September 2008 Archives

You can create pretty much any new business idea/oppertunity, by taking an existing idea and asking yourself two questions 1)"How will this evolve?" 2) What can I do to help enabled this evolution?

Here's an example

Blogging is popular. It is a "semi" social way to allow people to give their opinions in an open form, allow others to comment on your ideas and share information.  It allows people set themselves up as "online journalists" or have a regular opinion column.  As the blog gets more and more subscribers the blogger maybe more motiviated and more excited about the people interested in his/her ideas.

So where will blogging evolve?

If you've been writing a blog, perhaps it has gotten popular, perhaps you have podcasts and videos in your blog. Maybe you now have serveral blogs.

What tends to happen next, is you will get more and more and subscribers, but perhaps only a handfull of people who comment on a regular basis. And to be honest, sometimes these comments ... well there not the most intelligent.

There are probably many many more of your subscribers that would like to comment but perhaps they don't want their comment "live" on the internet for everyone to see. Even though they could put a fake/name email. Perhaps they have thoughts they just don't want seen by the public.

The evolved "blog/blogger" will probably allow a new form of communication, not unlike that of email, that would allow for private exchange of information which is later re-compiled and rehashed by the blogger with permission from the followers.

So instead of a virtual 2-way communication, it will evolve into a more personal interactive process for the blogger, and a more interesting read for the reader.

Now, your challenge in this, is to answer question #2)

What can you design that would help the blog-o-sphere evolve?

Now Wait!

Before you get all high and mightly telling me how those magazine selling businesses are a "waste of time". Just please give me 2 minutes of your time.

I'm not suggesting that you sign up for Avon, or Tupperware, and try to sell their products.

I'm suggesting you create your own product line and have others do the selling for you!

Why be at the bottom of the pole, when you can start at the top?

First you create a simple website, that lists all of the products you want to sell, perhaps it's a custom T-Shirt business, or eccentric geek gadgets, or even a book club. Decide what your buisness will be, (once you get it up and running you can then lauch others!)

Create a set of instructions and marketing materials to give to people explaining on how to sell your product. This should include

a) A catalog of items available for purchase

b) A pricelist containing prices for your sellers to "sell at". Give you sellers the ability to customize this list and include their own customized 'mark up' to their situation.

c) Instructions for hosting a "party" for your sellers to sell the wares.

You don't have to actually have your own product list.  Instead you create a special site that lists the items in your catelogs and uses affiliate links to other products.

You seller buys the items from your affiliate pages (which are made to look like your catelog) and you get the commision. They then buy the items from the items collected and keep the difference (or pay you a %age of the sale as well).

The Problem:

Sometimes you come across a site, and there are lots of interesting things to view there, but you just don't have the time right now. You can bookmark it for later, but what will remind you, you could create a reminder item in your Outlook, but that takes extra time.

The Idea:

Create a simple tool, not unlike that of tinyurl. That allows a) webmasters to link and b) users to click on. Such that when clicked they can easily setup an automatic reminder to bring them back to that point in the page at some point in the future.

When clicked, the user can choose the format to recieve notification (iCal or maybe add to remember the milk, or other task managers?)

The url would be small and simply to remember. It could have defalut reminder time (eg: 2 hours). The key is that the user can always pick a definite point in the future easily from the current date, so the iCal would be dynamic and not just a preset date/time.

It would also be made as a bookmarket so that users can easily click "View Later" or "Remind Me" and gat the reminder set for them

The Oppertunity:

The simply money making idea would be upon creating the reminder to embed nito the ical (or email, or other script) a small banner advertisement, that the user may also check out at the given reminder time.

The Problem

You own a wallet, you have close to 1 million different cards. Mastercard, Vista, Debit cards, Air Miles, Club Z, Diners Club, your library card, you drivers license, you birth certificate, blockbuster membership card, just to name a few.

You're in line at the grocery store and they politely ask you "Do you have [insert card here]?", "Sure you say, smiling". But the smile leaves your face quickly as it takes you literly 20 minutes to find the one card at the bottom of your wallet so you can save $0.05/cents.

The Oppertunity

By using a combination of hardware and software, a device could be created that a) is a standalone PDA or b) is an attachment to exisitng PDA's. This device would have

a) An extendable/programmable magnetic strip (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_stripe)

b) A resolution screen that is readable by a normal resolution UPC code scanner
c) An infrared port that can read UPC style codes
d) A programmable chip that can store RSA style information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_card)
e) Bluetooth
f) A programmable passive transponder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID)
g) Programmable GPS

Can you see where I'm going with this?

Technical Details:

The "magentic strip" is mounted to the PDA on an indented hinge (I'd make a picture if I was good at this). Basically it "pop's" out of the side of PDA and clicks back when needed

The LCD display will be displaying bar codes that bar code scanners can read. This is probably the most difficult part, because screens usually are reflective and scanners can have trouble with reflective surfaces

Usage:

The PDA owner puts all of the information from all credit cards, debit cards, rewards programs, memberships onto the PDA. Some will be magentic strip dumps, some will be UPC codes, some will be transponder ID's, or bluetooth ID's.

When the user approches a situation in which a card is needed he/she pop's up the PDA
Software on the PDA "My Card Manager", allows the user to quickly pick the card they want which programs the necessary device (magnetic strip/etc) with the information, They can then scan/swipe as needed. And violoa - No more cards needed

Of course there are important security considerations be be put in place. Suppose the user looses his/her PDA, suddenly all of this information is vulnerable. (This problem also occurs should a user loose his/her wallet)

But when the PDA is lost, it could be registered as such, creating a lock on the device and preventing unauthorized access.The built-in GPS would allow the user to track down the location and recover the device.

Well that's the idea anyway. Now in addition to everything else your PDA can do; it can now eliminate all of the cards you would have to keep in your wallet, and allow you to access them quickly and easily as needed.