It is about time that we saw an application that made taking pictures more interesting. With kooba.com application, déjà vu, we are sure on the right track to seeing greater things in the near future. With the application, you will find it a lot interesting to take photos and even share the same photos with your friends. The application works in a really interesting way, it uses image recognition for automatic labelling of your snapshots. This really saves you a lot of time and energy, from the sound of things, it really sounds like a great application. Let’s take a deeper look at how it exactly works.

If you just love taking pictures and keeping all those precious memories then kooaba.com’ déjà vu application is the application for you. Designed to operate on iOS phones, it will turn your iPhone into your visual memory. The déjà vu application goes a step further and makes sure that your experience is much better. This is mainly by automatically labelling all your snapshots, this means that you don’t have to worry about the number of photos that you take. All that you need to worry about is the quality of photo that you take. This surely sets a huge smile on a lot of faces. The great thing about it all is that you can also can go ahead and edit the labels as you would wish.

If there is one problem that many have identified while taking photos is that the applications they use do not allow for fast picture taking and easy navigation through the photos. With the déjà vu application however, the above problems are fully addressed. The déjà vu application came about from the need of a better photo taking experience. Since the integration of the camera in the phone, we have seen a lot of changes in the way we take pictures. Though this has been the case since 2006 where we saw the first phone with an integrated camera, there hasn’t been so much change in the nature of the photo experience. The only difference between then and now is that the phones now are much more sophisticated and much more efficient. The need for an application that helped people with photo taking and managing their photos increased day by day. This need saw the birth of the déjà vu application. It is through this application that you can effectively organise all the photos that you have.

The number of photos that many individuals have is overwhelming. From this assertion, one thing that is clear is that we need a system that will see us saving our photos and organising our photos in a much easier way. This is what kooaba.com déjà vu application does. Once you take your pictures using the application, the application will label all your snap shots and keep them in an organised format. If your phone is out of memory and you need more space to store all your special memories, kooaba.com déjà vu application has a way out for you. After taking your photos, the application synchronizes with your personal account on cloud. On cloud, they are stored safely for as long as you would like. Though they are synchronised with kooba.com cloud application, you can always access the photos from any device.

As for my personal opinion on what the future holds for kooaba.com déjà vu application, I can only say that the future for the application is quite bright. The application is set to gain a lot of popularity since it is the only application that integrates image recognition for automatic labelling of your memos, the profits that kooaba.com is set to get from its exploration in this particular field will really reward the whole team behind the déjà vu application which they deserve. I am sure that with time, we will be seeing a lot of changes in the way we take photos and the ease with which we can organise all our photos, thanks to kooba.com déjà vu application.

With the déjà vu application, we can only pray that things keep going in the right direction. With the current success that the application is having, things are looking up. We might just see something new from the application.

Related articles

• The Android Déjà vu (webtropic.cc)
• Deja Vu uses image recognition to organize your visual memory (thenextweb.com)
• Kooaba’s Paperboy app makes printed newspapers digital, partners with over 2000 titles (thenextweb.com)
• Déjà Vu app adds image recognition capability to Evernote (intomobile.com)
• Déjà Vu – Your Visual Memory (swiss-miss.com)

When it comes to travel, maybe you are on a vacation or just on a business trip, we are always out to find some adventure, something that is far from the norm, something new. For you to get the best experience from a place, then you need to have everything planned out quite well. It is at this point that many people go wrong and eventually wind up not enjoying their visit as much as they should. With getyourguide.com, you can get all that you need online. This means that you will not only find an experienced guides to show you all the exciting places in the area, but you will also get the best guide who knows the do’s and don’ts in the place.

It does not mean that you will only be getting a guide to guide you around the place of visit; you will also be able to book for tours, attractions, and even activities. This is quite a great idea. To be able to complete all your booking in one site is amazing. If you are a constant traveller, you do know how hard it is to have everything that you want planned out for you in advance.

Let’s say you are going to Kenya on your vacation, all that you will need to do is to log onto getyourguide.com and you will be able to book for everything you need. You can book a camel ride, you can also book a visit to the Maasai Mara, and you can also book yourself a stay in one of the exquisite hotels in the country.

Through getyourguide.com, travel has been made hassle free at pretty favourable prices. With getyourguide.com you will get the best deal for the best experience. This is because getyourguide.com works with local travel companies who will be out to make sure that you get to experience all that your place of visit has to offer. If you would love to visit Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, Oceania or even south America, all you need to do is to log into getyourguide.com and all your needs will be addressed. By getting rid of all the intermediaries, you will be sure to get the best price, guaranteed.

Founded by Johannes Reck and Pascal Mathis, what getyourguide.com has to offer is quite unique to the market as it works with local providers so that you can get the best experience. This goes beyond what we are usually used to. We are usually used to individual providers providing booking for their services online, with getyourguide.com; you get everything in one place. If you would love a spa treatment during your visit and some rock climbing at the same place of visit, getyourguide.com will help you make all the arrangements with the best providers around. All you need to worry about is the important stuff; having the time of your life. If you are out to find the perfect visit, where you practically have everything worked out for you then Johannes and Pascal have it done for you through getyourguide.com.

As for my personal opinion on the whole idea, I must admit that I love the idea. Too many times we find our holidays and vacations getting all messy due to some few mishaps here and there, which are all as a result of not finding the right provider for the service you want. Previously all we had were many providers from different parts of the world that offered online booking, now with getyourguide.com; you will get all that you need in one site. The one thing that really intrigued me is a provision that they have. It states that if you happen to find your booked tours at a lower price elsewhere, they will make sure that they refund you the difference. This will be done without any questions. I guess that getyourguide.com is what we have all been looking forward to when it comes to having a great experience while travelling to exotic places all over the world. I sure know what to do the next time I want to visit the pyramids to get the best experience.

In conclusion, getyourguide.com is for sure a great idea. The one thing that we can expect from getyourguide.com is more growth in terms of service. This only means that we will be seeing even much better deals than the ones that we currently have. If you do love travelling then getyourguide.com will let you enjoy your travel with all your needs being addressed no matter how diverse they may be.

When it comes to events, the organiser has to do a lot for him or her to appeal to the attendees. This means that he or she needs to know of the likes and the dislikes of the attendees. The next thing that the organiser needs to do is to make sure that he or she schedules more time for what the attendees like and minimise on what they do not like. This sounds huge! You are probably thinking that it is almost impossible to please everyone. You are right on one thing, it is hard to please everyone, but you can try to please most people. The one thing that any organiser will be willing to tell you is that he or she wants the same attendee of a previous event to show up for the other event that he or she will organise. It is this state of events that have lead organizers to develop their own software applications for each and every event that they organise and hold, so as to create the best atmosphere for the attendees to benefit.

Let’s take a look at what you, the attendee, would like to have in the event that you are attending. The one thing that will get you going to such events is the need to network. You would really love to meet up with a person who holds the same interests as you and maybe a person you can work with to discover new business opportunities. Every business person understands how important this is. In whatever event they attend, they will be out to make sure that they have effectively interacted with other attendees.

From the above it is clear to see that there is a need that needs to be met if events are to be more successful both to the organiser and to the attendee. This is where bizzabo.com comes in. you are probably thinking of it as genius at this stage, but wait till you hear the rest of the story. It is indeed genius and brings a lot of relief to event organisers and gives smiles to attendees.

Bizzabo.com places itself in the middle of the equation and serves both the organizer and the attendee. It is a free location based mobile application for networking at business events. With this application you, the attendee, can discover new business opportunities and meet ups. It also serves the event organiser in that he or she will engage more effectively through the application.  Bizzabo.com, is an Israeli start-up company Founded by Eran Ben- Shushan, Alon Alroy and Boaz Katz, all alumni of the San Zell Entrepreneurship programme, bizzabo.com promises to be a must have for any event organizer. It is funded by private investors and advised by professionals in the business events category. This is one reason that it is so good.

How does it work? It helps you search for other event attendees. This is usually based on the title, company, industry and other favourable criteria. The application also presents you with a suggestion list that matches you to other attendees based on your profile and interests. For event organisers, they are able to keep track of attendees from previous events. The organiser can also upload events to bizzabo.com’s directory and edit the information about the event at any time, may it be during the event or before the event.

One advantage that the application has is that the event organiser can brand the page with his or her event logo, colour themes and even the up to date agenda. This is one idea that the world is embracing with arms wide open. Another valuable feature that bizzabo.com has to offer is that it allows the organisers and attendees to post special offers on their products or services. From this, it’s easy to conclude that with bizzabo.com at your event, you will generate some significant revenue.

As for my personal opinion on the potential that bizzabo.com has to offer, I must admit that I am in love with the idea. With bizzabo.com the organizer and the attendees stand to gain a lot. This is real- time event networking at its best. Bizzabo.com is certainly pacing the way in giving the attendees what they really need from an event that they attend.

In conclusion, we are sure to see a lot of exploration in event networking. The one thing that we can be sure of is that you, the attendee, will stand to gain a lot.

Related articles

• Bizzabo is the new event-based social networking tool for professionals (thenextweb.com)
• Live Business Networking App Bizzabo Wins Aug 2011 TechAviv Peer Award (techaviv.com)
• Bizzabo:New Business Networking Application (techmadly.com)

Anyone who has been on FaceBook for a while will know that one of the most successful app-game onthe giant social networking site has been Farmville. But as popular as Farmville has been, the reality today is that many people hardly know where the food they eat comes from.

This is especially so when you consider the growing transition from majority rural nations to majorityurban. The concept of how and where the food was grown and processed before it ended up on storeshelves seems far removed for the typical urban dweller. This knowledge gap and distant reality does not serve the best interests of the future of humanity as faras food security and eco-sustainable agriculture is concerned. The UK’s single largest farm land owner-administrator, the National Trust, has embarked on an experiment that seeks to change all that that.

Dubbed My-Farm.org.uk, it is an online project that seeks to enlighten people about farming and food production via a participatory approach that incorporates a real farm. Participants are engaged in all key decisions around the farm in Cambridgeshire, on Wimpole estate which is administered by UK’s NationalTrust.

At the core of each My-Farm.org.uk decision is the monthly voting. At the beginning of each month, theMy-Farm.org.uk community is asked a series of questions regarding the farm such as which crops toplant or what type of animals to keep. The questions are originated by a full time farm manager. There is also a community manager whoserves as the eyes and the ears of the participants on site. The community manager uses webcams, blogposts, photos and videos to keep users informed about the goings on.

A team of experts are on hand to provide project participants with any additional information they need to make their voting decision. The vote is then conducted and the winning option implemented on thefarm. The analysis and discussion before and after the voting is a powerful way of keeping participants fully engaged in the process. National Trust is targeting 10,000 participants for the Wimpole farm. If more people request to join beyond this number, National Trust will take that as a sign of the project’s viability and will create a new farm from the 250,000 hectares in the UK that are under its custody.

Each participant on My-Farm.org.uk is required to pay a 30 sterling pound subscription fee. All the income earned from the subscription fees is used in the project to finance staff costs and cover the expenses that must be incurred if the farm is to continue running. And it is on the number of subscriptions that the My-Farm.org.uk project will succeed or fail. Unless theproject can attract at least 6,500 subscriptions, the money raised will not be adequate to keep the farm running and will force National Trust to refund all subscribers.

Related articles

• FarmVille Comes to Life! Real Farm in UK Run By Internet Vote (video) (singularityhub.com)
• MyFarm takes “cow clicking” into the real world (gamification.co)
• FarmVille Comes to Life as MyFarm (weinterrupt.com)
• “National Trust’s MyFarm – Farmville Goes Real” and related posts (geeknewscentral.com)
• FarmVille Inspires Real Life Farming Experiment (mashable.com)

When making the decision to go out most of the time you don’t really know wich bar to choose from. Usually you walkabout try a few places and then settle for the one that is the most lively or maybe the one with the most girls. No days more and more people use Geolocalizing apps to check-in to different places, this give the opportunity to take this data and make estimations on the bar’s atmosphere.

SceneTap take advantage of this trend to bring us an app that can make going out a different adventure. First of all, You can check the surrounding bars and see how many people are there or even check out the male to female ratio. This will help you make your decision and maybe discover cool places that are maybe more lively than the ones you know.

The application doesn’t stop there! it also creates chat rooms for each bar where people can discuss and maybe meet. Imagine you see this amazing girl at the other hand of the bar, you see her on the chat and text her “A Glass of champagne is waiting for you 10 meters on your right!”. Great! well I guess it’s a bit lame but you never know it might come in handy.

SceneTap also takes advantage of the couponing trend and integrated the options for bars to include special deals through the app! this is a marketing opportunity. Imagine you getting a notification from the bar next door (which is pissed off about the fact that the are empty) that tells you there is an sudden happy hour and all drinks are half price! that would be great! ( maybe not for you liver but you know:)).

On top of that the application give the possibility for bar manager to check the clientele they tap into. That a amazing tool to get information on what type of costumers do you attract and what events make your bar more popular. With todays flow of real time information it can also give you real time data on how the bars around you are doing for exemple.

If this application could be connected to the Tabbedout app that could be great! especially if you can integrate the fact that you could send a drink to someone from your phone!

Well to conclude this concept is interesting but it needs a lot of data to make it relevant. And where I leave nobody really checks into bars so there will be no value in such an app. A strategy must be created to push smartphone users to use this technology, maybe through deals and promotions on drinks. On other side of things is that it might take out all the fun of going out in town not knowing where you go! I love that feeling of unexpected experiences!!!

Related articles

• Time to Tap In: Foursquare Testing NFC At Google Conference (mashable.com)
• Coming To A Bar Near You: Facial Recognition & Real-Time Data (empressoftheglobaluniverse.wordpress.com)
• SceneTap: On-site cameras find happening bars (news.cnet.com)
• Mojomapp.com – A Geolocalisation Dating Application Shows You Which Bar To Go To (smartideabox.com)
• Tabbedout raises $3.7M to simplify bar and restaurant payments (venturebeat.com)

In the past, the primary source of accommodation when one embarked on long distance travel was a hotel; outdoors camping or crashing at a friend’s place were the other significant alternatives. But in recent times and thanks to the internet, there has been a drive for alternative, low cost and more culturally connected accommodation. Airbnb.com is one of the major players in this new space.

Airbnb connects people that have room to spare with persons looking for accommodation in the same location. Unlike the coldness, formality, seclusion and monotony that is characteristic of hotel rooms, guests that find a place to stay using Airbnb can develop genuine friend connections with the person hosting them, have access to facilities they ordinarily would not in a hotel and have the opportunity to savor the day to day culture and practices of their destination.

The range of accommodation options and pricing are as broad as they come. One can find anything from a city apartment to a medieval castle in the countryside.

The process of booking on Airbnb is relatively simple. Guests enter their intended destination, the dates they need the property and then proceed to browse the matching properties by availability. Guests can send a request for clarification or additional information to property hosts.

Once the guest is comfortable, they key in their credit card information to book their space. Hosts must approve the booking within 24 hours. With the booking confirmed, the host’s contact information, the property’s actual address and any other vital information will be disclosed to the guest.

The next step is for the guest, to finalize their travel itinerary and share these details with their host with the most important being their arrival date. If you are the guest, note that at end of your stay and when you get back home, you can post a review of your experience. The host will also be able to give a review of your time as their guest.

That’s the process if you are a guest. But what if you are a host? The process is just as easy for the host – you log in, fill your profile details before listing your property. The details should include the type of accommodation (e.g. whole house versus one room), its availability and your price per night.

From there on, you wait for guest enquiries and approve or disapprove reservation requests as you find appropriate.

Whereas, guests are required to pay before the reservation is made, as a host you will not receive the funds immediately. Instead, the funds will be held for 24 hours after the guest checks in. This is done to reduce the likelihood of scamming e.g. guest arrives to find accommodation that is completely different from what they paid for.

Airbnb.com has a number of extra features with one of the most popular being the Social Connections. This is a service that allows users to locate and connect with people from their past or present who are members of Airbnb.com.

So popular has Social Connections become that there are currently over 20 million connections between Airbnb.com users. Connections span everything from former class mates to colleagues working with the same multinational organization but in different countries.

Comparison with www.couchsurfing.com

Airbnb.com is onto something – but it is clearly not the first crowd sourced accommodation website on the internet. One of the earliest and most well known crowd-sourced accommodation websites is Couchsurfing.com. While the concepts are strikingly similar, there are some distinct differences between Airbnb.com and Couchsurfing.com that one should look out for.

The first is on cost. If you are looking for the lowest cost, back packer type of accommodation, Couchsurfiing.com has it in far greater abundance than Airbnb.com. In fact, accommodation is presumed to be free though guests are encouraged to part with a token to their host as a sign of appreciation and goodwill.

Yes, it is true that Airbnb.com has relatively wide range of alternatives including low cost options. However, you are less likely to find a ‘-room-with-mattress-on the-floor-available’ type of listing on Airbnb.com although this is a very real possibility (in fact almost ordinary) on Couchsurfing.com.

The listings on Airbnb.com tend to have a more conventional, homely feel in comparison. Also, some of the properties listed on Airbnb.com are in fact more expensive than an average hotel room in the same location.

Thanks to its more personalized and informal approach, Couchsurfing.com provides more search options when you are looking for accommodation including gender, age and activity level. The site also has a database of hundreds of Couchsurfing.com member-organized events in different parts of the world. And unlike Airbnb.com, there is no registration fee required for one to join or participate in Couchingsurfing.com.

But Couchsurfing.com’s advantages in being a forum for extremely low cost alternatives are counter balanced by its higher risk and less controlled environment. Though no money is expected to change hands, you are more likely to be ‘scammed’ on Couchsurfing.com than you would be on Airbnb.com in the sense of someone posting one thing only for you to meet something different on the ground – there are really no obligations on Couchsurfing.com.

The rule in Airbnb.com that funds are not released to the host until 24 hours after the guest has checked in makes it more difficult for unscrupulous persons to advertise one thing but actually present another. In addition, you are less likely to have privacy in accommodation sourced through Couchsurfing.com – shared spaces are far more prevalent than on Airbnb.com.

Among the common strands between the two sites is the use of host and guest reviews to show the credibility of site users.

Comparison with www.wimdu.com

If Airbnb.com is the commercialized version of Couchsurfing.com, Wimdu.com is a clone of Airbnb.com. Other than the fact that Airbnb.com is US-based, has been in operation for longer and has a much larger number of location options and users, there is not much to choose between it and Wimdu.com. The interface is strikingly similar and even the font used on the Wimdu.com logo is almost the same as that used for the Airbnb.com logo.

Wimdu.com is a German based startup with an eye on the European market and Asia too. There are already national versions of Wimdu.com in Spain, France, UK, Italy and of course Germany. Wimdu.com had made an attempt to enter the Chinese market through a subsidiary Airizu.com (again, an uncanny resemblance to Airbnb.com) but the Airizu.com URL now redirects to the main Wimdu.com site.

Wimdu.com currently runs a number of voucher campaigns in an attempt to attract more users to the site. Another key difference with Airbnb.com is that Wimdu.com ensures that if for some reason a booking request fails to go through, the customer service team will make every effort to ensure that the user gets a similar or better quality accommodation at no extra cost. The site also sends its own representative to every property listed to ensure an accurate representation of the property’s quality.

Even though the owners of the site are keen on exploiting the absence of a significant player in the European market of the same stature as Airbnb.com, the borderless nature of the internet means ‘home grown’ alone will not be a selling point that is sufficient to sway European users away from Airbnb.com.

To Wimdu.com’s credit, even though Airbnb.com still leads in Europe, Wimdu.com is growing quite fast in Europe and is already the leading player in the Asian market.

Make sure you give a look at www.housetrip.com too:

http://smartideabox.com/blog/housetrip-com-the-smartest-way-to-rent-a-holiday-flat/

Related articles

• Wimdu – the international expansion of an Airbnb-clone (eu-startups.com)
• Kodesk Is Like An Airbnb For Office Space (techcrunch.com)
• Airbnb Buys German Clone Accoleo, Opens First European Office In Hamburg (techcrunch.com)
• Airbnb moves ‘aggressively’ into Europe (ft.com)
• Airbnb is growing fast, adding 1,000 listings every day (thenextweb.com)

Life is hectic – and that can very well be considered by some as an understatement. Due to the busy schedules characteristic of modern day living, one of the areas that suffers the most is our nutrition – there is hardly any time to plan and cook. Eating out is tempting but eventually becomes boring, costly and unhealthy. On the other hand, even the best establishments may not necessarily offer the healthiest of food anyway.

In order to save you from this persistent cooking headache, there is a solution in the form of Muncherry.com. Founded in early 2011, Muncherry.com works every simply. You place an order for a meal and once the meal is ready, it will be delivered where you live. You have the option of placing a single one-off order or place a one-week meal order.

Muncherry.com handpicks the participating chefs carefully and takes them through thorough quality and competence vetting. Each chef must have the requisite practicing licenses and operate their own independent eateries. Meals are restricted to ingredients that are easily, locally available so certain special dishes are not covered.

If you like one particular chef’s meals in your area, Muncherry.com allows you to settle on meals from that one chef only. And when you sign up for say a one week plan and are not satisfied with the first few meals, you can cancel and get a refund on all remaining meals.

Muncherry.com effectively allows you to enjoy the services of a personal chef but at a fraction of the cost you would incur to hire your own chef. No need to struggle with developing a meal plan and menu.

The profiles of participating chefs are available on the site and you can always look them up to see who you believe is likely to best meet your culinary preferences. The profiles are a statement of confidence by Muncherry.com in each chef that makes it to the panel.

At present, Muncherry.com serves a section of San Francisco. Plans are already underway to spread services to outlying areas. This is one idea that has huge potential for growth if handled correctly. If people buy fast food in such large quantities every day, getting what is effectively a home cooked meal prepared remotely and delivered to your home is not something people will find difficult to embrace.

That said, Muncherry.com’s winning proposition must not only be hinged on variety of the meals but on the hygiene standards observed during meal preparation. In such a sensitive business, it only takes one or two people to prove that they fell sick from food prepared in unhygienic conditions for the business to see its fortunes rapidly decline.

Related articles

• Munchery Wants To Bring Personal Chefs To The Masses (techcrunch.com)
• Le Chef Mobile Offers Cooking Classes for Couples in the Boston Area and Cape Cod (pr.com)
• Dylan’s Got Your Chance To Dine In Chicago From MasterChef (fresh1027.radio.com)
• Gobble offers ‘peer-to-peer lasagna’ takeout twist (sfgate.com)
• “Gobble” Helps You Order Take-Out From Your Neighbors’ Kitchens (treehugger.com)

We Know the popularity of Yelp, Google or TripAdvisor maps when it comes to choosing restaurants on the fly. They are amazing tools and everyone uses them to get a insight on which place they should go try out. The concept is dead simple “get reviews from real people that are always up to date”.

But there is one issue, one of the biggest issues when going to a restaurant is actually knowing what you should eat. With current rating websites you might get a review saying “you should try the roast duck with red wine sauce!!! amazing 5 stars” but this is very rarely the case.

FoodSpotting aims to change the process of rating the restaurant industry by strictly focus on rating food items or dishes. Mening that the focus is not on the restaurant but on what the restaurant offers. This is a radical change because when choosing a restaurant usually we have a small idea of what we want to eat. No days or thinking is pretty simple I want Mexican, pizza or a steak for exemple but when you only have an abstract idea of what you want to eat its not that simple.

Because of how Foodspotting is structured is enables you to browse dishes and snacks just like if you where window shopping in a bakery. This is a radical change in the way those online recommandation work. Further when we look at “real” life when a friends tell you about a place he often tells you about what he ate there that you should try. This means its very natural to recommend specific dishes.

The process of sharing has been made as easy as possible: take you iphone snap a picture of the food and rate it, you Geo-localisation will detect where you are and you’re done!
Business like Zagat in New-York have themselves added pictures of foods you can buy for other people to rate. When I think about Zagat I realize how useful it could when you walk in a store where there are too many things to choose from. Or simply when walking in a restaurant with a 4 page menu.

We all know how Yelp struggled to launch at the beginning by going global, then they had refocus and San Francisco to great a buzz and improve quality of the content, then we all know the story. Will FoodSpotting be able to find a spot in this market or will it be a new hype that will slowly die. They need to make a huge marketing effort and focus on user engagement to make sure the community grows. THe quality of their recommandations will also be crucial ( why not implement the hunch API into this application?).

Happy FoodSpotting and don’t Forget to Spot Ideas Too!

Related articles

• BonApp, a delicious new Foursquare hack suggests dishes at restaurants (thenextweb.com)
• TopDish: A new social network for foodies (thenextweb.com)
• Zagat for BlackBerry updated with restaurant reseverations (intomobile.com)
• Meal review app Chewsy adds photos to share your food porn (venturebeat.com)
• Hit iPhone app finds the foods you crave (money.cnn.com)

Location based content services are fast becoming the point of focus of new web technologies.

FourSquare is probably the most recognisable such service and can in fact be credited with opening
up the market to several other niche local services. To a large extent, the phenomenal growth in
smart phone sales has also provided impetus for individuals and businesses intent on developing
internet-powered location-based services.

Hunch.com and its Hunch local iPhone app is one of the new entrants that is making a significant
mark. Established by Chris Dixon and Caterina Fake, a co-founder of Flickr, the Hunch local app
allows users to make recommendations and discover locations that are consistent with their stated
tastes. You can find everything from museums and spas to grocery stores and restaurants.

To place the practical use of the Hunch local app in context, think about sitting in an office and
craving a cup of coffee or an afternoon cocktail. If you are a travelling businessperson that is new
in that part of town or you are a local who simply wants to explore a different restaurant or bar, all
you need to do is go to the Hunch local app on your iphone and you will get suggestions on the most
popular coffee shops and bars in your area.

The suggestions are not just listings of places or products. Rather users can leave a review of a venue
that other users can read in order to get better informed on what they can expect to experience
when they do go there. Hunch local also uses an intelligent iterative algorithm where a user’s
recommendations and responses to random questions are used to tweak the user’s future search
results of the same keyword(s).

Users of Hunch local can sign onto the service directly or through Twitter or Facebook. Given that
Facebook boasts more than 650 million users and Twitter having a substantial user base as well,
this ‘single sign on’ functionality adds to the convenience of the site. Naturally, the quality of data on
Hunch local depends on the number of users that participate. For this reason, the service is currently
most accurate and informative when in urban areas. As the number of users grows, so will the
quantity and quality of recommended locations in rural and remote locations.

Where does Hunch local stand now and where is it likely to go? The service is currently limited to
the US and major non-US towns. The Hunch service initially did not require one to log in to access
the data. When Hunch enforced the log in requirement in May 2010 the number of unique users fell
from 750,000 in May to 250,000 in June. However, Hunch substantially recovered with unique users
bouncing back to 350,000 by July 2010 and has been on a growth trajectory since then.

One of the key things that the developers of Hunch local might consider incorporating is the ability
to see one’s followers that are currently in the suggested restaurant a la FourSquare. Hunch.com has
already stated its intent for deeper cooperation with FourSquare so this functionality might not be
long in coming.

The practice of brewing goes back more than 5000 years. While any mention of the term beer brewing today is mainly associated with global, multi-billion dollar conglomerates, it is important to always remember that brewing as we know started as home brewing before it went commercial.

Home brewing is still practiced today with new home brewing machines models and brands constantly being released into the market. But many have failed to take off only attracting an initial excitement before eventually being consigned into the dustbin of history.

WilliamWarn, a New Zealand company, intends to change all that by developing a personal brewing machine. The device tackles many of the issues that off-the-shelf home brewing solutions have been plagued with for years.

Past impediments to home brewing include the long carbonation process, poor temperature control thus extending fermentation time, long clarification process, lack of a sediment removal functionality, laborious process, absence of technical know how to make good beer, poor temperature control during fermentation etcetera.

The WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery is designed and built around 6 key features. The stainless steel pressure vessel, the temperature control system, the sediment removal system, the clarification system, the gas dispense system and the draft dispense mechanism with flow control.

With the WilliamWarn Personal Brewery, it takes just seven days for one to successfully brew commercial-standard beer. Realizing the negative impact that oxidation has on the final quality of beer, the device is designed to ensure oxidation is kept at minimum.

The WilliamWarn device targets the New Zealand market first, but the founders of the firm intend to later push the product globally starting with Australia, then the US before moving onto other countries.

There is strong potential for the product in countries such as the UAE and Qatar where the cost of ordinary beer is prohibitively expensive. With its compact size, the WilliamWarn personal brewer will be at home in a bar and cafe just as much as it would be in the workplace and in the home.

What does the future look like for the WilliamsWarn Personal Brewery? On the face of it, prospects seem bright. However, there is one element of the machine that might make this device crash even before it lifts off the ground – cost. With a single unit going for NZ$ 5660 (US$ 4538), WilliamsWarn’s Personal Brewery is clearly not targeting ordinary home brew drinkers.

To their credit, the company has acknowledged that the cost of each unit is indeed high. This is primarily due to their initial approach of only developing 25 machines in order to gauge market reaction. The company could thus not enjoy the economies of scale especially since the concept for the machine had to be developed from scratch.

In this light, the company is thus banking heavily on the rapid uptake of the device in order to gradually pull down the cost per unit.

When you think about it, setting and meeting our goals in life always requires pushing against some form of resistance. Often, our resolve to push through with what needs to be done boils down to its correlation with our ability to meet our financial obligations.

In other words, even though working in a career you like is a powerful driver to get up and go to work every morning, the reality is many of us do so because going to work makes the difference on whether we can pay the kid’s tuition, the mortgage, the car loan or a vacation.

This is precisely why ‘do good’ goals often fall by the wayside. The absence of any form of reward and recognition for accomplishing a ‘do good’ activity makes it fall to the bottom of any list of priorities.

Dailyfeats.com is a start up that has created a reward system for encouraging its users to perform positive activities that are consistent with each user’s values and life goals. The positive activities are predefined in the system and are referred to as ‘feats’. Dailyfeats.com currently has more than 200 types of feats but the number continues to grow.

The types of feats are broad. They include taking a brisk walk at the end of a tiring day, volunteering to tutor a child, eating fresh fruit, waking up early, taking the stairs instead of the escalator, spending time with the family etcetera. After performing each feat, users log into Dailyfeats.com via their smart phone or computer, register the feat and earn the points associated with the particular feat.

For persons that want to check in their feats without logging into Dailyfeats.com, there are a number of options. One can send a phone text message, send a Google Talk chat, email the feat or link their Dailyfeats.com profile to their Foursquare account. When one’s profile is linked to Foursquare, certain actions can be registered automatically based on location. These include attending classes or going to the gym.

There are two approaches to checking in a feat – registering each feat immediately it occurs or checking in the accumulated feats in bulk at the end of each day. There is no harm using either. However, members are restricted to only registering feats they have performed within the preceding 24 hours.

The member can share with other Dailyfeats.com members what tangible and intangible value performing the action created for them and thus encourage others to emulate the same. In return, the appreciation and reward one experiences from other members after registering their feat on Dailyfeats.com spurs them on to continue to do even more good.

Even though registering the feat earns a member points, ‘props’ or positive votes for the feat from other members earn the member additional points. Points earned on Dailyfeats.com can be redeemed for rewards or discounts. Dailyfeat.com has partnered with a number of commercial and not for profit organisations who sponsor feats that reflect their own values.

Over the last 10 or 15 years, the term corporate social responsibility (CSR) has gained traction worldwide as an integral part of the responsible business’ strategy. However, the growth of CSR has inadvertently created the impression that activities to make the world a better place are difficult or near impossible to monetize.

Of course, nothing could be further from fact – there are numerous business that are solely involved in social activities and are returning a profit from doing so. 33needs.com is an online crowd funding website that connects social entrepreneurs with investors.

33needs.com serves as a platform (the only one of its kind) for ordinary people to invest in social enterprises and reap financial and emotional reward. The emotional reward is in knowing that one has contributed to making a difference somewhere in the world.

Financial reward is in ‘Impact Points’ awarded by 33needs.com that can be redeemed in any one of a network of ‘Impact Partners’ around the world. There are 6 classes of social enterprises that the 33needs.com helps organise funding for.

• Health – Businesses that provide products and services that help people live healthier and longer lives.
• Sustainable food – Enterprises that use sustainable farming and processing practices to make more food available to meet the need of the world’s burgeoning population.
• Opportunity – Businesses that equip men and women with the skills necessary to provide for their households.
• Planet – Entrepreneurs whose goal is to ensure a cleaner world.
• Education – Individuals or institutions that create the environment for more people to access a good education.
• Community – Enterprises that work towards the protection and preservation of unique but endangered cultures.

The social entrepreneur must indicate a specific target amount that they would like to raise. The funds are only released to the entrepreneur if the contributions from investors reach the target amount. If the total amount invested does not reach the target figure, the investors get a full refund of their money.

The rationale for refunding investments when they fall short is to ensure the entrepreneur has all the cash they need to achieve the goals they had outlined. This is good for investors as it reduces the likelihood of failed enterprises or projects.

The accrual purpose for the money will differ for each business. The cash may be for starting up a new business or to expand a going concern. The funds may go towards building a website, increasing inventory, research, marketing etcetera. 33needs.com helps social enterprises address their operational needs so they can focus on delivering their product.

The fact that investors are individuals who are attracted by the cause the social enterprise stands for means the social entrepreneur enjoys support from persons that are passionate about their business. This alone serves as a powerful drive for entrepreneurs to achieve the goals they commit to at the point of sourcing for funding.

While 33needs.com is quickly making a name in the crowd funding arena, its difficult-to-understand and widely-varying reward structure might be an impediment to more investors signing up. However, it has the potential of making headway among persons that would like to make a difference without necessarily expecting anything in return. This is because there is no collateral that the investor can redeem if the social enterprise goes bust.

The rapid rise in smart phone sales is quickly moving the smart phone from an elitist status symbol to a mass market product. According to global research firm IDC, global smart phone sales will be up 49% in 2011 – 4 times faster than ordinary mobile phones.

This growth is in turn creating opportunities for business ideas that were previously unfeasible and impractical. Crowdbeacon is one of the latest such services to hit the market. It builds on the successes of Yelp and what is arguably the most well known location based service today, FourSquare.

However, Crowdbeacon differs from FourSquare. Even though Crowdbeacon is a location based service, it mainly focuses on providing information to users depending on where they are and what they require. This is unlike FourSquare which is centred on venues, event planning and has a strong social networking element.

Crowdbeacon differs from Yelp as well. It serves a similar role to Yelp but takes the service a step further than a simple search – it creates engagement. That said, some of the information made available to Crowdbeacon ‘askers’ is drawn from Yelp using an API.

CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO

Here is how Crowdbeacon works. First, one must sign up for the service. As the user signs up, they are required to indicate at least one topic they consider themselves an expert on in their locality. So when a user asks a question, another Crowdbeacon user within the same locale (e.g. the same city) and who indicated they were an expert on the subject the question relates to, then responds.

Users of Crowdbeacon can use the service to get response to questions ranging from where to buy roses, the top museums in the city, the location of ATMs and the best restaurants. The response to the question is delivered via SMS, push (iphone), email and voice. Crowdbeacon employs an algorithm that ranks users by tested influence in their category and/or neighbourhood based on the number of positively received responses they provide.

Crowdbeacon is not limited to individuals – businesses too can sign up. When a business signs up, they are required to indicate one or more keywords that they would want to receive questions on and respond to (usually related to the product or service they sell).

If a response is required in real time and there is no one immediately available to provide the information, users do not necessarily have to wait for an expert user’s response. Crowdbeacon invokes APIs that draw down relevant data from other location based services.

At present, Crowdbeacon draws the data from Yelp, Wishpond and FourSquare. Plans are in place to expand this information pool to include Facebook, City Search and Twitter.

In the event that there is no one available under that category to answer the question and the APIs do not provide satisfactory data, Crowdbeacon’s own staff take up the question and attempt to get an answer on the end-user’s behalf. That said, given the infinite number of possible questions, Crowdbeacon staff do not guarantee providing an answer to every such question.

If smart phone sales maintain their steep climb, Crowdbeacon has huge potential for future growth. At present, the Crowdbeacon application and service is free. The product’s creators have intimated that their goal at the moment is to provide a unique, quality service that meets their user’s need before they attempt to monetize Crowdbeacon.

I liked her idea of going to the restaurant and cook because first it is a good way of differentiating from the competition and second you make the customer work and pay for it. However the question was to find out in what extend it could be different from cooking lessons, which are not really profitable.

My idea is that there shouldn’t be any chef helping and there should hardly be any cooking at all, just grilling. I thought about having big, long grills in the middle of the tables. People would pay for all they can eat and they could get meat, eggs, fish, onions, shrimps and that kind of stuff. There should also be rice, potatoes and salad that you prepare in big quantities.

So you would have no waiter, no kitchen, a really small perceived waiting time since your customers are active all the time. And since you cannot charge too much for raw food, the all you can eat formula makes it acceptable for customers to pay more.

I’ll sketch something to show you my concept.

Whatever the country, let’s face it: it’s always been a hassle. First, you have to detach the plastic bag and moisten your fingers to open it. Then, you always have to think about  the order in which you put the items in (because either the product or the bag might break). Lastly, you always end up with several bags that are a pain in the neck to carry and that will eventually finish in the garbage (which is not environmentally friendly).

We’ve sent a man on the Moon 50 years ago. Why haven’t we found a smart way to carry our food purchases? Several people have tried to innovate, for example by implementing a rolling cart (the ones you see the grandma’s with). I personally think it is way better than the original plastic bags we use, but the problem is it’s unfashionable and you have to bend down to reach for the items.

So I’m looking for your ideas. I am sure we can find a way to revisit the classic grocery bag and turn it into an efficient and fashionable item. Why not have a grocery bag that you can fit on your back, like a school bag?

Of course I googled it to be sure, and the fact is that saucepans keeping their content warm don’t exist yet! Of course the bottom has to stay as conductible as possible, otherwise you cannot cook.

I’ve bought several magazines to read on the beach this summer, and a new trend everyone starts speaking about is the recycling of human crap for agriculture. From scientific american to wired, smart people preach this idea.

Finally, why not? We already have sewers that collect all the crap and drive it to purification plants. Those plants should transform excrement into fertilizer instead of burning it… The numbers are enormous. Assuming that a typical human being releases 300 grams of pooh every day, that makes 18’000’000*0.3=5’400’000 kilos of pure brown matter every day for a city like Tokyo. I’m sure you can grow some plants on that.

I was thinking if you manage to design a restaurant concept which is portable ( everything ranging from kitchen to Logo) you would be able to move around and surprise you customers.

Rent place for 6 months then move around but it has to be a proper restaurant not a fast food otherwise it wouldn’t have the same effect.

Jonas

Isn’t the main reason why you go to the restaurant to break routine and to eat better food? On the other hand, it’s always fun to cook at home because it’s gratifying to eat and appreciate the food you make.

My idea it to create a concept which would conciliate both.

My thought is to have a restaurant where there would be a large kitchen, and clients would come to cook by themselves. They would be able to choose from a range of dishes (just as in a normal restaurant), and would be handed the recipe, ingredients and utensils accordingly. A Chef would be responsible of giving them tips and making the machines (such as ovens) work. They would then take off the kitchen uniforms they were previously wearing and enter the dining room where they would enjoy the food they have made.

The advantages from the client’s side are numerous: you don’t have to buy the ingredients or clean the kitchen, you are given proffessional instruments, you get exclusive help from a Chef, and you learn new recipes.

On the manager’s side, having the customers cook and serve by themselves means having a reduced number of employees in service and kitchen. This is an important aspect, as the payroll is often the most expensive aspect of a restaurant.

Nevertheless, a limitation would be that only a small number of guests can be hosted, making the kitchen otherwise too crowded and reducing the availability of the Chef to the clients.

Let me know where you think this concept would work, as well as the market it would attract. Also, do you think it should be an exclusive and expensive concept, or do you think it should be cheap because after all, you are still the one working!?

Who wouldn’t like a fresh orange juice, a small patisserie, a bowl of cereal for something like 6.- a day to be delivered at their door each morning?

Food cost would be around 3.- delivery 1.-, those cost would of course be high at the beginning but as more costumers come they would become very small.

Marketing could be based on the fact that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Me for example I never eat breakfast because I’m lazy in the morning. As people get more and more conscious about their health it could actually be a great business plan.

Jonas