Making a business of finding and sharing information

The issue

You know the constant FYI-emails, IM's and so on, from people in your network, just letting you know they found some interesting stuff for you to look at. Based on their perception of you and what you'd be interested in. Sometimes you'll receive the same FYI 3-4 times - from different people, just adding to the information overload / spam!! The FYI's combined with your own information scouting can take up quite a substantial time during a day... some days you might feel behind on information, because you aren't able to cope with the large amount.

The Combination

I do my share of FYI's to people in my network, being sales leads, or input to projects I know people are working on, to plain old spare time interests. And some (of us) are just better at finding the information than others. Combine this with the "Personal shopper" concept, found in various implementations around the world. Best known in Denmark as a Christmas event in bigger retail stores - helping the men picking presents for the entire family - and wife.

The new concept

Through customizable categories on a website and personal meetings, defining people profiles, making sure that only the right and relevant information comes at a time YOU want it. Having scoters keeping an eye on the information’s of interest in numerous places, giving you the update you need when you need it. The amount of information and time between each update should be highly agile, enabling for quick shifts depending on the current state of "need of knowledge" Maybe topping the information update with information summary’s on requested subjects. Enabling a company to have a start-up meeting on a subject, which is to be attacked?

Keep track of new songs you want to buy

The problem:
When lisening to music on the way home - in the car, the bus, the bike or where ever you might have some sort of personal radio-music device. Often when i listen to the radio i hear tracks I'd really like to buy - but since i'm busy doing other stuff than writing down the artist name, album and track name/number i never get around to buying the cd's.

The solution:
A bluetooth or other wireless or USB-enabled device which records the digital-id for each number i'm listening to. Alternatively it only records the id's when i push a button on the device.

I'm seeing this device as a USB-key. This is because more and more car-radios has USB ports, and because you can install programs directly to the usb key.

Uppon accessing a computer, the digital-id's can be transformed into a download list, or a list of the cd's for me to buy in an online store.

There is actually two products in this idea. 1. the usb-key (or just the program) and 2. the online store which has a record of the digital-id's

Background:
All tracks played today has a digital signatur. (RDS)

I've been looking into this - and it turns out that the RDS-forum has an article on the underlying technology required.
http://www.rds.org.uk/rds98/rds98.htm

RT+ will allow the radio receiver to "understand" the broadcast Radiotext. Understanding means, the radio station can tell the receiver,
that Madonna is an "artiste" Material Girl is the "title", but also
that 0800123456 is the "hotline phone number" and 08002132123 is the "sms number to purchase the title" and
that Andrew is arriving is an "alarm" and listener can get more info at either 0800-212122 or www.hurricane.org or at another FM frequency
The receiver will be able to act accordingly. It may display Title and Artiste nicely, and if it has a built-in back-channel (if it is a phone) the user might call the hotline with one click or the user can get more information from a web-site or from a hotline or even switch to another frequency.

The examples given here are somewhat standard for what you can expect i guess - but I'm still hoping to see this implementet in phones (as they write), Ipods, USB-keys and laptops.

When talking about USB-keys, i can see this together with the "central usbkey-hub" idea, previously written here: http://imaginatory.blogspot.com/2006/12/central-usbmemmory-readers-in-house.html

Merging Work and Family life

Share selected photos from the weekend trip to the forrest, child birthday or yesterdays party with your co-workers on a public digital photo-wall showing your photos alongside your co-workers.

This is done to spark co-worker relationships and a great way to get to know your co-workers in depth. Rather than just hearing about the kayak trip - see it. Use the photos as an offset to a much more personalized conversation with the person next to you.


So now i've put a feed from my own personal online photo-wall - look at the bottom of the page, or click here
Also i put a del.icio.us tag-cloud up, wich features tags from my favorite links - and a link to the collection. - to the right...

All done in the name of merging ;)

Browse through aicient books without damadgeing them

Livepaper in museums and librarys

Using Visiolinks Livepaper solution combined with modern touchscreen terminals. You can now let museum or library visitors browse highvalued books without ever touching them!!

Turn a book into a digital version by scaning each page of the book, and put additional functions to the book by using the Livepaper solution from Visiolink.

• In addition to the terminal, put the book on your website to let website visitors get an extra expirence.

• Send interesting sections of the book to your friends by email, or send them a link to the entire book.

• Add video or audio sequences to some of the pages, to make reading of the book an interactive expirienc

Based on an original Idea from the people behind Whitevoid

http://www.whitevoid.com/whitevoid/digital_book.html

Get your shopping done for you!

Over a year ago i read an article in the springwise.com newsletter, the story of a restaurant without a kitchen. The restaurant instead offered dishes available from the nearby fast-food restaurants. Going to this restaurant you had the opportunity to choose from a wide range, and going as a group not everybody has to settle fro pizza!!

In Aarhus a shoppingmal offers men the opportunity to get their Christmas shopping done for them, while they enjoy a cop of coffee reading the newspaper or just in general - Not shopping.

In a 2 min. talk with one of my colleagues we had talked up this idea.

Why not have a company / coffee shop offer this service, including all shops in downtown ??

Company's should of cause agree on being available through this coffee shop, where a multiple search tools should let the customers brows through all products from all shops - finding the best or just the right one each time.

The coffee shop would then go and get all the items from the different shops, for the customer to see, and possible choose. If chosen the items will be payed directly to the coffee shop, which in turn then pays each shop for the item.

A matter of trust between each shop and the coffee shop should of cause be established, because items will actually be taken out of their shops without paying ( some collateral should be given from the coffee shop to each shop)