Startup Idea #19: Recommendation 2.0: scenario based recommendation for fashion

Current fashion discovery sites oriented toward searching based on concrete attributes of the product (e.g. price, color) or the user (as in Collaborative Filtering). Such orientation completely ignores the scenario of where the clothings will be displayed, the overall fit of the clothing as well as the current items owned by the user. In reality however, users do consider such factors in making purchase decisions.

The idea here is to design an online fashion site that incorporates these factors in its product recommendation system. We will surround this site with game like mechanisms to make it sticky.

Updated: 20 Nov 2007
Why is this idea powerful. It represents a new class of reconstuctor. As mentioned in bubblegen, the ability to rebundle objects create more value because it reduce transactional cost for consumers.

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Startup Idea #18: Information intermediaries for new emerging market (tickets, sports)

The technology of the digital age is driving an unprecedented explosion in the ability to create markets in anything. Trade anything. Not just physical goods. Not just financial instruments. But ideas. Events. Outcomes.

The emergence of these kinds of markets will -over time - impact how we view and interact with the world in all aspects of our personal and professional lives. They will fundamentally alter the current world economic and social paradigm.

With the emergence of a market-like system in traditional closed industries, there is a need for information intermediaries that help to make the markets more transparent, more . Think of how the financial markets have spawned innovative research services like research recap, monitor 110

The current emerging markets in my radar are: tickets for events, sports, digital media, online advertising, lead generation and mostly interesting, human talent. The examples of services you can built for say a sports market include:

- blog aggregation: smart aggregation of research oriented blogs with tabs for different types of information (research recap). For sports, this will be blogs that cover player and game statistics, manager strategies et al. We can combine this with the Techmeme model to allow users to read the conversations in addition to the blog posts. See here for a list of such blogs.

- extraction of information from unstructured date i.e. blogs, forums, messaging boards etc: to surface actionable trading ideas (monitor101) from the mountain of untamed data in the web.

- last.fmm model to marry implicit data collection with recommendation services. For sports, this will allow users to find people with similar club/player interests, what they are betting on, et al.

- distribution platform: distribute exisiting aggregated information to different delivery channels i.e. RSS, email, twitter, instant messaging, social feeds et al. This idea differs from the first by focusing on the unbundling and rebundling of aggregated content from channels, rather than on the unbundling and rebundling of content from sources.

- panel forecast (Comscore model): create a large enough userbase to divine outcomes and sell that information.

- blogging platform: the typepad of investment blogging. Come with analytics, market data, and whatever information the blogger needs to do his work. Ad supported of course.

The possibilities are ming boggling.

Updated: 23 Feb 2008
My first idea is to create a reuters for virtual item trading market. See this article

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Startup Idea #17: Arbitrage selling through via live video

Even with ecommerce taking off, there are still many items that require a local presence for purchase. Paintings by local artists is one example. We see many independent artists, especially in the Asia where their paintings are not available online.

A business can be built by using Justin.TV style of service to serve buyers. We can arrange for a virtual shopping session where live video will be stream and broadcast to buyers on the products they are otherwise unable to purchase. For example, we can arrange for a video session to visit painting galleries or roadside stalls where buyers can make their purchase of paintings via telecommunications.All videos will be made available online for buyers who are unable to attend the live sessions.

Updated: 5th Nov
As an extension to this idea, we will build a platform that allows other people to create their live 'shopping channel'. Think how Ebay enables the creation of numerous sell side business and you will have an idea of how this platform can enable many individual businesses to arise. Our own channel just serves as an example of how such a business can be run. The opportunity comes when other users join in the fun.

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