Called "a kind of Wikipedia for textbooks" by the New York Times, textbook giant Macmillan is launching DynamicBooks, a software that allows university professors to edit and customize digital textbooks for their classes. They will be able to reorganize and delete chapters, upload material from their courses such as syllabi pictures and graphs, and even rewrite or delete specific paragraphs and illustrations.

Though customized textbooks have been around for a while, the great novelty of DynamicBooks is that it allows teachers to edit content without having to get the consent of the publishers or authors.

"Basically they will go online, log on to the authoring tool, have the content right there and make whatever changes they want," said Brian Napack, the president of Macmillan. "And we don't even look at it."

Students should be interested in these modifiable e-textbooks too, as they will be significantly cheaper than printed textbooks, retailing for around 50$, less than half the price of a printed edition. They will also be available, at a higher price, in on-demand printed editions.

The e-textbooks will also be available on the iPhone, and Macmillan is now negotiating to have them on the iPad too. This really does seem to me the future of textbooks, digital, interactive versions that students can view on mobile readers and laptops.

Tip: Iddictive

Play now, pay later. This is the motto for the new startup Kwedit, which is offering an innovative payment system: you make a promise that you will pay for digital content, and you get the content immediately. If you don't later make good on your promise, your "Kwedit score" will go down, making you less eligible for future kwedit, whereas a more reliable Kwedit score gives you the possiblilty to bill higher amounts of kwedit, just like with real-life credit.

The service is designed around the purchasing of digital content and in particular online games, for which much of the market is composed of teenagers, who often don't have a credit card with which to pay for things online. But they do have cash and a computer, and Kwedit wants to make it easier for them to spend their cash online. The company is partnered with 7-Eleven stores, which already sell pre-paid cards for online gaming.

Kwedit offers two payment models. The first allows users to pay cash at a 7-Eleven for what they buy online, they just make the purchase online, print out a sheet with the payment info, and take it to the store to pay. Upon payment the goods are sent to their account.

More interesting, however, is the second model, called Kwedit Promise, that allows users to recieve the goods they want immediately, on the basis of a promise to make the payment by a certain fixed date. In this case they get a Kwedit Score, which they can build up by making reliable payments and earn the right to bill higher amounts with credit promise. Since the amounts users start with at the beginning are low, there isn't much to lose if they never make the payment.

This is a pretty interesting concept, and I am curious to see how it will turn out. HOw big is the market for this sort of thing? After all, a lot of teens have pre-paid cash cards from their parents' banks, with which they can buy stuff online. One to keep an eye on.

Tip: Cool Business Ideas

College students often don't live in their dorms or rooms all year round, they a rent place for the nine months of the school year, then go back home for the summer. This means that they have to take all their stuff with them, only to bring it back the following fall. After doing this inconvenient back and forth for four years, two Virginia Tech students, Dan Burdi and Ryan Carter, saw a business opportunity, and last year launched Campus Carriers, a startup designed specifically around the students' needs.

The company's service is threefold: first it will deliver boxes and packing to materials to a student's place of residence, then it will come pick up all the student's belongings and take them to be stored in the firm's storage facility. Then, when the new school year starts, Campus Carriers will deliver the student's belongings to his or her new address, whether it is on campus or off campus.

So far Campus Carriers only offers its services to students of Virgina Tech, but I can't imagine it will take long to move to other universities as well, anywhere in the U.S. but also perhaps in other countries with university systems similar to America's.

This new startup dubs itself the "voice of the neighborhood," BlockChalk has set out provide communities with a digital bulletin board where people can post messages to the people around them using their mobile phones. A kind of Craigslist meets Twitter, if you will.

The design concept is based on that of a chalkboard, and the messages that users leave are called "chalks". So people can leave - on blocks, streets, cafés or wherever - their chalks communicating tips, complaints, crime alerts, lost pets or anything else, all tagged by location. There is no sign up required, and you can leave and respond to messages either publicly or privately. It's already available for iPhone, Palm Pre and Android, and is coming soon for Blackberry and Nokia. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, BlockChalk is now in 114 countries, 8838 cities and 13908 neighborhoods.

It's still too new to assess it's true value; in most places there just aren't enough users. However it seems full of potential, just think of the localized advertising opportunities, for example. I've downloaded the (free) app on my iPhone, and will be keeping an eye on it.

Tip: Springwise

Since they are so expensive, I try to use taxis as little as possible, and am always happy if, when I do have to use one, I have the opportunity to share it. Unfortunately though, most of the time this isn't possible. Now however in New York City - whose yellow cabs are symbol of the city - people will soon have the opportunity of taking a taxi together with others going in the same direction.

The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission has announced plans that would have yellow cabs running along fixed routes with predetermined pick up and drop off points, kind of like a cross between a taxicab and a bus. These "shareable" cabs will be run during rush hour time, with fares starting at 3 dollars, though if you're the only passenger you'll pay a bit more.

This seems like such an obviously good idea for all concerned, people get a new, cheap way to move in the city, while traffic decreases. Let's hope other cities consider implementing similar programs. And if the city doesn't, why not someone private?

Via: Iddictive

(Disclaimer: This is an idea that I heard about from an acquaintance, who shall remain anonymous because he was too lazy to submit it to us himself!)

The economic crisis is bad news for most business sectors, but perhaps banks above all, which often have the added difficulty of being seen as in some way culpable for the crisis, and generally are not viewed in a friendly light these days. There is however, one sector which always does well during a crisis, the lottery and gaming industry. This idea takes advantage of people's hope for some free, easy, extra money.

The problem with this idea is that people traditionally view banks and the banking business as very a serious and dignified industry, such a promotion might seem too much like a cheap promotional activity not proper for a the bank's image. Perhaps for this reason it would be better suited to a smaller, newer bank with less of an established image. Despite these misgivings, I think that this idea has real merit, especially in a time of crisis where banks' public image has already been greatly damaged.

To create a series of blogs where medium-high-income people can join young interior designers hunting for ethnic furniture around the world, and eventually buy online what they find.

First presumption

New York City, Paris, Milan, Moscow, Dubai, Beijing. How many high-income people who live in cities like these struggle to find the chic ethnic furniture that they want for
their homes? I have no idea, but they are many for sure.

Second presumption

If they are very high-income, they probably normally hire some kind of interior designer to help them on out. But this is generally very expensive, so the more middle class usually go to specialized ethnic shops (every medium to big western city has at least a couple of them). They window-shop, choose what they want, and they buy it, always paying a premium price for a not so original object.

There are a lot of design and architecture students out there who are looking for some good practice (and adventure, why not?) between their graduation and their future career. They could certainly be useful to these middle class people I was talking about above. But the connection is not always easy to establish.

Imagine creating a small business aimed at providing this ethnic furniture-hungry middle class a much better service, for a quite lower price, with the added bonus of some fun and a taste of first person adventure.

You can achieve this by setting up a travel blog. The protagonist of this blog will be a young designer whom you will hire and send to, say, Indonesia. His (or her, as the case may be) duty will be to travel around the country hunting for nice and peculiar local artisanal pieces. He will hang around in every city for a week or so. Every time that he finds something nice he will bargain for a price with the vendor, take some pictures (maybe videos too), take note of the material, state of conservation, size, weight, and the like, and then put all this online, with a price which includes the price set by the vendor and the percentage for your company. Your blogshopper will get a cut of the price paid by the customer of your blog. Of course you will pay his expenses (flight to Indonesia, cheap hotels, meals...).

Your blogshopper will stay just few days in every city and, here is the fun part, will be able to sell the selected artisanal pieces during his stay only. When he leaves for another city, the sale of this specific piece will no longer be possible.

So, on the customer side, your blog will be a kind of hunting game too. They will have to check back frequently to find the best pieces. They will also be able to talk direct with your blogshopper (by commenting posts, or e-mail), asking for specific needs. You can also try a bidding approach, pushing the customers to offer a better price for obtain the best pieces. Customers will also learn about the blogshopper. They eventually will enjoy following him on his journey, even creating small communities around him and his shopping blog.

When somebody buys an item, your blogshopper will receive an e-mail alert. He then will buy the selected item (with a company credit card or wire transfer) and Fedex it overseas to the buyer's address. It will be not cheap, but anyway very competitive for customers compared with alternative solutions they can find in town.

From a business point of view, I see this idea being full of potential and very scalable.

You do the math. How much does it cost to send a young freelancer in a developing country? A thousand a month? A little less? Then set another 500 aside for the blog and another 500 for the e-commerce stuff. There is also the insurance policy: probably less than 1,000 a year. On a very basic startup you have to be directly involved in the organization process and also be prepared to solve a number of unexpected problems, but you can go live with less than 4,000 US.

Now, how much can you get? Hard to say. A friend of mine just spent 800 euro to buy a Indonesian side table that I could probably get in Indonesia for less than 100. Give 50 to the blogshopper as a percentage, and 200 to Fedex. It is a margin of 450 and everybody is happy (including you). The point now is to forecast how many items your blogshopper can sell. Ten a month? If so, it makes 4,500 dollars a month of margin. Not bad, is it?

Moreover, if one blog works out well, it will be easy to create twin blogs for other areas. In a couple of years your company could coordinate, let's say, 3 blogshoppers in India, 2 in Indonesia, 1 in Sri Lanka, 4 in Africa. And there is nothing to prevent you from doing the same in Italy, in France, in China... I am pretty sure you could easily find young interior designers around the world who would be very happy to work one or two years in a project like this: they would travel in beautiful place, earn some money and accumulate experience in a very chic area of their specialization.

Additional considerations

The complexity of putting this idea in place is medium. The operative costs are not high. But you have to be able to deal with a heavy global environment. I see it viable for a couple, a group of friends or business mates. On a wider scale also an already-existing web publisher could be very satisfied with it.

This innovative idea for a night school comes from OurGoods, a peer-to-peer network where artists can barter of goods and services. This is already a cool idea, and now they have extended it to education. Trade School offers continuing education to students in exchange for items and services that the teacher wants or needs. So for example, if the teacher of a creative writing class would like to have more fresh local produce, a student who want to take the course could sign up to bring a basket of organic vegetables. The possibilities are endless, depending on what the students have and what the teacher needs.

The first classes started in January in New York, and you can read summaries and view photos of them here at OurGoods' blog. The course offerings are pretty diverse and interesting, the two classes today (Feb 23rd) are titled for example "How to Make Herbal Concentrates" and "Drawing for Pleasure and Relaxation", while tomorrow's are "How to raise $ for your creative projects on Kickstarter" and "PLAY: Improv for Ideation."

Bartering always comes into fashion during rough economic times, and this is a great application of it.

Tip: Iconoculture

The idea of taking pictures of stuffed animals and toys in front of famous monuments has been around for a while, and was especially popularized by the kidnapped gnome in the film Amélie. But now someone has had the inspired idea to make a business out of it. Toy Traveling is a new business based in Prague, which offers a unique service for anyone around the world with a "darling" stuffed animal. You send the teddy bear to Prague by mail, and you'll get a photo album with the toy in front of various landmarks in the lovely Czech capital. The basic holiday package for your stuffed animal will cost you 90 euros.

While in these economic times one might think that it would be hard to find people willing to pay for a holiday for a stuffed animal, the man who came up with idea, Tomio Okamura, is optimistic, and insists on the seriousness of his enterprise: "There are about 1.2 billion toys in the world, and a lot of their owners like these toys very much, and they want to make them more happy. The owner of the toy will send his toy to one of four or five locations in Central Europe, and we will take photos of the toy in front of Prague Castle, Charles Bridge and the most famous sightseeing spots. Then we will put these photos on a CD, and send them and the toy back to the original country."

The site's most luxurious holiday package, going for 150 euros, includes massage an aromatherapy as well: "we will make massage on the mat next to Charles Bridge, with Prague Castle in the background. So we will put teddy bear on the mat, put candles around him, and take photos. So then his owner can say that his owner had a massage in Prague." You can check out the full interview here.

You can't say this isn't a creative idea. If you live in a major tourist destination, this is an business worth keeping an eye on, if it does well one could easily start up a similar operation in Paris, New York, London or just about anyplace that attracts visitors.

I don't know how I missed this one, but last year GreenMap was launched, which provides corwd-sourced maps of all the green stuff in cities all over the world. The idea is that using these green maps you quickly and easily find green products, businesses, services, events and more in whatever city you happen to be in at the moment. Everything is neatly plotted on a Google map, and things they find that are green and cool to be included.

Better still, GreenMap has just released a brand new iPhone App, that lets iPhone users access all this from their phone. Best of all, the app is free. For those who don't have an iPhone but another kind of smartphone, there is also a new, super easy-to-use mobile site. The app and the mobile website feature the "What's Green Nearby?" tool, which is described as "drawing from over 8800 sites contributed to the interactive Open Green Map sustainability mapping platform by local Green Map teams, this beta version delights users as it guides them to farmers markets, green buildings, gardens and heritage sites that help everyone make greener, healthier, low-impact choices."

As it's still only in beta, we can expect even better things in the future. Cool!

Tip: TreeHugger

There are such a vast number of worthy causes to give to, what's a good Samaritan to do? For those who are interested in giving to multiple charities, but have difficulty finding the time to manage all their donations and relationships with various non-profits, Givv.org provides wants to provide a simple solution. The Texas-based site allows users to set a monthly budget that they can allocate to various charities of their choosing. Givv.org takes care of the actual distribution, collecting the donations to each charity into single payment. Thus users don't have direct relationships with a charity, and won't be on any mailing or calling lists as a result of a donation.

Those who use the site get to choose whether to make their list of charities public or not, and can submit new charities to be added to the site. Givv.org is, naturally, non-profit itself. This Idea seems so natural to me I am surprised it has taken this long for someone to realize it. Surely similar sites for different countries would be a good idea.

Tip: Springwise