The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work.
- The zeroeth law of Wikipedia
Perhaps, a decade from now, they’ll say the same about the crowd-up.
OpenLabel Exits Stealth, Raises $80K To Turn Barcodes Into Public Labels
Brilliant but all those bar codes in product land could also make for a really awesome scavenger hunt game with the right effort.
This kickstarter project for an aluminum iPhone stand raised $1.1 million dollars already.
Who needs Venture Capital?
We need to crowd-source taxicabs and usher an age of peer-to-peer transportation (cont.)
Addendum: Unbeknownst to the authors of this post, a San Francisco startup Uber has recently secured additional VC funding and announced plans to expand to New York with its own variation of a next gen ride service. Wired’s done a nice job of describing an initial user experience with Uber, which allows SF users to hail one of 100 city drivers from their mobile phones. Drivers come from non-taxi “sedan services” that partner with the company. While Uber’s business model does not yet constitute the wholly networked solution to the cab industry we envisioned, it does mark a step in the right direction. Convenience comes at a cost, however; there is a minimum price of $15 per ride. Hopefully the founders of Uber read this blog and steal the rest of our idea(s).
Addendum 2: The call for more peer-to-peer transportation gained strength again two weeks ago at TechCrunch Disrupt, where car-sharing service Getaround was officially launched. Getaround lets mobile users peruse the gallery of available cars to borrow, and notably, allows owners to rate their renters, creating a nice incentive to be a responsible member of the network.
We need to crowd-source taxicabs and usher an age of peer-to-peer transportation (cont.)
Potential Scenario: What if you could simply push a button on your smart phone to notify a cab of your current location and get an on-demand pick-up within minutes (or seconds if you are in a large city)? That would be a great feature for anyone, particularly people with visual disabilities or other impairments that make hailing a taxi difficult (citation: Paul Parravano). Going one step further, why shouldn’t anyone be able to pick you up and take you someplace for a few bucks? Just like sleeping on a stranger’s couch, hitchhiking is something that is dangerous in theory but may be feasible with the proper technology and protocols.
Solution: (First note complete disregard the enormous government regulation of the taxicab industry as we present this utopian transportation scenario.) Anyone with a car less than five years old and of a certain make/model can apply for “gypsy cab” status. Approval is based on the applicant’s driving and insurance record. Once approved, the driver is sent a kit, including a GPS device, web camera, and LED light. If a driver is open to pick up a fair, he/she can turn on the device to find available passengers and notify the world (with a green LED in the windshield) that any pedestrian is free to hail. As soon as a passenger is picked up, the driver enters the destination in the GPS, the LED changes from green to red, and the fair begins as they proceed on the directed route. In order to maintain safety, the web cam will turn on during the fair and broadcast the interior of the car to the web, allowing a community of netizens to ensure the safety of these cabs just like citizens do for the streets of London, England.
In short, the internet can help to solve the transportation problems of our society. With the right changes and proper technology, we can crowdsource transportation and make moving people a peer-to-peer process as efficient as moving packets of information around the interweb.
Citation: Andrew Magliozzi & Nathaniel Levy
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
We need to crowd-source taxicabs and usher an age of peer-to-peer transportation (cont.)
Problem: While the services listed in our last post offer worthwhile alternatives to conventional modes of getting around, several less laudable features of our urban and suburban transportation environments remain unchanged. Taxicabs, for instance, still crowd the streets of most cities, yet they benefit company owners more than either consumers or drivers. How can we change the inefficiencies of the taxicab industry in a way that: a) increases access to ground transportation in city and suburb, and b) caters to Americans’ penchant for driving by continuing to build a sellers’ market for ride-sharing?
1) Taxi Cab transportation is a highly regulated market with enormous barriers to entry. As a result there are too few cabs in most places and prices tend to be pretty high. This is mostly because of the steep cost of purchasing a medallion required to run a taxi, particularly in New York City: “Because of their high prices (often over $400,000) medallions (and most cabs) are owned by investment companies and are leased to drivers (aka “hacks”).”
2) In order to drive a cab, you must work for a large corporation, which is responsible for ensuring quality and safety. While these are essential regulations, there are also better and more efficient ways to solve this issue in the 21st century. We’ve seen the proliferation of couchsurfing. Why not more digital hitch hiking?
Citation: Andrew Magliozzi and Nathaniel Levy
Dawn of Social Lobbying
Looks like the anti-SOPA sentiment is brining about a new age in crowd-sourced government lobbying.
KickStarter meet Congress
Trapped in a K-hole: The truth lies hidden in plain sight. Simply parsing political rhetoric reveals that lobbyists wield much more influence on our political process than most realize. Some members of Congress spend up to 70% of their time rounding up funds for reelection. Last year, the average Senate seat cost campaigners a cool $8.5 million. With the number of former lobbyists now working as congressional aids having more than doubled since the most recent elections, it’s clear that K Street has a vested interest in Congress. But who owns K Street?
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em: Here at Pleasestealthisidea, we support technological solutions to increase efficiency and transparency for everything from voting to taxes. When it comes to lobbyists, there is no love lost for those who pedal influence obedient only to dollars but rarely sense. Unfortunately, entrenched systems (particularly those in politics) are notoriously difficult to disrupt. Until we subvert the whole system, our best option is to co-opt it for good. That is, we should aggregate the public interest - like we do on sites like donorschoose.org - to vote with our collective wallet and hire lobbyists to pedal the influence of groups of individuals rather than simply those with private interests.
Implementation: Our site, which replicates the function of KickStarter for congressional lobbying must unfortunately begin by with those currently in control. Hopefully the infusion of interest and investment would attract a whole new rank and file to the industry of influence in our nation’s capital and bring about at least a little lasting transparency. Rather than let the powers that be continue to propagate their influence, let’s all get together and show each other what to change and how to change it. All we have to do is start by swapping the corruption of Jack Abramoff for the openness of the Internet.
Atrribution: Andrew Magliozzi
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Let’s Make a Groupon for “On-Demand” Movie Watching on the Big Screen
Problem
Movie theaters continue to show mediocre new releases, while Netflix controls the market for rentals. Even though most classic films are better viewed on the silver screen, few of us will ever see Luke Skywalker, Marty McFly, or The Dude on anything larger than a 40-inch Panasonic TV set. There is a demand for old movies on the big screen, but theaters have no way to identify and serve the diverse demands of the market.
Solution
We should have a website that allows groups to gather and purchase tickets to see any move at any time on the big screen. With aggregate demand (and digital projection technology), movie theaters should be able to deliver classic movies to an interested audience at off-peak times, enabling en masse on-demand movie-going.
Implementation
With access to the Netflix database (note: we can already share our queues with our friends) through a simple API, someone could easily aggregate the interests of the crowd based on individual queues. If I were to participate, the site might send me a message like this: “You and 314 others in Cambridge, MA have The Big Lebowskion your Netflix queue. Would you like to see a showing of it at 8pm on Tuesday May 3rd?” If I opt in, I can buy a ticket and also invite my friends to join me so we reach the 50-viewer minimum. So, who wants to see Donnie, Walter, and The Dude with me on the big screen?
Attribution: Matthew Hatoun
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
My name is Andrew Magliozzi, and I am a serial entrepreneur at Veritas Tutors & FinalsClub.org. Because I need another company like a hole in the head, I have decided to share any other entrepreneurial ideas I have as Intellectual Public Property. If I don't have the capacity to bring all these ideas into reality, hopefully someone else does.
