When we wrote about Marziplanner's wedding planning software a little more than a year ago, we noted the related opportunity to devise an online version with more of a focus on the social side. As if on cue, a new site has just launched that brings social networking and Web 2.0 features to the planning of all events, nuptial or otherwise.
As anyone who's ever planned even a simple get-together knows, it just isn't easy, what with all the calls to make, venues to find, reservations to book and schedules to coordinate. Just launched last week, Center'd aims to connect all the pieces and make it easier to plan an event of any size, including picking a place, agreeing on a time, selecting service providers, sending invites, managing volunteers, hosting and communicating. As a way to capitalize on trust, Center'd asks all users to register and interact on the site via their real names, though they can control who may see their profiles. Businesses and individuals alike can participate, making use of the site's local search, social networking features and interactive planning tools. Users of Center'd can search for a local restaurant, read reviews, see if their friends like it and plan a get-together there, for example, all without leaving the site. Center'd also has aggregated ratings and reviews from around the web, so people can get a quick snapshot of what the general audience thinks. Polling tools help get invitees' input on what time and place they prefer for an event, and task-management and volunteer sign-up features make it easy to coordinate who will do or bring what. Users can also browse public events in their area and add them to their own calendars, while optional calendar sharing helps friends stay on the same page. Finally, users are awarded points for all the community-serving actions they take on the site, such as reviewing a restaurant or inviting a new user to join. Soon, those points will be redeemable for "some very cool stuff," Center'd says. Using the site is free.
There are other events-focused sites out there, but the addition of Yelp-like local search, Evite-like invitations and social networking a la Facebook could set Center'd apart. The California-based site, which evolved from an earlier iteration called FatDoor, is currently in what it calls its "first draft"; how it will make money remains to be seen, but local advertising and premium features seem like a safe bet. One to bring to your local event market?
Website: www.centerd.com
Contact: feedback@centerd.com
Spotted by: Corie Pierce
For dieters working to lose weight, maintaining a decent wardrobe of clothes that fit can be an ongoing—and expensive—challenge on the way to a target size. With just that situation in mind, Transitional Sizes rents out name-brand clothing for temporary use while the pounds come off.
Maryland-based Transitional Sizes, which just recently launched, offers women's and maternity clothing in a range of sizes for monthly rental fees ranging from about USD 3 to USD 25. (Men's clothes are coming soon, the site says.) Customers order items in the sizes they need and keep them for as long as they want; once they're done, they clean them per the instructions provided by Transitional Sizes and send them back in the original box. Customers needn't be members to order from the site, but membership packages ranging from USD 10 to USD 40 per year are designed to give dieters a range of extra perks, including coupons, discounts, email alerts and weight-loss incentives.
Transitional Sizes' inventory is still very limited, and its site feels rough around the edges. Nevertheless, the concept is a good one, and could be enhanced by personal features such as automatically sending a smaller set of clothes when a customer is scheduled to have dropped to the next size, for example. And how about a partnership with Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig? Either way, dieters are just one group among the legions of transumers out there, eager to be free from the bonds of (unnecessary) ownership. Which creates lots of opportunities for entrepreneurs who can support the new leasing lifestyle! (Related: Baby clothes rental service.)
Website: www.transitionalsizes.com
Contact: customerservice@transitionalsizes.com
When revellers at the UK's Glastonbury Festival 2008 later this week need to recharge their mobile phones, they'll have a free and green way to do that thanks to a charging station being set up at the festival by Orange.
Measuring more than 7 meters tall, the free-standing recharge pod is a self-sufficient unit that taps into a wind generator and solar panels to charge as many as 100 mobile phones per hour. It's actually the next iteration of a portable wind charger Orange tested out at last year's festival through a partnership with Gotwind, and will serve as a trial for using renewable energy sources on a larger scale at future festivals. Orange expects the recharge pod will charge thousands of mobile phones over the course of the three-day festival, furnishing power equivalent to what would be needed to power a DJ booth for Groove Armada for 88 hours. The recharge pod will be stationed within the Pennard Hill camping grounds at Glastonbury throughout the weekend of June 27–29, when the event takes place.
Free love is hard to beat, especially if it happens to be *green* free love at a summer music festival. One to emulate as often as possible! (Related: Jeans brand offers hot showers and clean undies.)
Website: www.rechargepod.com
Contact: info@gotwind.org
Spotted by: RK
For those seeking a new job, honest information about salaries and workplaces can be near impossible to find. Taking a "give to get" approach to the problem, Glassdoor is a new site that aims to provide a thorough insider's look at what it's really like to work at a company, both financially and otherwise.
Launched into beta last week by two friends who worked together at Microsoft and Expedia (one of whom went on to found Zillow, which we've written about before), Glassdoor's operating philosophy is "You tell me yours, I'll tell you mine" as it gathers real-time reviews, ratings and salary details about specific jobs in specific companies. Users begin by anonymously contributing a review and/or salary survey for their current employer or any position they've held within the last three years. (All users must provide a verified email account, and all reviews are hand-inspected for authenticity by Glassdoor, it says.) In exchange, Glassdoor gives them free access to nearly 32,000 reviews and salary reports for more than 7,000 companies representing more than 80 countries around the world—and counting. Users providing feedback are asked to take a balanced approach—providing both pros and cons along with advice to senior management—as well as rating companies on a range of workplace culture factors, including work-life balance, fairness and respect, employee morale, and senior leadership. And unlike most salary services that report just aggregated information, Glassdoor provides details of salary, bonuses and other compensation for actual positions and titles at specific companies, letting users compare the earnings package paid to a software engineer at Google with that earned by one at Microsoft, for example. Glassdoor also aims to involve employers through an employer advisory panel, periodic surveys and focus groups for the site.
Glassdoor hopes to become the TripAdvisor of the workplace, it says, and it's currently allowing visitors to preview all available data for four “sneak peek” companies: Cisco, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!. Robert Hohman, cofounder and CEO for the California-based site, explains: "We've built Glassdoor to make it easier for anyone to peek inside the walls of a prospective employer—or even the next cubicle—to get information that will foster more productive conversations and lead to better career decisions. Glassdoor's employee-generated content provides a level of transparency in the two key drivers of employee motivation—compensation and culture—that is not available from any other source.”
For those who hadn't noticed, the era of transparency tyranny (and transparency triumph) has arrived. Yet another stone turned!
Website: www.glassdoor.com
Contact: info@glassdoor.com
Spotted by: Jeppe Morgenstjerne
For UK office workers, making tea is serious business with a political component all its own. No one wants to get stuck making the office tea every time, and that's just the problem a new, tea-focused website helps solve.
MaketheTea.com is a new site from UK dairy brand Cravendale that aims to facilitate the tea-making process among groups of the beverage's fans around the world. Users of the site begin by entering their preferences for the all-important drink, including amounts of milk and sugar they like to add. (Options are also available to indicate preferences for those who prefer coffee or another beverage.) Users then invite their friends to join the site as well, forming a group of linked drinkers. Once that's done, users need only click the "Brew Now" button and MaketheTea.com will randomly select a brewer from among the group members to make that round of tea. Post-cuppa, users can then "rate or slate" the maker, depending on the quality of the brew.
Part viral marketing campaign, part life hack and part social network, Makethetea.com was launched in late April. Since then, it has facilitated the making of more than 40,000 brews around the world... Not to mention serving up an undoubtedly strong cup of goodwill for Cravendale, its maker. (Related: Group dining made easy.)
Website: www.makethetea.com
Contact: brewmaster@makethetea.com
Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen
Thanks to California's Proposition 8, passed back in 1978, homeowners in the state can get a temporary reduction in their home's assessed value—and, accordingly, their property taxes—when the housing market enters a slump. Recognizing that that applies to virtually everyone who purchased property in the state within the past few years, Prop8.org is a new consumer advocate group that was formed specifically to help California consumers take advantage of the law.
Prop8.org provides tax-assessment appeals services for commercial, industrial and residential properties throughout California. With a team that's professionally trained in tax appeal rules, procedures and requirements specific to each California county, Prop8 can provide market data and analyses needed to advocate the lowest possible tax assessed value. Clients get full-service representation, from the initial filing of the assessment appeal application and supporting documentation, through negotiations with the county assessor—even including a formal hearing before the County Tax Appeals Board, if necessary. Prop8's services are available on a contingency fee basis for 50 percent of the first year's tax savings or via a flat-fee plan that covers the entire process—with a three-year guarantee—for USD 495. For homeowners who bought their homes between 2004 and 2006, the average savings that result from hiring Prop8 are between USD 1,500 and USD 2,500 per year, the company's founders say.
Prop8 is currently seeking affiliates to help extend its service throughout California. Meanwhile, of course, there are also many other situations in which consumers are legally entitled to compensation but are unaware or too busy to claim it. Find one of those, and you just might have something to build a business on! (Related: Claiming compensation for duped passengers.)
Website: www.prop8.org
Contact: info@prop8.org
Spotted by: Troy Nelson
Anyone who's ever tried to lose weight or improve their fitness knows that it can sometimes be tough to get motivated. For those who need a little extra help getting going, a new service called WeightNags will nag customers mercilessly until they get off the couch and get some exercise.
WeightNags, which was just launched by Texas-based ConnectWorks Media, needs nothing more than a customer's email address to get started. In exchange, it will hound that customer once a week for free in the hopes of motivating him or her to exercise and lose some weight. Of course, we all know that emails can easily be ignored and deleted in the blink of an eye. Customers who don't trust themselves to take WeightNag's emails seriously can also request weekly nags by phone. All they need to provide is their phone number and first name; the cost is USD 4.95 per month.
Without a way to tell WeightNags when you do get some exercise in or have resisted every single calorie-laden temptation—and thereby win a respite from the nagging—it seems to us the effectiveness of the negative feedback could soon wear off. Nevertheless, it's an interesting concept that could be a nice micro-business opportunity for anyone with a Skype account and a talent for nagging. ;-) (Related: Sell what you say.)
Website: www.weightnags.com
Contact: tgraysonboyd@sbcglobal.net
There are few things more gratifying to us here at Springwise than seeing an idea we write about get picked up and used to create other new businesses. But that's exactly what has happened to Cozi Central, the online weekly planner for families that we wrote about late last year.
BusyBeesNYC is a new service that uses Cozi Central technology to offer busy New York City parents a fully customized calendar service to schedule their kids' activities. For an annual membership of USD 499, BusyBeesNYC will create a schedule of classes and activities for a family's children that combines free, paid, scheduled, drop-in and sometimes lesser-known events while accommodating the kids' eating and sleeping routines. Run by two parents, BusyBeesNYC has scoured the area spanning Murray Hill, Kips Bay and Gramercy Park for the best kid activities available, and can recommend a wide variety of things to keep kids busy and learning. Four starter packages are available focused on music, sports, crafts or languages, but BusyBeesNYC can also mix and match as necessary to suit a family's needs. Once the parents approve the schedule, all they need do is actually sign up for the relevant activities (BusyBeesNYC always makes sure there is room first). Thanks to the Cozi technology, the plan for each day is viewable online from anywhere, with color-coded indications of where everyone needs to be. It can also be printed out for distribution to babysitters, nannies and others.
So that's New York City covered; who will bring a Cozi-based service to busy families in the rest of the country—and the world?
Website: www.busybeesnyc.com
Contact: info@busybeesnyc.com
Spotted by: Jay
