Startup Idea #39: Microfunding for creatives

Kiva + sellaband + viral credit chains = new financing model for media creatives that is both social and viral.

Media financing has been stagnated for a while. Helping artists to connect with capital suppliers is going to bring huge benefits to the industry.

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Startup Idea #38: Social graphs as trust networks

Leverage on social graph to build trust and use that in turn to drive many other applications.

See originator of this idea here and here

Facebook is not a real social graph. Xobni is one such graph. So the opportunities are:

i) Build social graphs for social networks, blogs, microblogs, mobile
ii) A middleware to mash these networks into existing applications
iii) Build applications that incorporate the social networks

As mentioned by Matt, this is a multi-billion dollar industry

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Startup Idea #37: Small idea-Market for digital art

Interesting developing market for digital arts(LINK)
As highlighted by Reblog here, throw in some print-on-demand technology, a microplatform, a plugin into Etsy and you have yourself a new business.

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Startup Idea #36: Tags based aggregation

Aggregation across media for one vertical is going to be big. How to accomplish this? Use tags. Just imagine, pulling tags called 'bleach' across youtube, flickr, wikipedia, gaia online et al and putting them all in one attention saving interface.

One application for this idea is to create a widget for users to aggregate content for personalisation of their mobile phone, based on their interest groups. For example, fans of Radiohead in MySpace can use our widget to aggregate Radiohead ringtones, wallpaper, phone covers, et al through tags called 'radiohead'. Such a widget gives connected consumers a platform to create something for the brand they loved ,be they bands or fashion or toys. This is similar to what Zazzle is doing for branding and t-shirst

Brand 2.0 + Tags + Horizontal aggregation = interesting

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Startup Idea #35: Interesting mashup ideas

Have found a couple of interesting posts imagining interesting mashups. Note that mashups are networks but they aggregate applications/services instead of content. Hence, all economics related to networks applied here.

A host of mashup ideas = this

Sickness measure + twitter + food nutrients = this

parking lot exchange + event organising site = this

parking lot exchange + farecast = this

ownerIQ + product reviews = this

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Startup Idea #34: Reconstructing instruction manuals

Upated: 31 Jan 2008

Last idea is kinda of stuck so shift to this one.

Instruction manuals are hard to read and yet necessary for using your new, wonderful gadgets. How about we reconstruct the entire chain of instruction manuals and replace books with full 3D visualisation as well as more immersive media. Imagine seeing 3D models of your gadget with clear visual instructions on how to use it, rather than reading through a thick book.

What is needed to realise this idea? First, create a tool that displays 3D versions of gadgets. Second, have this tool massively distributed so that interested users can use it to create their 3D versions of instruction manuals. Aggregate these distributed 3D manuals and use effective search mechanisms or filters to help users get the help they need.

If this can done correctly, the value creation is enormous.
- due to our search functions, we can effectively aggregate consumer preferences. We can use this info to recommend complementary products or better choices.
- more importantly, we can track and aggregate the main problems for each gadget. This has tremendous value for feedback to product design. It would be an easy step to allow users to modify their 3D gadgets to their dreams, a 3D wish list if you will. How much value can be created out of that?

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Startup Idea #33: Network to connect companies to healthcare wholesalers

A theme I am will be thinking about is using web 2.0 ideas to solve real world issues. One of them is the rising costs of health care. How about a network to connect companies to health care wholesalers such that costs are reduced for their employees?

Updated: 26 April 2008
See this post for articles, see this post of a possible idea for a new healthcare startup

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