KookyPlan

I recently read an endorsement for a service called “Smart Links”…see article here

My innovation suggestion:  Imagine if the same tools could be extended to commentators… then, I might just comment referencing a book title, which could have a link, and if someone clicked on it, bought the book…then the commentator would benefit. (same dangers as outlined above would still apply)

Why I liked the platform:

Yes, its an advertising platform. But, its clever…and by embedding adverts into the text of what you write anyways… it might be a clever way to monetize blogs.

You know… at first, I wasnt impressed with “Smart Links” at all. I mean… why not just use an easier service like TechCrunch’s MashLogic which makes all phrases into linkes (wikipedia,etc)… but, then I saw this comment, and I realized the value….

Unlike MashLogic which might be really great for users experience, it doesnt help writers to monetize their blogs. This SmartLinks does. And, that makes it attractive for content contributors.

The danger is… that writers start changing the content in order to incorporate books, titles, and in the process steer away readers that become annoyed by product placement plugs.

My innovation suggestion:  Imagine if the same tools could be extended to commentators… then, I might just comment referencing a book title, which could have a link, and if someone clicked on it, bought the book…then the commentator would benefit. (same dangers as outlined above would still apply)

What do you think about my innovation suggestion?  Would you like to see this kind of dynamic linking in comments?  Would it encourage more discussion?  Or, would it corrupt the discussions with unnecessary static?  (note: blog administrators can screen blog comments, and delete comments they dont like)

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others, internet blog, idea for others, Innovation, investment idea, smartlinks

Why not have an iPhone app that turns your iPhone into a mouse that can run your laptop?   Just put your iPhone down next to the laptop and scroll, scroll on the touch-screen to move from page to page….and to move the cursor around…just move the iPhone left right, across the table.

Seems simple enough..and one less device to carry on business trips!

Note: I found out later that an iPhone app to work as a “mouse” does exist (thanks Adam :-)… but it only works so far as a touch-screen function…where the operator utilizes the movement of their finger to control the cursor.  Not bad, but… its not quite there.  The idea is to use the cell phone in the same way as your mouse… you are missing the ability to take advantage of the movement of the phone to mimic the functionality of the traditional mouse.

If this technology were to become mainstream.. what would that mean for all the “mouse”-makers out there? mmmm… not looking good… you might want to start re-tooling your factories to make iPhones !  While I dont see how an iPhone app like this can make money by itself, it is interesting to see how one simple innovation can put an industry out of business…

lesson: watch out for disruptive innovations!

Brian D. Butler Innovation, iPhone, idea for others, internet idea for others, iPhone, technology

Ive recently been writing emails to people in Brazil, and while my spoken Portuguese is decent (hold the laughter please :-), I struggle with formal written Portuguese.   One option is to use google translate, but as most people are aware, this software seems to do a good job, but often loses the meaning of the text in the translation (or even sometimes changes the meaning completely).  Most of the times, however, the software does a decent job in giving the reader a “rough-guideline” to the general meaning of the text.  If only there were a way to warn readers ahead of time that this document had been translated (and therefore please forgive the grammar errors)…

So, I got to thinking… why not have a button that could be inserted into the top of each of my emails… and with a drop down menu, the reader could choose which language THEY wanted the text translated into… that way, I could just write in English, and the reader, if they couldn’t understand the original…they could use google translate to get the rough meaning.  Then, the writer could use their best language to make sure the document said exactly what they wanted it to say, and the reader could read it in their own language, but there would be less fear of sending emails with bad grammar in foreign languages.

Brilliant solution, right?  All we need is someone to design the software, and find a way to embed this button on the top of all of my emails with some code…mmmm…

or, my wife suggested…why not just hand-write out a note at the top saying that the original text was written in English, and was translated by Google, and if there is any confusion to please call…

I dont know which was the better solution, but it got me thinking of how sometimes the easiest/ cheapest / fastest solution to implement is right there, but in an engineers fascination with new technology its sometimes the last solution we think of.  Sure, by taking the simple solution there may not be a brand new company that will be born, nor will paradigms be shifted, or markets be created…but problems will be solved cheaply, easily and will little time wasted.

Now, all of my portuguese emails start with:

** Este email foi originalmente escrito em inglês e traduzido para português pelo Google translator e revisado por uma pessoa que não é fluente ainda em português (estou estudando muito) :-)  Se alguma parte não fizer muito sentido, por favor reverta ao texto original em inglês no final do email, ou entre em contato comigo para maiores esclarecimentos.

Hopefully, some other engineer will read this note, and will get to work designing my drop-down-button-for-emails idea… and hopefully they will sell this software company to Google, so I can use it with gmail!

note, these products come close…

• Online Email translator from wordlingo
• let me know if you find any other tools…post in comments below, or in our wiki…

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others, internet idea for others, investment idea, language, translate

just wondering…

have you ever heard of any company / software that could link together what a person does on a wiki (like wikipedia ) with their reputation on Linkedin / facebook (or twitter/friendfeed, etc)?

people generally find no attraction to contributing to wiki’s, because its very difficult to generate social reputation for your content in a document that has mixed authors.  But, what if those comments on wikipedia that you put there could automatically be posted on your blog? or notified in social accounts?

that might shift people toward contributing more to community-driven documents…if people from THEIR community could know what they were writing!

One idea… could it work with Facebook connect developer platform?  thoughts? comments?  (seen anything like this?)

note:  kookyplan, the wiki for entrepreneurs welcomes any software designer who wants to work with us to give this one a try

cheers, B

Brian D. Butler Innovation, internet idea for others, investment idea, kookyplan, wiki

the trouble with “advanced twitter search” & with “google alerts” & with “company buzz” from Linkedin (and others)…. is that none of them tell me is someone uses TinyURL to link to my blog / wiki… so, if someone uses Twitter, and mentions my site, but doesnt write out “kookyplan” in the message, I never know that they did so.  The only way for me to know… is by looking in my google analytics…where it tells me specifically the source for my traffice …and there i can see the @tonyrobbins or others that mention my site. 

But, as the web goes mobile, and as people use the short codes more and more for linking…This seems like a critical overlook / weakness of the sites that help me monitor social activity. 

Isn’t there a way to fix this?  If a startup could be the one to do so…. maybe it would make you stand out & help attract funding…. good luck…

cheers, B

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others idea for others, reputation, social media, twitter

On our wiki, we welcome business ideas from all innovators, entrepreneurs, and creative people:

Did you ever wish the packaging on a bottle was easier to open? Or, that your remote control would operate all of your appliances? Or, did you ever wish that somebody would design a product to do XYZ ? If you have an idea that you think you might turn into a business one day, then by all means…keep it secret. But, if you know that you will never do it…then, please…share it with the world, and let’s make it happen! My idea is that any wanna-be entrepreneur could use this site as a resource for idea finding. The rest of us can use this site as a means of venting all of our really great ideas that we wish somebody else would implement!

Read more…

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others idea for others

This idea was originally posted on Summation, and is in the spirit of “KookyPlans”….enjoy:

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others Amazon Kindle, education, idea for others, Innovation, kindle

idea for innovation…

somebody should design a newsreader that helps people that have missed one weeks worth of news.  I recenly took a week off from reading the news, and wanted to get caught back up with the news headlines from last week / last month….but with google newsreader, I see just the top headlines for this day, or sorted by topic… but why not have news headlines over a PERIOD of time?

just a suggestion….

Brian D. Butler Innovation, idea for others, internet, micro business idea for others, Innovation, media, news reader, suggestion, why isn't there

Business idea:   create a free daily newspaper for taxi drivers in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Business model is simple, and clearly a money maker:  you target a newspaper specifically toward taxi drivers (of which there are 1000’s)…with articles clearly geared toward these readers… something about construction, bike lanes, the city, etc.  Ads could be for refrigerators, etc… all things a growing middle class Brazilian would want.  Distribution at taxi stands, or hotels.  In Brazil, Ive seen girls at stop signs handing out newspapers, so this would probably work well.

note:  taxi drivers spend most of their days reading newspapers & listening to the news on the radio… especially in traffic-congested cities like Sao Paulo where the cars are always stopped, and waiting for traffic to move (or passengers to get in).

While the idea my not have a high level of innovation, it surely is a money maker.  Could it scale up?  perhaps, if you could replicate the model in other mega-cities in Latin America…

good luck, and let me know if you have any success with this one….

Brian D. Butler idea for others, micro business idea for others, investment idea