A Moment For My Sponsors: You
February 25, 2007 | 7 Comments
Taking a moment to mention some of the readers (25 of them) in the Techquila Shots community. My comments are in bold below. Thanks for all your emails:
Juan Sanchez - ScaleNine - A theme and skinning resource for Flex 2. Juan designed my logo! He had an idea for it and ran with it — sent me the comp and I fell in love! He’s been a pleasure to work with.
James Kirk (Burbank, CA, USA) - Boldly Going - Our game plan is to develop our members into a community powered publishing collective. Our site design and functionality will be about the ease of generating notes and articles on one of eight areas that we feel are solid foundations required for success in business and in life. Getting very involved in the posts and contributing his ideas ontop of my ideas (which spur more ideas) — would love to see more of this from everyone (hint, hint) 
Holger Kosmitzki (17 yrs old - Sydney) - Blog (in German) about his life as an exchange student in Sydney (he’s German). He sent me a web idea he’s working on related to fashion industry — honestly Holger, it sounds like a great idea; very simple premise, which means easily understood by anyone within about 10 seconds of telling them. I wish you luck executing on it.
Nitin Karandikar (Silicon Valley, USA) - Read more
IDEA #27 - Lunch/Dinner/Bar Specials - Updated Daily
February 24, 2007 | 5 Comments
A new site launched called Snag Lunch — quite honestly, I think it’ll be short-lived. This isn’t really done well/automated — but I think the idea has potential.
If I were launching something similar, I’d start with a database of restaurants — get them all listed in the site. I’d then setup a VXML app that can auto-dial those restaurants — telling them about the service, that it’s free to use/signup and allows them to communicate daily specials to their customers (and prospective new customers!). Additionally, let them do an audio-message of their specials.
And then I’d launch another website to do the same thing for bars / happy hours / drink specials; dinner / restaurant specials.
Monetization: Eventually you start doing advertising [of beer or beverage or food companies; since everyone visiting your website is interested in consuming food or beverages] — and allow for restaurants to Read more
What makes a Serial Web Ideapreneur?
February 23, 2007 | 18 Comments
When you get a “great” idea, do you rush to register the domain? (How many domains do you have? I have about 65, trimmed down from 85). Do you print business cards before formulating a marketing strategy? (I have at least 10 business cards I have designed in past years). Do you bounce ideas off your family or friends and they bring up random subjects, which suggests they are totally sick of hearing about your ideas? Do you hate to discuss your idea, because you think it’s 100% original and could make billions?!
What attributes do you think make up a serial web ideapreneur? Are you one?
MUSIC MARKETING GIMMICK: Non-Stop Listening
February 23, 2007 | 2 Comments
I love music — and I love marketing. It’s natural that I have ideas for the marketing of music (or bands in general). An artist should do a 1-week, 2-week, or 1-month marathon of their music — as an online radio player. Depending on the amount of music they have — just have it play all week long. Prior to streaming it all, have tons of little blurbs by the artist on each song — so during every song that is played, or in between / before songs, play a blurb by the artist.
Have the artist drop some URLs to some hidden tracks (and/or ringtones and/or artwork) online — if you’re listening, you’ll know about them (and if you’re not listening, I’m sure you could find someone posting about them via a forum). Have a live chatroom that users can jump into at any point during this marathon session. It could become an annual event — for 1 full week, your music is streamed the entire time! Maybe other artists that have covered your music, plays. Maybe some live concert song recordings play and you speak about that show.
No Sponsors Yet, Just Supporters (readers; aka “You”)
February 23, 2007 | 10 Comments
Send me an email with your blog’s URL or company’s URL along with your first name [and/or last], what city/state/country you’re in, and what your company does — or your blog is about — or what you’re passionate about. I’ll throw together a post with a one-liner on everyone that responds to me.
I’d love to see more comments/threads going on in each idea — don’t hold back if you feel you have a comment on something.
Without you as a reader and participant in comments of posts, I wouldn’t have the motivation to write this blog. So, Thank you.
IDEA #26C - Job Postings - Details by Voicemail Message
February 22, 2007 | 1 Comment
This doesn’t necessarily revolve around using an SMS text message, but rather VXML technology. You’re looking through the newspaper job classifieds, or even online listings. A small description of the job is included, but what does that tell you really? In this instance, the employer would use this service to leave a recorded message with further detail on the position. In the classified listing, a phone number is listed (maybe with an extension — e.g. 1-888-HOT-JOBS ext. 1334), which the user can call and listen to the automated message.
This relates to IDEA #26A and IDEA #26B.
IDEA #26B - Auto Details and Photos to your Cell
February 22, 2007 | 4 Comments
This relates to IDEA #26A. Same kind of premise — you’re either looking at the newspaper classifieds, or you’re at a dealership when they’re closed and looking at a car. You can simply text a code from your cell phone and a reply message comes back to your phone with photos, videos, and/or further details about the vehicle (”cost is… we can get you a lease on it for… auto has X miles…”, etc).
You could even incorporate VXML technology, so that an automated call goes back to the user’s phone with an automated voice message from the salesman at the dealership, providing details about the vehicle — and allowing the user to schedule an appointment to come in and see it, or schedule a time when the dealership should try giving the person a call.
This could also simply be a way to save the auto to your online account, so that next time you’re on your computer, you’d have a reminder with links to photos and videos of the automobile.
IDEA #26A - For Rent/Sale - View Info & Photos Instantly
February 22, 2007 | 4 Comments
This is focused and has a simple premise. You’re looking for an apartment to rent, an office to lease, or a home to buy. You’re either standing outside of the property, or you’re browsing your local newspaper. Standing outside the property is of course the ‘OFFICE FOR RENT’ or ‘HOME FOR SALE’ sign, which would have a 5- or 6-digit SMS number that you would send a specific property listing code to (e.g. Text ‘GH77′ to ‘OWNME’ on your cell phone).
Once the user texts the code to that number, they would be sent back a photo with property details in the text message — and/or a video that is actually just a slideshow of photos — and/or a video tour of the place (note: Verizon limits videos sent via SMS/MMS to 15-seconds and Cingular limits videos to 30-seconds). But in the photo / video / text message that is sent to the user, it could tell the user there are ‘6 photos for viewing. You are viewing photo 1 of 6, reply with NEXT to see the next photo’.
Ditto for home / apartment / office listings in your newspaper — classified listings would have a code that you could instantly view more info / photos / video on the property, or you could save it to your online account for viewing later. Ditto for those ‘apartments for rent’ magazines that are found at bus stops and grocery stores. Integrate with Zillow’s API and the consumer could also see the value of other properties that sold in that area.
How to do this? Grab your USSHORTCODE ($500/mo random number, $1000/mo for your chosen number), a SMS gateway provider (to buy inbound/outbound SMS messages for around 3-5 cents each outbound, and 2 cents per inbound; inquire about MMS, which is basically sending/receiving photos or videos by text message), a brand (fyi: ‘CRIBS’ as a shortcode is available for lease), a website built, and of course everything else that goes into making an idea into an actual business (passion; marketing plan; ramen; etc).
IDEA FLOW: Comes and Goes
February 21, 2007 | 2 Comments
Creativity comes and goes — as any writer, artist, musician, etc, knows. I still have creative web ideas, but sometimes find myself in a niche. Currently, I have a bunch of social networking ideas, SMS / cell phone ideas, and a mix of the two. I apologize if they are all starting to blend together. And as mentioned before, I’m currently fascinated by convergence of the offline (by cell) and online worlds — I think there’s a lot of opportunity there.
I absorb so much information via blogs — that should be enough to turn me in other directions. But currently, it’s not proving to do so. Reading does it for me though — typically books and magazines. I need to find out why I haven’t received a Wired magazine in a couple months, and I need to finish The Long Tail. I subscribe to tons of magazines, but haven’t gotten to them in a while — I’ll work on that this weekend (Rolling Stone, Forbes, Inc., Details, etc). Then we’ll likely see me go down another path.
What gets your creativity flowing? Any good business books you’ve read lately? What magazines do you subscribe to? Anyone see that ‘In Search of Silicon Valley‘ documentary yet?
Do you feel great? Be around Great People.
February 21, 2007 | 4 Comments
This commercial is insane and I love it. When you feel great, it wears off onto others. Stick around great people.
