A New Kind of Interactive Textbook that Professors Can Edit

Posted: Thursday 4 Mar 2010, under category Ideas

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

A Social Network that Lets People Pay on the Honor System

Posted: Wednesday 3 Mar 2010, under category Ideas

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

An Innovative Moving and Storage Service for College Students

Posted: Tuesday 2 Mar 2010, under category 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.

Virtual Mobile-based Messageboards for Your Neighborhood

Posted: Monday 1 Mar 2010, under category Ideas

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

Taxis to Share with Others

Posted: Friday 26 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

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

A Lottery-Style Promotional Idea for Bank ATMs

Posted: Thursday 25 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

(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.

Continue reading this post

Ethnic Blogshoppers

Posted: Wednesday 24 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

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.

Continue reading this post

A School that Lets You Exchange Stuff for Classes

Posted: Tuesday 23 Feb 2010, under category Ideas

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