Startup Idea #16: Brands sponsored widgets

Updated: 30 Nov 2007
Cleared the previous idea on last.fm for micro learning since I could not figure out how that is different from having a personalised or 'branded' RSS feed.

Create a marketplace for brands to sponsor widgets on social profiles. Users can to choose which widgets they prefer. No advertisement here. The interaction of the user with the brand sponsored widget IS the advertisement.

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Startup Idea#15: Last.fm for stock picks

Updated: 27 Dec 2007
This idea takes the lastfm approach of utilizing "web 2.0" technologies to deliver insights to stock picking. The idea is to collect and analyse stock investment among social groups, communities et al.

Examples of benefits include:
- seeing all the stock investments by your friends in an aggregated and structured way?
- seeing all the people with the same investment style as the user? and to compare which potential stock investments can lead to the most reward?
- seeing the stock related news that your friends/groups are reading?
- seeing the most common route about the level of risk/returns that that I really want? What do people invest to achieve that level


Now imagine you layer on even more interesting data, especially with job boards. For example, once you have determined the career path to follow, our service will recommend, similar to how Lastfm works, the set of jobs that will start you on this path.

The important thing is to get the structure and presentation down, which means we would have a pretty valuable asset on your hands--a kind of "last.fm for stock investment".

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Startup Idea #14: Virtual currency in real world enterprise solutions

A lot of business efforts have been focused on using real world currency on virtual world items or actions. However, the reverse of using virtual currency on real world actions might also offer business ideas. One such opportunity is in the enterprise space. I can imagine, for example, using virtual currencies in a staff reward system. There are a few companies that employ instant rewards to employees for well accomplished jobs. A virtual currency system can be implemented to let managers give out such rewards in a more timely manner. Employees can then redeem these currencies for real financial gains at the end of financial year. The advantages of such a system is that virtual currencies relieve HR of the complications of financial administration and at the same time provide timely motivation incentives.

Beyond HR systems, virtual currencies can be used where there is a need to allocate resources. These resources can be physical i.e. conference rooms, contract staff or virtual such as employees' attention i.e. emails, meetings. There is definitely much room to explore here.

Updated: 24 Nov 2007
What we are doing is introducing economic efficiency into an otherwise inefficient market i.e. the firm. If we frame our thinking in this way, we can actually do a lot with the idea here.

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Startup Idea#13: Open source CAD

Provide an open source CAD. Autodesk, the market leader in 3D CAD, commands over a billion in revenue. If we change the model of the industry, similar to what MySQL did for the database industry, we can potentially disrupt the entire CAD market.

See article for related thoughts

http://cofes.com/Community/Blogs/tabid/272/EntryID/116/Default.aspx


Updated: 26 Feb 2008
See this link for the most pirated software. Signals the pent up demand for an open source CAD system.

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Startup Idea #12: Branding 2.0

Updated: 4 March 2008

Will unite the startup idea#12 and startup ideas#16 under the umbrella of branding 2.0 since they are different possibilities of dominant design

Branding is this age of cheap interaction and coordination, is about enabling true conversations to take place between companies and users. It is about making advertising more useful to the users. In this prosumer generation, brands must engage consumers by giving them a playground for them to remix, to recreate, to build upon, to improve, to personalise the products as how they see it. It is letting consumers decide what is important to them and what they would like the companies to do to serve them better.

The opportunity here is to create a dominant design of how such interaction/coordination will look and feel. Below are several ideas:

Blog aggregation for remixed brands:
A mix of squidoo/wikipedia et al where each brand has its own page, filled with examples of how users have remix the brand. It is a form of blog aggregation, but focusing on collecting content about brands being remixed. See this blog, Counterfeit Chic, for great examples. We will then take the outside.in approach of bundling each brands under a category like fashion and send them as RSS feeds.

There are a couple of revenue models. One is to develop a marketplace for these consumer generated brands like etsy.
The other is have an aggregated 'industry' page, filled with individual brands of the same industry. Companies then compete, in an auction like marketplace, for the rights to communicate at the 'industry' page level.

Brand sponsored widgets: (See startup idea #16; link above)

Conversation tracker:
Develop an application that allows companies to track conversations in the blogosphere that relates to the company's products. These conversations can be converted into emails, sms et al that allows managers to respond and have a true conversation with the users.




References
An useful article talking about the market for 'self-made' items.

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Startup Idea#11: Reconstructor for lacking content in search log analysis

Updated: 22 Nov 2007
Completely dropped the previous idea as it is not interesting enough on a strategic and economic level. The replacement idea is this: to have a last.fm type of application to automatically that plugs the gaps as revealed by search log analysis.
(See blog post here for how useful search log analysis can be)

Current search log analysis tells you what is missing in your content, what is the content needed to fulfill the long tail of search queries et al. The greater value is when the application can immediately suggest sources of content to plug the gap. This form of reconstruction has result in tremenduous value creation


Dropped Idea
This idea links up the growing popularity of virtual worlds (see cyworld, club penginue, world of warcraft) with real world chores. A simple virtual world can be created where children gain points and powers, not through accomplishing virtual tasks, but completing tasks in the real world.

Parents can assign tasks to the children in the areas of household chores, learning activities or physical exercises, who can complete them in exchange for points. These points can then be redeemed by the children in the game for points or powers in the virtual game. Parents will prepay the points in the game.

Alternatively, physical world rewards can be used to replacement the virtual worlds. The site can be tied to ecommence sites where children can preselect the gifts they want to redeem. The site then takes a commission for every item redeemed.

As a product expansion, such an idea can be extended to adults. Wifes can set up items to be completed for husbands who will receive gifts for finishing the tasks

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