Please Steal This Idea

Man purse marketing from the Onion

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:10:39 -0400

Man purse marketing from the Onion:

How to kill a startup idea...

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 10:30:37 -0400

How to kill a startup idea...:

Don’t waste your valuable time. Ask the hard questions early.

gofwd: Genius idea of the day: Armpit Subway Maps. Please...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 10:30:34 -0400

gofwd:

Genius idea of the day: Armpit Subway Maps.

Please don’t steal this idea, but it’s still fun.

Guest Post: Facebook needs to serve ads better

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:30:45 -0400

Dear Facebook,

I was going to the flower shop the other day to get a rose for my significant other. Wondering if there was a better way for the local flower shop to market their product.

In targeted advertising is there an ability to create an ad for (in this case ordering flowers) that can show up as an ad or sponsored story only for people who 1) have an upcoming anniversary? 2) the person they are listed in a relationship with has an upcoming birthday?

Such targeted marketing could be highly valuable to florists or local jewelers along with the nations chains i.e. 1800flowers.com.

Facebook has been much maligned for serving ads that seem almost invasive into people’s personal lives. Rather than hope for an algorithm to solve our problems, what we really need is a better way to help one another.

For example, group gifting sites are one step toward helping one another get that perfect present for family and friends without having to bear the entire cost ourselves.

Facebook can help, but we can’t rely on it entirely.

Here are those binary beats I remember so well.

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:30:41 -0400

Here are those binary beats I remember so well.

The sound of a dial-up modem analyzed. This brings me...

Wed, 10 Apr 2013 10:30:38 -0400

The sound of a dial-up modem analyzed. This brings me flashbacks of waiting for AOL login in my family room as a kid.

Bitcoin Has Surged Another 15% Just Since The Last Time We Mentioned It

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:06:28 -0400

ramialkarmi:

Earlier today we marveled at Bitcoin blowing past $200.

Now?

Over $230.

From Clarkmoody.com:

We need a Miss Manners 2.0 to provide digital decorum guidelines

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:30:38 -0400

This idea has been in the hopper for some time, and it looks like the NYTimes has beaten me to the topic today.

Not only do people not know how long is an acceptable wait for returning an email or sms, a large number of people still don’t know an better than to send lewd pictures of themselves to the wrong people or litter facebook with bombastic political rants.

We need a publication (ideally a wiki of sorts) to codify - in constantly evolving fashion - proper behavior for interacting with one another in person and online in the 21st century.

How much time can you legitimately spend looking at or typing into your mobile device while in a meeting or at dinner with one, two or more people? How can one gracefully weigh in on an online message board? What is and is not a legitimate first message on OKCupid?

I aspire to be courteous as well as connected, but those two interests seem further and further apart with each app and iOS update. Can someone please help everyone be just a little bit better about drawing the line between acceptable and egregious behavior? We will all be grateful!

Let's replace money with virtual currency

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:36:43 -0400

Let's replace money with virtual currency:

Bitcoins reach $1-billion in total value. Is this the start of a sea change in our global economy or an anomaly soon to be subsumed or squashed by the fiscal powers that be?

How the Internets work...

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 16:06:16 -0500

How the Internets work...:

More than a series of tubes.

We need a crowdsourced Groupon

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 18:21:12 -0500

The Problem: Shopping is a pain. It is a hassle to find a good product at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, bad transactions happen more frequently than most of us prefer. As a result, savvy shoppers sift for diamonds* through a rough of outlets, coupons, websites, and daily-deal emails.

Because sellers initiate pricing without negotiation, consumers must hope and wait for the perfect product at a suitable price. Rather than paying too much or buying another Groupon that will go unused, don’t you wish you could set price notifications for any merchandise just like you can for airplane tickets.

The Product: Starting by crawling online merchants, this website could track prices and deliver alerts to members. Like crowdbuy.com or this chrome plugin, the proposed site would also allow members to input pricing data and look at product analytics, such as max, min, mean, and mode demand prices.

In essence, this site and its membership aspires to be a “reverse groupon” whereby consumers assemble online in search of the best deals. Bypassing the middle-man would afford much more transparency and insight into consumer demand, more product variety, and no more 50% revenue sharing requirements for businesses. The goal of this site is not to maximize profit for a corporation but to create value for the mutual benefit of its members. With an internet-scale network, this anonymous consumer data might even put upward pricing pressure on merchants looking to unload overstock to a targeted group of eager buyers.

The Model: Groupon’s greatest asset was its network - rather, its networks. The first: a mailing list of eager buyers has obvious clue, but the other network also scaled to a $10 billion valuation (n.b. with barely any profit). Specifically, Groupon’s growth required constant hiring of salespeople, coders, business developers, managers, and executives at a cost always beyond last quarter’s revenue.

It’s a shame that billion dollar IPOs prevent companies without a hope for longterm profitability from instead forming non-profit, crowd-sourced, online communities on the scale of Wikipedia.

Assembling for the mutual benefit of its members, this crowd-up would be a consumer cooperative rather than provide boat payments for VCs or CEOs. Owned by its members alone rather than founders or stock-holders, it would function like any credit union or insurance co-op (see the success of State Farm Insurance) but with the added organizational leverage of the Internet.

By crowdsourcing the tedious task of tracking prices, the rest of us can benefit from more efficient markets, cheaper goods, and more free time.

*substitute your particular consumer vice: shoes, electronics, sweaters, hardware, etc..

How to cultivate idea-making in daily life

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:25:21 -0500

How to cultivate idea-making in daily life

Micro taxes on financial trading about to be reality, in the EU.

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 07:53:49 -0500

Micro taxes on financial trading about to be reality, in the EU. :

Apparently Tobin had the idea 40 years ago. #GreatMinds.

Photo

Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:01:27 -0500

Another stolen idea: Jukebox SMS

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 15:45:39 -0500

Another stolen idea: Jukebox SMS:

Jukeboxsms is pretty much spot-on the spec that we promoted in this post about 21st century jukeboxes two months ago. Hooray for the future of bar music!

"Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits."

Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:04:41 -0500

“Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits.”

- Twyla Tharp, The Creative Habit (via idonethis)

Jerry Seinfeld could be the perfect spokesperson for the iPurse

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 11:00:51 -0500

Jerry Seinfeld could be the perfect spokesperson for the iPurse

With the growing popularity of iPads, we need the next big tech accessory: the iPurse.

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 16:01:00 -0500

With the arrival of the iPad Mini, the blogosphere is clamoring for the next Apple product. Some speculate it will be the iTV, but I think it ought to be the iPurse. With the ascent of tablet computers, I (and millions more) find my bulky briefcase too cumbersome for the task of carrying my iPad (particularly now that it’s minified). What I increasingly (and worryingly) find myself wishing I had a smaller satchel or european carry-all or well… if I call a spade a spade, I find myself in need of a purse.

Conflicted like Mr. Seinfeld, I only wish the purse were a more masculine accoutrement. Now that Steve Jobs is no longer alive to walk on stage at the next Macworld with his very own iPurse, I wonder which accessory manufacturer will be the first to market the murse.

Though I refer to it a purse, the meaning of any case is in what it contains. If a valise existed that conveniently carried an iPad, phone, keyboard, and wallet, which tech-enabled man wouldn’t want one? In fact, we are already beginning to see a trend toward this aesthetic. Exhibit A, this picture I took the other day:

Note the confidence with which these hard-hatted construction workers tote their iPads. Ideally the product I am proposing would have a front part that resembles one of the utilitarian straps worn by old west bandoleros with pockets and places for sundry items.

My my mother has referred to this accessory as “the mandolero.” All this project needs now is a sustainable, fair-trade manufacturing process sourced from indigenous Americans along with a snappy Kickstarter page to be the next million-selling Apple accessory. Who out there can help make this product a reality for men?

We need a people's bailout... public funding to buy out personal private debt....

Mon, 12 Nov 2012 16:01:22 -0500

We need a people's bailout... public funding to buy out personal private debt....:

What an amazing idea from Occupy Wall Street via howtosharpenpencils:

Occupy Wall Street is launching the ROLLING JUBILEE, a program that has been in development for months. OWS is going to start buying distressed debt (medical bills, student loans, etc.) in order to forgive it. As a test run, we spent $500, which bought $14,000 of distressed debt. We then ERASED THAT DEBT.

(If you’re a debt broker, once you own someone’s debt you can do whatever you want with it — traditionally, you hound debtors to their grave trying to collect. We’re playing a different game. A MORE AWESOME GAME.)

We need to raise taxes... by microscopic amounts. #GovReform

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 15:01:05 -0500

In honor of election day, PSTI is tackling one of the hottest election issues: taxes.

The situation: There is much ado about taxes, particularly with respect to who should bear the burden of supporting various public services that rely on federal revenue. From the Postal Service to Social Security, our federal government is struggling to pay for its most important services that few members of society could do without. Rather than solving these problems with increases to existing taxes, we need new forms of taxation to level the economic playing field.

The Solution: Rather than large tax increases to the rich or poor, we should institute microscopic taxes on “transactions” that would hardly affect the average individual but would add up to significant revenue for the government. Two industries that would be best suited to micro taxes are email and the stock market.

E-stamps: Just like real mail requires a stamp, we could have the same requirement for email. Because email is so much cheaper to send, the fee could be as small as $0.0001 per email. For the average person this would amount to only a few dollars per year, but for large corporations or spammers, the fees would be significant.

In 2005, Verisign estimated approximately 2.25 billion emails are sent each day. If that number is 40 billion and rising in 2012, then e-stamps could generate millions in tax revenue every day. Moreover, this tax would also place a financial limit on spam. While Internet taxes have been rejected in the past, now is the time to institute such federal fees before people are forever accustomed to fully free email.

E-trades: Another example of a micro-tax is to levy $0.001 per transaction on all trades within US financial markets. Such taxes would cost the most prolific day-trader no more than $100 per year but cost far more to large scale algorithmic financial services companies that employ computers to hedge their positions hundreds of times per second. Not only would this tax help repay our national debt, it would restrict economic activity without intrinsic benefit to society.

Props to Kyle Nasser for raising the idea for micro-taxes on financial institutions.

PS - That said, incentives do matter and no government intervention is a panacea: