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Another week, another selection of interesting new business ideas from around the world: customized love songs, colored bubbles, an open source business plan, and more. Our next edition is due on 23 January 2007. 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. Bonus: over the past few weeks, we've compiled our Top 10 lists for 2006. We picked our favorites from the concepts we covered in 2006 and organized them by industry. Check out the Springwise selection of 2006. |
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For consumers who want gadget personalization that's more permanent than vinyl decals, Adafruit offers custom laser etching of laptops, iPods, phones, cameras and more. It isn't the first company to offer laser etching (see Etchamac, Powerbook Laser Engraving and others), but it is the first to freely share its business model with other entrepreneurs interested in setting up a customization shop. Adafruit Laser Services was launched by Phillip Torrone (senior editor of Make magazine) and Limor Fried (aka Lady Ada). The duo will freely share information on how to use a high powered laser system, etching techniques, business practices and templates. Adafruit currently operates in New York and is planning to set up a location in San Francisco early this year. Customers can have a small gadget etched for USD 30, and a laptop for USD 100. Bulk rates and services are available to businesses. The laser etching machine used by Adafruit is an Epilog, priced at around USD 20,000 and capable of doing highly detailed etching (1200 dpi). If a group of interested etchers use their crowd clout by organizing a group buy, they should be able to make a head start by getting the machine's price down. If you're interested in setting up your own laser etching business / gadget tattoo parlor and would like to receive more info, contact Adafruit at laser@adafruit.com. Website: www.adafruit.com/laser |
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After encountering a great wine in a restaurant or at a friend's house, instead of vowing to remember the name and vintage, Dutch consumers can now dash off an sms to BuyYourWine.com. The online wine seller will then get back to them with a price and delivery details. In the US, WineZap offers a similar service. If someone emails or texts them the vintage and wine name, WineZap will email or text them the current low, high and average prices for that wine. If a user adds their zipcode, WineZap includes a list of the nearest retailers that stock the wine, as well as their prices. Both companies are currently offering the service at no charge. Another example of catering to people's insatiable desire for relevant information, when and where they want it. Wine-by-text is a great little add-on both for merchants like BuyYourWine, and for intermediaries like WineZap, and it could of course be expanded with such obvious options as letting customers send in cameraphone pictures of wine labels or barcodes. For more examples of how tuned-in companies are satisfying consumer infolust, check out trendwatching.com's briefing on the subject. Websites: www.buyyourwine.com / www.winezap.com |
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RSS is mainly used by bloggers and media companies to distribute their latest blog updates and news flashes. Adding to the mix, Offertrax is bringing Really Simple Syndication to the retail sector, offering consumers more purchasing intelligence and online merchants a new way to convert site visits into sales. According to Offertrax, less than 3% of site visits convert to a sale. By letting merchants use RSS to distribute updates on products, Offertrax aims to bring visitors back for future conversions. How it works? The web-based application creates RSS feeds for entire online catalogues. Retailers just add a 'track this' button to each product page. Consumers can then subscribe to a product's feed. As soon as a product's price changes or a retailer announces a special offer, trackers are notified. Merchants can also send notes and deal alerts directly to trackers. The service is free for consumers and merchants are charged a fee. While RSS uptake by average internet users is still relatively low, industry experts predict that 2007 will be a tipping point. Mainstream adoption of RSS is speculated to get a real boost this year as new versions of widely used applications (IE7, Outlook 2007, Yahoo! Mail Beta, Apple's Mail in OSX 10.5) fully integrate syndication. Which presents great opportunities for merchants and marketers who are finding it increasingly difficult to get email offers through to spam-deluged consumers. From the consumer's side, services like Offertrax are an effective way to satisfy their shopping infolust, delivering exactly the information they choose to receive. Offertrax is currently in closed beta and only available to US retailers. Time to set up a similar service in your own part of the world? Or be inspired to develop an equally promising method of using RSS to connect merchants, products and buyers. Website: www.offertrax.com |
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Technological advancements don't always have to be useful or change the world in a profound and meaningful way. Sometimes, they can just be fun. Like colored bubbles. A world's first, Zubbles are the result of 10 years of kitchen sink experiments by chemist Tim Kehoe, VP of R&D at product design firm Ascadia. The bubbles work just like ordinary blowing bubbles, but come in rich, vibrant colors that are nearly opaque. The color is created with patented specialty dyes that disappear when exposed to air, water or pressure, and are non-staining and non-toxic. Announced in 2005 and awarded a Popular Science award the same year, Zubbles colored bubbles will finally be making their way to stores this spring. Retailers: if you're interested in distributing Zubbles, please visit global license holder Spin Master's website to complete their distribution application. Should be a big hit in summer 2007 ;-) And since bubbles bring out the delighted child in everyone, events organizers might want to add Zubbles to their bag of tricks for summer events. Website: www.zubbles.com |
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For romantics that can't hold a tune, Canadian TailoredMusic.com now offers the perfect service: customized love songs performed by professional musicians. Customers pick a vocalist and genre, ranging from experimental to folk waltz. The website then shows the default lyrics for the song they selected. While a demo of the song plays in the background, customers edit the lyrics in an easy to use online word processing tool. Some lyrics must be customized (the love object's name), while other fields are written for easy customization, allowing users to add personal experiences, locations, events, colors, etc. Any words or lines can be changed, and TailoredMusic's singers can adapt to varying numbers of syllables and different rhyming schemes. Once the right words have been selected, a customer can choose to receive the song as a web download (compressed MP3 and CD-quality WAV), or a gift-wrapped CD in a metal case with a printed lyric sheet. Delivery time is 1 to 2 weeks, and songs are priced from USD 99-249; ordering the 'premium' physical product adds one week to the delivery time and USD 20 to the price. Behind the scenes, studio musicians get to work on the order, working through rhythmic changes, rehearsing and recording new vocals, re-applying digital effects and remixing. TailoredMusic is actively seeking musicians and songwriters to add to their portfolio, offering musical minipreneurs the opportunity to work from their own (home) studios, whenever it suits them. One to partner with if you're in the gift-giving business. (Valentine's Day is just around the corner...) Of course there's also plenty of room for localized versions, offering songs in languages other than English. Get lyrical! ;-) Website: www.tailoredmusic.com Spotted by: Ozgur Alaz |
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Taking advantage of the hype following the recent release of Nintendo's Wii console, Mr Cloud's T-Shirt Emporium lets customers order a t-shirt with their Mii printed on it. For those of you who haven't yet gotten your hands on a Wii, a Mii is a user's avatar -- a 3D caricature that can be designed by choosing from a wide variety of facial and body features and colors. Miis serve as a player's character when playing games. As Mr Cloud explains: "Much of the initial time on our new fangled Nintendo Wii was spent creating highly realistic Mii replicas of ourselves, our friends and many famous dead people. Wouldn't it be fun, we thought, if our creations of ourselves could be proudly displayed on a t-shirt?" Customers can add Mr Cloud as a friend on their Wii, and then beam over their Mii using the Wii's built-in send functionality. The Mii-shirts (GBP 19.99 / USD 35) are custom-printed and dispatched within a few days. Sounds like a fun and very now example of gravanity, and a neat low-cost business idea for Wiired t-shirt printers across the world, especially when Nintendo starts making more consoles available to countries outside North America and Japan. Website: www.mrcloud.com |
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