Micro-blogging service Twitter and London's Royal Opera House may not be seen as birds of a feather. Founded hundreds of years apart, one represents a stronghold of traditional high culture, the other the fizzing surface of contemporary communication. But the tendency of culture to respond to new technology should never be underestimated—over the past three weeks the ROH has been using Twitter to crowdsource the libretto for a new "people's opera".

"The Twitter Opera" is to be performed as part of the ROH's Deloitte Ignite Festival at the beginning of September. The libretto will consist entirely of 140-character tweets that the ROH has received from members of the public since the project was launched. It will be set to original music composed by Helen Porter, along with some more familiar classics. Simply put, the goal is to help attract a wider audience. Alison Duthie of the ROH summed this up: "It's the people's opera and the perfect way for everyone to become involved with the inventiveness of opera as the ultimate form of storytelling." The plot, which is now complete, begins—fittingly—with a man being kidnapped by a flock of birds.

We've featured a number of Twitter-friendly endeavours on Springwise, from package tracking to wine tasting. This pioneering effort by a cultural icon shows that there are equally novel opportunities in the arts. In the collective imagination, great ideas can take flight—and can also be a valuable feather in one's publicity cap. For more on how organisations are using Twitter to converse and create with their audience, check out trendwatching.com's briefing on foreverism. (Related: Wiki publisher for collaborative writing — Publisher hopes crowds will spot next bestseller — Live opera on the silver screen.)

Website: www.royaloperahouse.wordpress.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/youropera
Contact: www.roh.org.uk/contact

Spotted by: Jim Stewart

Smart recruiters are increasingly recognizing that resumes just aren't enough to predict success in a job. Much the way MedRecruit incorporates lifestyle into the hiring picture and CareerTours uses video storytelling, KODA is a new site that aims to provide social recruiting capabilities that are "more professional than Facebook but more personal than LinkedIn."

Launched in late May, KODA allows emerging talent and smart companies to go beyond the resume or traditional job posting with employer and employee profiles that allow both sides of the hiring equation to get to know each other. Currently free to use during its beta period, the site allows users to post photos, PDFs and videos along with the information about their education, skills and experience that would normally be part of a hiring profile. Rather than providing long lists of opportunities, KODA focuses instead on matching talent with the right career and the right organization. Toward that end, it uses a recommendation engine to suggest connections that may be worth exploring. Specific opportunities get pulled from employers' internal career pages for highlighting on the site, and companies can also give prospective employees a "look inside" their organization. Illustrative "compatibility bars," meanwhile, indicate the compatibility between an individual and an opportunity or organization based on historical information, profile content and other criteria. As users look through KODA, they can send messages or bookmark profiles for future viewing. They can also “wave” at a particular organization that they would like to stay in contact with, causing a notification to be sent to that employer.

Based in San Francisco—but with another branch to serve the transformation currently going on in New Orleans—KODA is also planning to add more functionality in the near future, including additional ways to publish opportunities, advanced search capabilities and printable KODA profiles. One to partner with and bring to the hiring front near you...?

Website: www.koda.us
Contact: customerservice@koda.us

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

Most sports fans have probably dreamt of scoring the winning goal for their national team. Now, thanks to a new UK enterprise, Be A Football Hero, football / soccer fans have the chance to hear a true-to-life commentary of that dream game, with themselves in the starring role.

Designed as a gift experience, this product is reminiscent of the personalised radio shows we featured last year. A key difference, though, is that Be A Football Hero's commentaries can be previewed and ordered within moments. Choosing from a range of options, users select which competition they'd like to play in (World Cup, Champions League, FA Cup or Premiership title game), and then add their name, age, favourite team and the team they want to beat. The automatically generated commentary, featuring professional impressions of top British commentators John Motson, Alan Hansen and Mark Lawrenson, can then be streamed from the site. If they like what they hear, users can order the recording on CD with a personalised greeting card, plus an instant MP3 download, all for GBP 14.99. Commentaries recreate the climax of the game and are approximately two minutes long.

Be A Football Hero was developed by Voice Express, which also sells talking ringtones. In addition to soccer, the company has plans for personalised cricket, snooker, F1, racing and tennis commentaries. Since creating a realistic faux commentary requires knowledge and attention to local details—commentators, teams, lingo—this seems like one to set up for sports fans in your part of the world.

Website: www.beafootballhero.com
Contact: help@beafootballhero.com

Spotted by: Paul Bisceglia

Travellers planning a trip can already tap a variety of sites for creating guides and itineraries, including TripIt, Offbeat Guides and Tripwolf—to name just a few. Focusing more on travellers' own search process, however—specifically, the time they spend scouring the web for ideas—comes Gliider, a Firefox plug-in aimed at organizing all the best results in a single, online place.

Now in invitation-only beta, Brooklyn-based Gliider is essentially a digital file that lets travellers keep track of all the interesting ideas they come across while researching and planning a trip. Users begin by downloading the application, causing the Gliider icon to appear in their Firefox browser bar. (Currently, Gliider works on Firefox 3, but support for Explorer, Safari and Chrome are coming soon, the company says.) When they're surfing the web and come across a hotel, restaurant or photo they want to remember as they make their plans, they need only click the icon and Gliider drops down on the right-hand side of the browser. Into that window they can then simply drag and drop whatever it was they wanted to save, creating a neater, more organized alternative to a list of bookmarks. Users can share their trip files with up to four other users, and they can also create a summary travel document PDF for emailing and printing. Perhaps most interesting of all is that Gliider tracks deals on hotels relevant to a specific trip and allows users to take advantage of them in a single click.

Through a partnership with Expedia, Gliider currently earns revenue from affiliate fees when users click on the deals it presents to book a hotel, according to TechCrunch. Coming soon are deals on flights too, as well as an iPhone application and an “ask around” feature that taps Facebook. Hospitality entrepreneurs: one to get in on—or emulate—early...?

Website: www.gliider.com
Contact: talk@gliider.com

Spotted by: Carmen Magar

For all but the most organized consumers, greeting cards are something that tend to get purchased in a hurry when a special occasion looms. Jack Cards—which we covered a couple of years ago—uses a prescheduled service to remove some of that haste and help customers get their cards out on time, and now TOTA Press takes a slightly different approach by offering unique, handmade cards by monthly subscription.

New York-based TOTA's subscription service is essentially a card-of-the-month program whereby subscribers get two copies of a one-time, handmade card sent to their door each month. Photos of each new letterpressed design are posted on TOTA's website on the first of the month along with a description of what inspired it; August's, for example, is based on an Asanoha pattern. The handmade cards are all standard sizes that can be used for any occasion with no extra postage required. Prices range from USD 13 for a trial subscription of one month to USD 140 for a 12-month subscription, amounting to 24 cards in all. Domestic shipping is included in the price of the subscription, but international orders cost an extra USD 2 per month.

In an era when greeting cards are increasingly combined with digital elements—such as in CD-equipped Burney Cards, which we just covered last week—it's interesting to see an offering that takes what's almost the opposite approach, revelling instead in the physical richness and artistry of a handmade card. Reminds us, in fact, of the hand-drawn A la Carte Maps that we also just recently covered. The world may be digital, everyone may be online, but there's still plenty of room for the handmade, the unique, the personal, the still-made-here offline design. Combine that with the convenience of home delivery, and you may just cause some pangs of anxiety in the Hallmark boardroom! ;-)

Website: www.totapress.com
Contact: beintouch@totapress.com