A while back, we spotted Bizzyboard, which helps families keep track of what parents and kids are doing each week by means of a giant whiteboard. New to the calendar game is YearMadeForMe, enabling customers to create a personalized wall planner.

Customers use YearMadeForMe’s simple website to select a title, colour and start date for their calendar. Special events, like birthdays or exam dates, can be added, and users can then preview the planner before they order. The customized chart displays a year in advance in 39x19 inch format, providing a helicopter view of twelve months. Each planner is USD 27 and ships in three days by standard US post.

A simple product made interesting through personalization, YearMadeForMe could easily target niche (gift) audiences, such as first-year university students in need of motivation, families expecting a new member nine months down the road, or athletes preparing for a year of competitive sports.

Website: www.yearmadeforme.com
Contact: www.yearmadeforme.com/contact.php

Spotted by: Jonathan

New York's water-toting crowd has a convenient new way to be sustainable while staying hydrated, as a tap water refilling service officially launches in the city. TapIt is a community program that enables people to refill their water bottles at participating cafés, completely free of charge.

TapIt aims to help people stay healthy and hydrated without relying on single-use plastic bottles. Any restaurant or café with a soda dispenser or tap that gives clean drinking water can sign up as a partner. Thirsty consumers can find taps online or via TapIt's iPhone app, and are provided with information on the type of water that's available, telling discerning customers whether the water's filtered or non-filtered, room temperature or chilled.

TapIt is better for the environment, better for people's wallets, and helps businesses connect with new customers at almost zero cost. The initiative is currently only up and running in New York, where it now has over 100 locations after a year of soft-launching. But it intends to extend its bottle-less initiative further afield. In the meantime, there's no reason why councils or community organisations can't get inspired and help TapIt launch in their own town.

Website: www.tapitwater.com
Contact: www.tapitwater.com/contact

Spotted by: Jonas Cords

When we wrote about pingg a little over a year ago, we noted that it was aiming to provide the upper echelon of online invitations, with an ad-free approach and premium design capabilities. Proving once again that there's rarely a limit to such upgrade possibilities, Paperless Post has ratcheted up the category even more with a custom invitation service that aims to emulate the beauty and thoughtfulness of traditional cardstock.

Now in beta, Paperless Post allows members to design, deliver and manage custom online invitations that strive to capture the care and formality of old-fashioned mailings from days gone by. Six categories of card styles are available for users to choose from, including both modern and classic options for formal, casual and holiday events. From there, members select a paper design—the site's e-papers closely mimic the texture and weight of real paper—a motif and the wording style. Invitations are delivered in personalized envelopes to guests' inboxes, where a simple click causes them to open. Ad-free Paperless Post allows members to monitor the invitations they send and track replies, as well as follow up with guests and manage events, both personal and ticketed. Past invitations—both sent and received—can even be archived in the manner of a virtual scrapbook. Pricing begins at USD 5 for "stamps" to send 60 invitations, and Paperless Post charges a commission on all ticketed events: 2.5 percent on tickets to for-profit events, or 2 percent on those for charity.

Based in New York, Paperless Post has already handled 60,000 invitations since the beginning of this year, according to a report in the New York Times, and 150,000 since its launch last fall. Besides providing an interesting twist in the crowded online invitation market, it also gives us another welcome opportunity to repeat our very favourite refrain: everything can be upgraded! ;-)

Website: www.paperlesspost.com
Contact: inquiries@paperlesspost.com

Spotted by: Kimberley Mosher

Much the way consumers can solicit feedback on their own appearance through checkyourimage.com, marketers can now get early thoughts on new designs and concepts through a community of peers at Concept Feedback.

Currently in beta, Concept Feedback is designed specifically for marketers, graphic designers and web developers to provide a simple tool for getting free, sincere feedback from like-minded professionals. Website designs, ads, logos, videos, presentations and more can all be uploaded to the site and submitted for review by other members; the person posting the material keeps all rights. Using a standard review template for consistency, professionals participating on the site can then offer their constructive advice, which gets automatically collected and archived for the submitting member. A system of reputation scores, meanwhile, keeps members honest and helps interpret their advice. The result, according to Concept Feedback, can be that any design problems are caught earlier, ensuring that only high-quality ideas make it into launch.

Andrew Follett, the company's founder and CEO, explains: "Most small business marketers and freelancers lack the budget and resources it requires to obtain useful feedback on marketing concepts. A third-party point of view can be critical to launching a website, advertising campaign or concept that is clear, concise and effective."

Two heads are better than one, as the saying goes, and in June Concept Feedback was already approaching 500 users. There's no doubt other professions could benefit from something similar--how about applying this to the industry of your choice? (Related: 'Open-mic nights' for business ideas — Professional feedback, instant and peer-to-peer.)

Website: www.conceptfeedback.com
Contact: www.conceptfeedback.com/contact

Spotted by: Stas Zlobinski

When heading out to their local watering hole for a drink, some customers prefer to serve themselves. We've highlighted Amsterdam's Minibar and the table-top taps of Pilsen's Unique Bars. Offering a self-service system that can be retrofitted anywhere is the TableTender by TableTap.

The TableTender system, available in Britain and the United States, is designed and built for each specific venue. There's a tap (or several) located at each table, which allows patrons to pour at their leisure—to a point. The system is designed to comply with drinking regulations, shutting off after dispensing around 11 pints of beer and only resuming once a waiter has checked the table. The amount dispensed is displayed on a meter at the table, as well as recorded on the proprietor’s database to monitor sales and consumption by hour, day, month and table.

Like installation, pricing is bespoke, but for a ballpark figure: the first bar to install the system paid USD 110,000, excluding a monthly fee for maintenance and software licensing. While the upfront costs may be steep, ease of drinks purchase combined with lower costs for wait staff could make for a profitable addition to bars seeking to stand out from the competition.

Website: www.tabletap.co.uk — www.thetabletap.com
Contact: www.tabletap.co.uk/contact — jeff.libby@thetabletap.com