Nothing seems to inspire innovators more than online dating. Adding to the plethora of new dating concepts, South-African yesnomayB is the world’s first dating site relying on collaborative filtering. The site makes recommendations to members on other members they might fancy.

This is how it works: as a user, you look at pictures of other members, and select yes, no, or mayB. Your favourites are put into your own private 'blackbook', while yesnomayB then secretly puts your picture in front of those people, to see if they like you too. If they do, the site will let you know, and contact may be made. yesnomayB signed up 6000 members in its first three months in South Africa alone, and is live in other English speaking countries.

A nice mix of 'hot or not', twinsumerism, social networking and some other 2.0 trends, this one feels ready to run with for entrepreneurs and big brands alike. yesnomayB is looking for partners, and the site is set up as a white label, tool.

Website: www.yesnomayB.com
Contact: amanda@yesnomayB.com

Repeating our premise that everything can and will be upgraded, we bring you London's Gourmet Burger Kitchen – a rapidly growing chain of sit-down restaurants offering nothing but high-end burgers.

Winner of several ‘best burger’ and ‘best cheap eat’ awards, the idea behind the Gourmet Burger Kitchen is to take what was traditionally a non-healthy, fast-food favourite and turn it into something that's still a fast favourite, but made from fresh ingredients and presented as both nutritious and sophisticated.

Endorsed by internationally recognized chef Peter Gordon, GBK's menu features an extensive range of innovative and exotic burger combinations, some of which are likely to tempt even non-burger loving customers. On offer are classic combinations such as chicken, camembert and cranberry, and beef, avocado and bacon. Innovative alternatives include chorizo with sweet potato, and lamb with minted relish.

Although the idea of gourmet hamburgers is not entirely novel (the idea for GBK originated in New Zealand), it's one that definitely has room to spread across the world. Which city couldn't do with another fast, satisfyingly simply, yet fresh and nourishing choice?

Website: www.gbkinfo.co.uk
Contact: gbk@gbkinfo.com

Tired of our Everything Can be Upgraded theme yet? We're not. Not as long as there are new business ideas like Igloo’s Luxury Portable Loos. Offering the ‘ultimate luxury portable toilets for the corporate and private events industry within the UK and across Europe’, the company has beautified (and sanitized) events like the Brit Awards, the British Grand Prix at Silverstone, the Stella Artois Tennis Tournament, the G-8 Summit and the Volvo Golf Masters in Andalusia. Think luxury travelling loo trailers for outdoor events, vacuum loo systems for placement inside structures and bespoke systems.

All of this is of course a no-brainer: in our surprise-economy, events are the new (albeit temporary) real estate , while mass prosperity is upping the standards for everything. Buy a standard portable loo company, upgrade the inventory, and you should be ready to go ;-)

Website: www.igloos.co.uk
Contact: harriet@igloos.co.uk

Spotted by: Luxist

Here’s an idea that was waiting to happen: Sonific provides 'soundtracks for your digital life', allowing users to select tracks from the company’s library (which contains thousands songs by independent artists and from record labels whose music has been licensed for this purpose), and then create their own ‘SongSpots’. Naturally, users can also upload music they've created themselves.

SongSpots are flash-objects that stream the selected music and that can be quickly pasted onto websites, blogs, social network profile pages, eBay auctions, etc. Visitors not only hear the music, but can click on the SongSpot logo to find out more about the artist or purchase the music from affiliates such as iTunes. Sonific is a free service for non-commercial sites; affiliate deals and a paid service for commercial users have to bring in the money.

With sites and personal pages increasingly incorporating multimedia streams, and discovery of new artists, new products, new *everything* being the trend du jour, Sonific cleverly delivers on both, without treading on copyright laws. Time to partner, or build the video-equivalent of this concept? And yes, making good on the ‘have it your way’ trend too, visitors CAN turn off the music ;-)

Website: www.sonific.com
Contact: info@sonific.com

Born out of frustration from hearing their female friends complaining of frizzy hair, entreprenuers Richard Starrett and Neil Macka took it upon themselves to devise a solution. They came up with the Straight Up machine.

Trading under the name Beautiful Vending Ltd, the two men realised there was a gap in the market, since English weather can turn perfectly styled hair to frizz, ruining a night out for women fixed on having pin-straight hair. It took them a year of research to develop the Straight Up, a patended vending machine that lets women purchase short use of a ceramic straightening iron. The vending machines use professional-grade GHD tongs, "the irons that styled a thousand catwalks", and 90 seconds' use goes for one pound (approx USD 1.85/EUR 1.50).

Offering style-conscious females the opportunity to look their best at all times -– regardless of unpredictable weather -- this is a simple business idea with low start-up costs and serious potential. The business is currently run solely in the United Kingdom, where 500 units have been placed so far, but Beautiful Vending is seeking to grow quickly and franchise opportunities are available worldwide. Press hype regarding the product has been huge in the UK, garnering much interest from club and bar owners. Straight Up machines will of course be a hit anywhere women preen and primp: restaurants, gyms, shopping malls, office buildings...

Website: www.beautifulvending.com
Contact: richard@beautifulvending.com