available from newspaper stands and small shops. After activating a code on the card, customers can download and play mp3s using the company's proprietary MuziPlayer. Cards are available in denominations of YTL 3, 5 and 10 (EUR 1.50, 2.50, 5.00/USD 1.95, 3.25, 6.50). Sounds like a winner for countries where the growth of broadband internet is outpacing adoption of credit cards. The sachet marketing approach to selling songs should also appeal to children. Although Apple sells prepaid iTunes Music Store gift cards through Target stores in the US and a select number of retailers worldwide, distribution through convenience stores and newsstands makes more sense for modestly priced cards. One to copy and fast-forward to other markets? Related concepts: prepaid privacy and prepaid computing. Website: http://www.muziplay.com Forward, comment or link to this entry » Spotted by: Roni Rodrigue |
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While suburban households across the country are welcoming fix-and-freeze dinners to their tables, an urban version of the concept just opened at 63rd and Third in New York. Since New York real estate prices don't allow for huge communal kitchens, Really Cool Foods has altered the prep kitchen model into 'component cooking'. Customers select a recipe, grab the colour-coded components (vegetables, meats, sauces, etc), and get cooking. "Prepped in our kitchen, cooked in yours." In 20 minutes or less. Ingredients are organic, and there's a wide variety of recipes. Besides component cooking, Really Cool Foods also stocks a selection of high-end groceries, including organic pet food. A Small Bites section offers freshly made, all-natural baby food. And, this is the Upper East Side, after all -- Really Cool Foods also delivers Hamptons Hampers to New Yorkers' homes or straight to the Jitney. A tour of the store can be viewed on Code.TV. Website: http://www.reallycoolfoods.com |
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Offering "intelligent supercar ownership," écurie25 is a club that gives members the right to drive fine automobiles for 30-40 days per year. Like NetJets does for private jets, écurie25 takes care of the costs and trouble associated with outright ownership; members don't have to worry about depreciation, insurance and servicing. Customers can buy either 300 (GBP 4.500) or 600 (GBP 7.950) points per year, which they can trade in for their choice of cars. The 'supercars' are divided into three categories: F1, F2 and F3. F2 cars include the Porsche Boxster S and the TVR Sagaris. Taking one of these out for a spin on a weekday in October costs 8 points. A three-day weekend in August goes for 85 points. F1 cars include the Aston Martin Vantage and DB9, Bentley Continental and Ferrari F430 Spider. And for the acceleration of a lifetime, the most inexpensive F3 class includes British-built speed demon Ariel Atom. As described in James Twitchell's Living It Up, people aren't shopping for goods as much as they are for an identity. So it makes complete sense that some consumers are trading ownership for partial ownership, and the greater freedom and choice that it brings. (Can't choose between a Vantage and a Spider? Have both! ;-) Read more about the luxury market in trendwatching.com's briefings on massclusivity and uber-premium. And for a related automobile club idea, check out Five star hotel for cars. Website: http://www.ecurie25.co.uk |
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Most supermarket honey is imported from China and Argentina, and/or blended from many sources, creating a homogenous taste. But, like other commodities that preceded it (water, salt, tea and coffee), honey is now striking back with a sweet vengeance, and artisanal honeys are on the rise. Since honey's flavour and colour are determined by the source of nectar, there's a huge variety of very local and exclusive types of honey, with floral sources varying from tupelo gum tree and Tasmanian leatherwood to cranberry and orange blossom. Honey is becoming what trendwatching.com calls a snobmoddity: a mundane commodity turning into luxury item, offering consumers a bewildering number of varieties of what was once an invisible part of daily life. Like any good snobmoddity, a honey's story is a key aspect of marketing. The Savannah Bee Company, for example, sells its honeycomb jars with this awe-inspiring description: "Filled with honey equalling the life's work of two bees, each golden cell brims with the concentrated nectar of thousands of rare and remote Georgia flowers." In New York, the Blue Ribbon Bakery Market has installed a honey bar, selling imported raw honey from Mexico. Seasonal (read: limited time only) varieties include mesquite blossom, orange blossom and golden reserve. Also emphasizing the unique flavours of different varieties, Bee Raw Honey sells sets of honey samples, packaging the liquid gold in test-tubes corked and hand-sealed with beeswax. Honeybees and beekeepers have sadly been on the decline for years. Hopefully, honey's new star status will turn that trend upside down. Find your own region's apiarian specialty, build an attractive online honey boutique, and help keep the bees in business. Forward, comment or link to this entry » Spotted by: Bret Annis & Van Yang |
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Wallpaper's journey from faded to fresh continues. Located in Paris, The Collection is a boutique that pushes luxury wall coverings closer to art. Founded by Allison Grant to promote the work of young British artists in France, The Collection now has partnerships with designers across Europe. The boutique's offerings are anything but mass-produced. Wallpapers are hand-screened, embroidered and hand-coloured. One long, narrow piece shows huge piles of paperback novels 'to remind us of our youth', for EUR 55 per meter. Another features a floor to ceiling stack of plates. And one of the boutique's most popular products is a tromp d'oeil image of bookshelves, printed and hand painted in watercolour by Deborah Bowness (EUR 219 for 3.3 x 0.56 m). Besides the shop in Paris at 33, rue de Poitou, The Collection recently opened an online boutique. Opportunities? Bare walls still prevail. Become the next big thing in wallpaper, a stylish Wallpaper King if you will, and millions of square meters, yards, euros and dollars could be yours. (For more, see wallpaper 2.0, designer grass and wall graphics.) Website: http://www.thecollection.fr |
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Mesh Tennis is a new social networking site just for tennis players, connecting the tennis community online. The website lets tennis players find other players of their own skill level, in their own area. It also lets players record scores and matches, review tennis gear, schedule events and read the latest tennis news. Becoming a member is free. Groups can be formed for club teams, school teams or doubles. Another smart feature is a Google Maps mash-up, which lets members add court locations, using different coloured markers for hard, clay and grass courts. Very useful for travelling players who'd like to find somewhere to play. Mesh Tennis was started by Chris Keller, an IT project manager who wanted to find more players to hit the courts with. The community is still growing, mainly by members inviting friends, and is currently only geared towards US players. Niche social networks create prime online advertising space. One for Dunlop, Head or Wilson to sponsor? And if you're an avid tennis player outside the US, why not team up with Mesh's founder to bring the concept to the rest of the world? Website: http://www.meshtennis.com |
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Bokilur is Swedish for book on phone. And the company offers exactly that: audiobooks for cellphones. To get started, customers download and install a piece of Java-based software, that's compatible with over 40 phones (both 3G and GPRS). They can then use the software's interface to browse available titles, and listen to two minutes of each book for free, before deciding to download. Books are usually split into 5 parts, each of which costs SEK 30 (USD 4.10/EUR 3.25), and is between 50 and 150 minutes long. Payment is processed through the user's normal phone bill. Available titles include popular fiction, literature, children's books, business titles and language courses. The latter two are slightly more expensive than books from the other categories. For consumers, downloading on the go is far more convenient than downloading to a non-phone mp3 player, does away with the need to carry multiple devices, and allows for spontaneous downloads. Perfect for passing the time while waiting for a delayed flight, or stuck in a traffic jam. Besides audiobooks, Bokilur recently also started offering comic books. Smart move, considering the natural fit between a comic's image panel and a cell phone screen. Bokilur definitely benefits from 3G bandwidth being cheap in Sweden, which has made for far wider adoption of mobile services than in countries where mobile downloads are prohibitively expensive. One to partner with and localize! Get there before the big audiobook sellers do :-) (Related: Novels for the very small screen.) Website: http://www.bokilur.se Forward, comment or link to this entry » Spotted by: Filip |
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EV Rental Cars is the first US rental car company whose entire fleet consists of hybrid vehicles. The Los Angeles based firm doubled its fleet over the past two years, and now offers fuel-efficient wheels for rent in eight cities in the Western US through a partnership with Fox Rent A Car. Airport locations include Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, Phoenix and Las Vegas. Rentals are priced from USD 39/day or USD 215/week. Besides being able to travel with a cleaner conscience, soaring gas prices also mean that (business) travellers renting hybrids see less of a squeeze at the pump. Another benefit is that hybrid vehicles qualify for the carpool lane in California, even when the driver is the only occupant. EV Rental's mission is "to provide the most technologically advanced environmental vehicles to the general public as soon as they are available, to educate the public and raise the awareness of the benefits of driving clean-fuel cars, and create a market for clean car technology". The company claims to have prevented more than 100 tons of air pollution and to have passed on more than USD 1 million in fuel cost savings to its customers. Offering three different hybrids - Honda Civic, Toyota Prius and Toyota Highlander - travellers aren't the only ones renting from EV: a weeklong rental is a popular way for prospective buyers to take an extended test drive. Following in the footsteps of hybrid taxis, this is definitely a concept that deserves to be copied across the world. Website: http://www.evrental.com |
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