Along with yoga's rise in popularity has come a raft of DVD and online classes offering a potentially less expensive and more convenient alternative to live, scheduled instruction. Such prerecorded offerings often focus on the fittest and most photogenic yogis, however—without the real-world masses—which may be good for education, but can be demoralizing for those who are less than perfectly toned and proficient. Enter YogaVibes, a site that offers recordings of real-world yoga classes, complete with fellow classmates in all shapes and sizes.

North Carolina-based YogaVibes offers a wide variety of online classes of varying lengths and difficulty levels, taught by actual yoga instructors from top studios around the world. Rather than situating those instructors against breathtaking backdrops for glossy, fully staged productions, however, the classes featured are real ones with real students of all ability levels. The site explains: "Our classes are authentic. With few exceptions, we film real students, who come in all shapes, sizes and abilities. We know they’ll inspire your yoga practice, both on and off the mat." A series of free vignettes are available on YogaVibes, as are an assortment of paid classes, which are typically priced at USD 10 for 14-day access. Alternatively, a Class Pass offers five full-length online classes for 30 days for USD 20. YogaVibes gives five percent of its class fees to charities including yogaHOPE, Yoga Bear and Street Yoga.

It seems reasonable that just as consumers value the opinions of twinsumers when making purchase decisions, so they value the inclusion of others at—and even below—their own ability level when learning something new. The lesson to be learned? Co-consumers can remain a critical part of the equation, even in an online setting; remove them, and you may just remove part of your service's value.

Website: www.yogavibes.com
Contact: www.yogavibes.com/pages/contact

Spotted by: Sarah Anne Jackson

Located in Long Beach, California, Club Bounce is a nightclub for plus-size men and women. Or, as Bounce puts it, for "BBW (big beautiful women), BHM (big handsome men) and those who admire us". Fat or skinny, everyone is welcome, but its nightly revellers are definitely of a larger size than those beyond the velvet rope at, say, New York's Boom Boom Room.

We're surprised we haven't spotted it sooner, since Club Bounce has been around since 2004. It was founded by Lisa Marie Garbo, who's something of a spokesperson for full-figured people. The idea for the club grew out of her own desire to be able to go out and enjoy herself without feeling unwelcome or discriminated against. Garbo recently opened a second club in Phoenix, Arizona, and is looking to add a third. Club nights for BBWs are also organized in some other cities. While some organizations are worried that venues catering to fat people will prevent them from changing unhealthy lifestyles, size activists protest the notion that bigger is necessarily less healthy. And one could argue that a fat person dancing the night away is engaging in a healthier activity than a thinner person at home on the couch ;-)

It's no secret that entrepreneurs find lucrative opportunities by catering to niche audiences, and those gaps in the market are often found by creating a product or service that fulfills a personal need. One to replicate in other size-ist parts of the world? (Related: Baby loves disco, and so does mommy — Weeknight clubbing for the 9–5 crowd.)

Website: www.clubbounce.net
Contact: bbwclubbounce@aol.com

UK consumers spend some GBP 315 million on sex products each year, according to retailer LoveHoney, but not all towns spend equally. Thanks to LoveHoney's new UK Sex Map, it's now plain for all to see which areas invest the most in their erotic lives.

In creating its Google Maps-based tool, LoveHoney began by taking an anonymous sample of more than 500,000 orders placed at its online store. It then aggregated that data into regions that match population statistics from the UK Census and added in data representing sales from other retailers and manufacturers. The result is the UK Sex Map, which shows annual per-capita spending on sex products for towns with populations of 10,000 people or more. The map is updated monthly, and all data are anonymised and aggregated, so no personally identifiable information can be seen. Instead, heat-map colours reveal a town's spending habits at a glance, with green representing areas that spend about the same as the national average, dark blue indicating those that spend a lot less, and red and white flagging hot points. Also visible, meanwhile, are the particular types of items the various towns are spending on—vibrators or condoms, for example—with links for quick purchase on LoveHoney's site. Users can scroll through the map for browsing purposes, or they can search by town name or postal code; included on the map, not surprisingly, are also sex-related establishments in each town. LoveHoney invites proprietors of such places to list their businesses for inclusion on the map, while users themselves can make their own recommendations.

Customer involvement appears to be an ongoing strategy at LoveHoney—it's also in the midst of a contest to design a new sex toy—but its sex map promises to directly increase sales as well, both its own and those of listed businesses. It's all thanks to today's sophisticated and cheap (if not free) online mapping tools and databases, which make it easier than ever to display information in map format. Time to see what Google Maps could do for *your* bottom line! ;-) (Related: Nightlife mapping tool uses GPS to reveal hotspots — Crowds create heat maps of hot gigs at music fest.)

Website: www.lovehoney.co.uk/sexmap
Contact: www.lovehoney.co.uk/help/contact-us

Spotted by: Judy McRae

As attractive as those tight-fitting workout clothes might be, there's not much room to carry a notebook and pencil. With this in mind, Gym Technik created a digital tool that allows fitness buffs to track workouts and analyse their progress using something they're likely to have with them anyway: their phone.

Users can set up a Gym Technik account online at home, and then use their smartphone to access routines and data while at the gym, where they can also input data on weights, sets and reps, and track their performance with progress charts and graphs. Collected data can be submitted to Gym Technik's personal trainers for advice about achieving fitness goals, and users can access an extensive library of trainer-approved workouts. Gym Technik guarantees that its basic edition will remain free, but is working on a premium (paid) service.

While similar apps are available for the iPhone, there's still room for entrepreneurs to create mobile offerings beyond the App Store, helping consumers track and improve progress towards fitness or other goals, from weight loss and healthy eating to academic development and finance.

Website: www.gymtechnik.com
Contact: www.gymtechnik.com/support.aspx?mode=contact

Spotted by: Sharad Mohan

Back in 2006 we wrote about cadeaucode.nl, a Dutch site that lets mobile users send each other gifts by text message. Now from across the ocean comes KangoGift, a new site that enables similar capabilities.

Launched into beta last week, KangoGift has partnered with a variety of gift retailers starting in its home base of Harvard Square, Mass. Now anyone in the world can visit KangoGift.com to purchase a gift for a friend or loved one in that neck of the woods, providing that person's mobile number in the process. As soon as they place their order, a text voucher for that gift is delivered instantaneously to the recipient, who can then redeem it as soon as they choose. Real-world goods currently on offer through KangoGift include gourmet sweets, foods and flowers, but a selection of free, virtual gifts are available as well.

KangoGift hopes to expand throughout the US in the near future. Retailers of gifts and treats: start lining up now! ;-) And for more on real-time commerce, real-time marketing and real-time everything else, check out trendwatching.com's latest briefing on NOWISM.

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