Archive for the 'products' Category

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Lover’s Cups – a new communication interface

Published on 23 March, 2006 in ideas and products. 0 Comments

Imagine, when you and your loved one are drinking at the same time, the cups celebrate this “virtual kiss” with a glow.

This is the Lover’s cup, an idea from Jackie Lee at MIT.

Not only for lovers, the idea originator gave a list of other applications. Most notably is the ability of the cup to remember other cup by the action of toasting.

Imagine toasting to a 100 person at a party. The cup will be vibrating non-stop the next day.

For the academically inclined, read the paper: Drinking Interfaces as New Communication Channels

Charge your gadget anywhere, solarly

Published on 13 March, 2006 in ideas, offline and products. 0 Comments

Saw this on TV today and I think it’s a great idea. Naturally I did a search and found it.

Can you figure it out?

Very simply the vest has some solar panels on the back. As you walk around, they charge your gadgets – mobile phone, ipod, digital camera, PDA.

Very handy for the road warrior. Wonder if this works well. Would be great if it charges my notebook as well.

Umbrella promotion

Published on 1 March, 2006 in my ideas, offline, products and thoughts. 0 Comments

It was raining the whole day here in Shanghai.

When it rains, umbrella sellers appears in force at the subway exit. (Ever wonder what they do when it is not raining?) Umbrellas were selling for 10RMB a piece. That’s a little more than 1USD.

Brushing aside one of the seller, an idea came to mind.

Umbrellas are pretty cheap to make (I reckon 15-30RMB in volume). So a company could simply make lots of promotional umbrella and distribute when it rain? Effective promotion that does not get thrown away like flyers.
Of course no one can guess when it will rain. So the umbrella will be sitting around waiting for rain. And where can you find people to distribute?

Why the umbrella sellers!

Assume we strike a deal like this:

sell the promotional umbrella to the seller at an attractive price
the seller then sells them when it rain and keep the profit as distribution cost
Drawback: low distribution, company do not want to sell promotional item

Give the umbrella to the seller
Seller distribute the umbrella and claim from company
Drawback: Control. Did the seller really distribute?

I will offer to do all the logistic leg work (from design, purchasing to getting people for distribution) if any company want to give this idea a shot.

If you have a promotion budget, sent me a note!

Ad packaging – an idea

Published on 11 January, 2006 in my ideas, offline and products. 0 Comments

Here is my idea of an offline version of Google Ads. I had this in mind for a while.

Think about this…

How many things you buy daily use packaging?
Package for burger, carrier bag for shopping, disposable cup for coffee, containers for takeaways…
What is on them?
Nothing much. Company log, slogan, instructions. Branding.
Empty space?
Lots.
Would companies like to save on these disposable packaging?
Almost certainly.
How about making money from them?
Tell me about it!

Consider this…

A company (say, 59oo9le) prints and provides the packaging to all these company
Branding still intact
Condition: allow 59oo9le to sell and print ads on selected space.
Revenue from ads shared (in some way) with packaging buyer.

Further consider…

Add an “advertise on this package”
Self-cannibalization. No problem as Amazon.com proved. A startup burger shop might advertise on packaging of an establised burger chain.
Bidding to buy on hot packaging
More effective than other form of offline ads?

What’s needed?