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Good things really do come in small packages, as fans of the winning 100-calorie snack package will agree. Now a new UK company aims to upgrade the small-portion snack with natural and nutritious edibles delivered by mail in just the right sizes. Graze encourages consumers to do just that by offering a wide variety of natural foods in snack sizes for regular delivery by Royal Mail. Consumers can select from three types of standard snack collections: the grazemini, which combines fresh fruit with dried fruits, nuts or seeds; the grazeclassic, which adds vegetable, savoury and bakery options to that mix; and the grazeluxury, which includes deli and sweet indulgences. Focused nutritional selections are also available, chosen by Graze's team of nutritionists for energy, well-being or workout enhancement. Whichever box style they select, consumers then tell Graze how they feel about the various food options in that mix—whether they like, love, or would like to try them. Customers then indicate how often they'd like to receive their boxes, on which days of the week, and in what sizes. Following that schedule, Graze will send a rotating selection of snacks designed for variety and good health. All food offered by Graze is hand-picked from the finest producers, the company says, and free of artificial colourings, flavourings and preservatives. Boxes are available for delivery within the UK and are designed to fit into a standard-sized letterbox, which means deliveries don't need to be signed for. Pricing begins at GBP 1.99 per grazemini—now 99p through a limited introductory offer. It's become a snack culture world as consumers have begun to realize (the "supersizing" trend notwithstanding) that bigger isn't always better, and Graze's concept plays into that, adding the convenience of a subscription model and smartly targeting office workers ("delivered to your desk"). One to bring to health- (and portion-) conscious consumers in the rest of the world? (Related: Bakery focuses on bite-size treats.) Website: www.graze.com
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Anyone who's ever moved has probably experienced the ages-old Quest for Boxes, involving either significant expense for new shipping boxes or countless trips to retail stores and restaurants in search of usable discards. A new San Francisco startup, however, aims to change all that with an online process that makes it easy for those in need of boxes to find those who have extras to dispose of. BoxCycle allows people or organizations (retailers!) with extra boxes on hand to list them on its site, including how many they have, what sizes they are, where they are located and when the boxes can be picked up. Buyers can then search for sellers based on location or price, reserve their boxes by arranging a pickup appointment, and pay for their purchase online. At that point BoxCycle gives the buyer the seller's address and issues a proof-of-purchase pickup slip. Upon arrival, the buyer can look over the boxes and select which ones they want. BoxCycle handles the advertisement, pricing, order processing and payment collection for each seller's boxes; in exchange, it charges a fee of 50 percent of the list price. Box prices range from USD 0.75 to USD 8 each, and there is a minimum order of USD 2. With its eco-friendly solution for both buyers and sellers, BoxCycle has the potential to remove a significant proportion of the pain associated with packing, shipping and moving. It's currently focused on just the US—one to bring to the rest of the packing world? (Related: Eco-friendly pack & move solution.) Website: www.boxcycle.com Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann
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Most hotels today give guests a way to connect with them online before their stay, whether for making simple room requests or to shop ahead for items from the hotel's retail offerings. New York City's Pod Hotel, however, is now using an online forum to let guests make advance connections with each other as well. Formerly the Pickwick Arms, the Pod Hotel is a 347-room budget hotel located in the heart of Manhattan's Midtown East neighbourhood. Targeting young, hip consumers, the hotel aims to provide budget accommodations in a stylish and trendy way with mod-furnished rooms featuring iPod docking stations, free wifi and LCD flat screen TVs. Even more innovative, however, is the hotel's PodCulture forum, which is designed to let visitors swap stories, trade itineraries and ideas, and get to know their fellow guests before they arrive. Once they've booked their reservations, guests are sent an email that includes a link to the PodCulture blog and a unique user ID code. That code allows them to create a profile for the blog and begin communicating with other guests. Categories on the forum include “Drink with Me,” “Eat with Me,” “Shop with Me” and “Go Out with Me,” and they are broken down into months, giving guests a way to meet, interact and invite others who will be staying at the hotel during the same time frame. "Coming from London" and "Having some drinks and a fun party," for example, were both among the message titles posted in recent listings. Owned and operated by BD Hotels, the Pod Hotel provides another nice illustration of how brick-and-mortar establishments can use "clicks" to increase loyalty and improve the customer experience. It's an obvious one to emulate for hotels around the globe, and maybe even tour operators, cruise ships and—dare we say it?—airports and airlines as well. After all, anytime groups of people know they are going to be present in the same physical space for more than an hour or so—airport terminals being a particularly shining example—they're bound to appreciate the ability to make connections and socialize. What better way to facilitate that than online? (Related: Airline's social networks connect frequent flyers.) Website: www.thepodhotel.com
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This past weekend Best Buy opened a new store in Aurora, Colo., that was designed with women in mind. Specifically, the company asked 40 local female customers and its own Women’s Leadership Forum—or WoLF pack—to participate in the design of the new store. Among its findings over the nine-month effort were that female customers wanted more help seeing how products could work together and fit into their lives, for example; also that the term "home theater" suggested technologies suitable only for the very wealthy, according to the Associated Press. Accordingly, the new store features electronics products working together in homelike settings, and "home theater" has been renamed "family room." Gone are the chain's typical warehouse-style blue interiors and metal shelving, replaced instead by wood panelling, carpets featuring earth tones and skylights for natural lighting. Family-friendly restrooms and race car-shaped shopping carts are also among the additions to the store, which is reportedly putting a new emphasis on making eye contact with customers as well, following its female advisors' recommendations. The cost of building the women-friendly store was higher than usual for the company, but Best Buy says it expects customer loyalty will make it worthwhile, the AP reported. Ginger Sorvari Bucklin, Best Buy's director of Winning With Women, explains: "Best Buy's roots 40 years ago was with high-end audiophiles. Because technology has changed so much, we know women make 45 percent of electronics purchases. This is about serving women better." A worthwhile—and clearly profitable—goal for traditionally male-focused industries far and wide. What is your brand doing to appeal to women...? Website: www.bestbuy.com
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Eager to keep up with the ever-increasing number of international fashion and style titles but pressed for time, readers are in need of a hand. Enter Distill, a new bimonthly magazine that brings together the best content from lesser-known fashion and style publications from around the world, enhanced by commentary from renowned creative figures. Launched in September 2008 by London-based publisher Craft, Distill is priced at GBP 4.50 and claims to be the first global fashion digest. Each issue will feature shows, new trends, book reviews and critiques, that are plucked from a range of relatively obscure publications from around the globe. Rather than cannibalizing on the sales of those magazines, Distill’s editors are confident that the features will boost their profile in markets where they’re not yet widely available. It’s an interesting concept, and one that could well be transferred to other industries that are in need of affordable cheat sheets to keep their time-starved movers and shakers up to date. It’s all about convenience and curated consumption! The challenge? Competing with bloggers, who have been using this strategy from the start and can publish with an immediacy that print magazines just can't match. (Related: online, Fashionation is taking a similar approach by posting images from a wide variety of fashion publications.) Website: www.distilldigital.com Spotted by David Licona
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Using collaborative filtering to give consumers product recommendations based on the opinions of those similar to them has more or less become hygiene for retail sites ranging from Amazon to Netflix and beyond. While a few stand-alone sites have popped up to connect twinsumers* in specific niches (such as music), a new, Berlin-based startup aims to give users tailored recommendations for anything and everything across the web. Plista is a social recommendation network that aims to guide users to relevant content, products, services and advertising throughout the internet in real-time, based on their individual preferences. The site's technology is item- and device-independent, meaning that it works with any item and via various channels on the internet: as a widget, per API integration or browser plug-in. Currently, users begin by downloading a plug-in to their browser, thereby allowing Plista's interface to overlay directly onto any web page they're viewing—even mimicking its colours and typefaces. Users can then rate content on the site, and Plista responds with recommendations based on the tastes of similar consumers for other things they'd be likely to enjoy, on the same site or elsewhere. Plista uses models of user behaviour that even watch for moods and daily variations, according to Silicon Valley Watcher. A social network component, meanwhile, allows users to share their recommendations and find others with similar tastes. Currently gearing up for private beta, Plista plans to charge website publishers a fee to integrate the technology into their sites, Silicon Valley Watcher reported, in return for which the publishers can participate in revenue sharing from cross-site recommendations—not to mention getting to know their visitors a whole lot better. Recommendations in general are a good thing, but their value increases infinitely when they come from like-minded consumers. By extending the power of collaborative filtering beyond individual sites or even content niches and across the entire web, Plista promises to propel the twinsumer trend into full blossom. One to watch! (Related: Dating 3.0.) Website: www.plista.com Spotted by: Silicon Valley Watcher via Susanna Haynie * Consumers looking for the best of the best don't connect to just any other consumer—they are looking for (and listening to) their taste twins: fellow consumers who think, react, enjoy and consume the way they do.
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We wrote about on-demand airline DayJet on two different occasions before it closed its doors a few weeks ago. Now a new Swiss company is taking a different approach to private jet travel by making the most of existing empty leg flights. Launched in May, Geneva-based LunaJets takes advantage of the fact that many private jets fly empty when they return home after dropping passengers off or when they head out to pick passengers up. The company works with a select set of jet operators to maintain a database of all such "empty leg" flights, as they are known, and allows users to browse that database to find flights that match their own needs. Travellers can book anything from a single seat to a whole cabin on flights shorter than 2h30m; on longer flights, they must reserve the whole cabin. Booking and payment can both be handled online, and prices are fixed and open, beginning at EUR 890 for a single seat on a flight up to one hour long. Discounts are available for multi-seat purchases, and LunaJets can also work to reroute empty legs to suit a given member's itinerary. Weekend shuttles, on-demand services and a forum for members interested in sharing a cabin are available as well. LunaJets operates throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia and the USA. Membership on the site is free for passengers and operators alike. By offering benefits to both travellers and jet operators in the form of discounts and increased efficiency, LunaJets' model offers a win-win proposition that could prove to be more sustainable than creating a brand-new airline was for DayJet, particularly during difficult economic times. For travellers, this is one to try out; for operators, it's one to get in on ASAP! Website: www.lunajets.com
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Chicago-based Element Bars aims to give users a simple, step-by-step process for designing their own energy bars from scratch. Using the site’s drag-and-drop interface, customers begin by selecting a chewy, oaty, crispy or datey "core" that defines the bar's texture and base. They can then add nuts, fruits and sweets as well as protein, fibre, Omega-3 and vitamin boosts. The site warns users if they have selected incompatible ingredients, and it will even recommend a mix for users who answer a few lifestyle-oriented questions. Meanwhile, a Nutrition Facts box is updated each step of the way to reflect the user’s current selections. Once the customer's order is complete, Element Bars will hand-make and deliver them in about a week; pricing is USD 3 per bar, with a minimum order of one box of 12 bars. After trying their bars, users can rate and comment on their creations, as well as sharing them with their friends for voting or further customization. Popular bars are sold for a discounted price of USD 2.50 per bar. For corporate buyers, co-branding opportunities are available, Element Bars says. There's nothing we love more than seeing a good idea spread, and that includes virtually anything in the realm of customization. So far, though, it looks like only the US is covered on this one. One to partner with in other health-conscious cultures around the world....? Website: www.elementbars.com
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No sooner did we cover two mobile bars that recently popped up in Singapore than one of our spotters alerted us to yet another pop-up innovation: a mobile spa that just launched at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this month. Created by Canadian Clean Earth Design, The Spa Suite on location is an eco-friendly, transportable spa facility that's designed to refresh body, beauty and mind. Offering a variety of packages including massages, manicures, facials and relaxation treatments, the temporary spa is available for use at parties, events and entertainment venues and was designed with environmental sustainability in mind. Modular, prefabricated components are all made with reclaimed wood or Forest Stewardship Council-certified wood pieces for assembly with less construction waste, on-site setup time and pollution. Natural wood interiors, LED lighting and air-cleansing plants, meanwhile, are featured for a healthful atmosphere inside. The spa measures just 8 by 16 by 9.5 feet, and an outdoor version using cotton fiber insulation and solar-powered radiant flooring is also available, according to TreeHugger. If there's anything better than catering to transumers, it's catering to eco-minded transumers with a mobile eco-iconic offering. Apply one part pop-up, one part green and you may just end up with a different kind of green on your hands! ;-) Website: www.cleanearthdesign.ca/news.html Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann
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Inspired by the way Wikipedia changed the encyclopedia with its online format and user-contributed content, a new digital dictionary hopes to change the way the world articulates and understands the meanings of words. Launched two weeks ago, Wordia is a visual dictionary that encourages members of the public to contribute to a collective pool of video definitions. As with any online dictionary, users can search for the traditional meaning of a word thanks to the involvement of HarperCollins with 76,000 words and 120,000 basic textual definitions. But appended to an increasing number of those traditional definitions are videos—both professionally produced and user-generated—expressing individuals' own, personal meanings for the words in question. Look up "purple," for instance, and two young "orators" tell you that it means "wacky... and kinda deep and mysterious... spiritual... agitated... royal... eggplant?" Search on "nascent," and you'll get a video definition featuring Michael Birch, the Bebo founder who is now supporting Wordia. The site's founders explain: "We’ve found that this visualisation works; place a word into context visually and it helps you to recollect its meaning much more easily then a textual definition. The ‘author’ breathes life into it—and their video acts as an easy-to-remember reference—an aide memoire or mnemonic as it were." Powered by YouTube and supported by the Open University and the National Literacy Trust, the ad-funded site also lets users rate and comment on videos. It's easy to imagine etymologists objecting to a site like Wordia. After all, even Wikipedia relies on citations, references and volunteer editors to maintain at least some level of credibility and authoritativeness; relying on everyday users to define language in a purely subjective way risks severing the connection with the words' true, objective meanings. On the other hand, there's certainly a distinct entertainment value to searching through Wordia's video definitions, which may even be able to reflect nuances and modern interpretations of words in ways traditional definitions can't. Wordia is currently available only in English; one to partner with for other languages? Website: www.wordia.com
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