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Ideas by Category: Trailer Cash Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Business / Marketing Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Movie studios Description: Hollywood can focus-group their upcoming film releases in an attempt to gauge interest and help build marketing strategies. But no one has a better handle on what audiences are excited about than Trailer Cash. The company has installed small wireless cameras that point at the audience, just above the screens in movie theaters across the country. They pay the theaters a monthly fee under one stipulation: that they keep the house lights dimmed during the trailers, rather than completely off. The cameras transmit audience reactions to Trailer Cash headquarters, where analysts gauge and tabulate the results - which for each preview can range from -5 (boos, hisses, mocking laughter, people whispering to each other with sarcastic expressions) to 5 (big cheers, applause, people whispering to each other excitedly). Results are entered into the Trailer Cash database by film previewed, location, time, feature film, and other descriptors. Reports are sold to the film industry for a lot of money, and the price is even higher if they want to see samples of the raw video. Utne, Oregon Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Business / Real Estate Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Leftie, "New Urbanism" oriented Real Estate Developers Description: Somewhere between a real-estate development and an intentional community lies Utne, Oregon, a new city built on a scenic, remote stretch of coastline. A sort of Celebration, Florida for the Utne Reader set, the autonomous, incorporated city offers leftie, home-office professionals well-built Craftsman-style bungalows in a community that sends the message, "We care." Utne's city charter - by far the longest in the US - carefully defines and prohibits chain restaurants, fuel-powered gardening equipment, domestically-manufactured candy and sweetened breakfast cereals, and commercial television. Violators are punished with stiff penalties of either community service or being barred from community service, depending on their current practice. The generously- funded schools, library, town meeting hall, and light rail station surround a picturesque New Urbanism plaza that's 20 automobile-free minutes away from all residents. Cointoss.com Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Service / Personal Price: Free Target Audience: Google, Yahoo! Description: When you want to decide on something and give everyone a fair chance, you can flip a coin, draw lots, pick names out of a hat, or play rock/scissors/paper. But what if everyone's in different places? Cointoss.com lets you run these tried-and-true group selection processes fairly and securely from everyones' browsers. As with a quick conference call or net meeting, participants browse to a shared location and simultaneously run the process. Requiring no maintenance and minimal computing resources, the site bases its operation on simple random-seed and timestamp-based scripts, while banner ads generate revenue. The Environments Channel Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Cable networks Description: Large, flat-panel, high-definition television screens dominate a room, but when you aren't watching television, why waste all that space? Do some dynamic decorating by turning on The Environments Channel, which shows vistas and seascapes, or scenery out the window of a train or riverboat. It's all beautifully shot, wordless, and unedited, like visual Muzak. The channel is especially popular with seniors and stoners. Ishtar: The Viewers' Cut Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Culture / Film and Video Price: 200.00 Target Audience: Description: Remember Ishtar? The infamous movie paired Dustin Hoffman with Warren Beatty in a revival of Bob Hope-era "on the road" comedies. Most people remember the film as one of the most expensive ever made, and a complete flop. But what they don't realize, having never seen it, is that it starts out brilliantly, is hilarious for a while, and ends well. It just needs lots of trimming in the middle. Ishtar: The Viewer's Cut does all the surgery necessary. Here's how the Viewer's Cut is made: a bunch of sharp movie fans with no filmmaking experience spend a weekend together with a professional film editor and photographer, watching and talking about Ishtar, and how to make it work. The editor helps the viewer group shorten it, and if they come up with some new narrative that requires adding a few scenes, the photographer films the group sitting around and describing what happens ("here's where Warren runs over another sand dune and...". In these scenes, the audience is simply asked to use its imagination. Total cost of project: a few days' work, plus the rights to a movie that's probably considered almost worthless. Result: A fresh and hilarious film with automatically huge name recognition, starring two big-name actors. Rememo Pads Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Consumable / Office Products Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Avery, Mead, etc. Description: With regular notebooks and memo pads, every page looks exactly the same, which makes it tough to find that particular page of notes you're looking for. Rememo has a better way: each of the pad's 100 pages looks different. Page colors are white, pink, or pastel blue, yellow, or green. In addition, each page is bordered two distinct, alternating symbols in two different colors: a letter or number, and a distinctive picture, such as a triangle, a cow, a dagger, or Abraham Lincoln, in black, blue, green, or red. As you take notes and glance at the page repeatedly, your mind can't help but associate these visual cues with where you are and what you're writing. Then, years later, it'll be much easier to find the right page in your notes. "I remember -- I wrote them on a pink page with black 3's and green Lincolns..." Eco-Stir Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Appliance Price: 50.00 Target Audience: Starbucks, Tully's, Peet's, other coffee chains Description: You're in the "condiment island" at Starbucks, adding your milk and sugar. You want to stir your coffee, but an already-used spoon is disgusting, and it seems a waste to discard a stirrer after one use, since you view gourmet coffee places as little islands of eco- friendliness (although you're not quite sure why). Thankfully, there's an Eco-Stir, a handy little device that stirs your cup with a jet of filtered, compressed air. Hold your hot drink underneath the small nozzle, and it turns on automatically, using a motion detector. Watch your coffee agitate and mix under a thin, powerful jet of air that gets down almost to the bottom of the cup. You used to frequent the competing coffee place one block away, but little things like Eco-Stir are worth the extra walk. Lockable Bicycle Panniers Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Outdoor Price: 50.00 Target Audience: Jandd, TK, other bikepacking and backpacking outfitters Description: You're on a bike trip, your panniers are full of valuables, and you just want to stop in a store for a snack. Do you really have to disengage the panniers from your rack and lug them into the store so that you don't get ripped off? Not with Lockables, the cyclist's answer to hard-shell panniers on motorcycles. The lightweight bags secure to your rack in back with zippers locked closed, all with one key, and without having to string little locks and cables everywhere. Why didn't they think of this before? The Kraftschläger Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Appliance Price: 200.00 Target Audience: Description: Advertised as "The most advanced tobacco smoking apparatus in the world," the Kraftschläger uses the same basic principle as a homemade "hydraulic bong" fashioned out of a pipe bowl, a turkey baster, a bottomless 2-liter bottle, and a topless 3-liter bottle filled with water. But the Kraftschläger's sleek design, machined metal body and gold-plated fittings ensure that the tabletop device is durable and elegant as well as functional. Gradually raise the Kraftschläger's bowl assembly while applying flame, and tobacco smoke will draw through the water inside, then bubble into the chamber. Let the bowl go, and the piston-like assembly glides back down, blowing cool, flavorful smoke past an internal valve and out through the flexible, tubular mouthpiece. Not available in stores, the eye-catching Kraftschläger is distributed only via a network of entrepreneurially-minded individuals, who run "Demonstration Parties" for the product in private homes -- just like how Tupperware was originally sold. This is because people are most impressed with the Kraftschläger after they've actually had a chance to try one themselves; indeed, many hosts find that under friendly conditions, the apparatus seems to almost literally sell itself. Included with the Kraftschläger is the Owner's Manual, which congratulates you on your purchase and explains with crisp technical illustrations how to keep your Kraftschläger in top working order, that it may provide you with many years of tobacco smoking enjoyment. Poppin' Fun Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Toy and Novelty Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Toy manufacturers, either children's or adult Description: Few activities are more quietly engrossing than squeezing pimples - with each satisfying extraction, the world's troubles melt away. Chimpanzees at the zoo might find time to groom, but for busy humans today, willing and acne-filled backs and faces are hard to find. Poppin' Fun! is the answer. It's an attractive, lap-sized frame that holds a generous stretch of synthetic skin that's filled with ripe blackheads and whiteheads. And unlike with real skin, the synthetic pus "cores" are delicious as well. Skin refills come in a variety of difficulty levels, as well as rewarding, grown-up flavors like soy, saffron, and Stilton. For commuting, taking a work break, or relaxing at home, Poppin' Fun! provides hours of nonverbal, meditative enjoyment. Sacred Leaf Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Consumable / Tobacco Price: 200.00 Target Audience: Description: Sacred Leaf is turning tobacco into the ultimate in Political Correctness. It's a complete tobacco home growers kit, which includes heirloom seeds, organic nutrient soil, a solar-powered curing box, and one season's worth of curing mixture. A soy ink / hemp paper booklet provides instructions, a romantic history of pre-industrial tobacco, and some nature poems labelled "Traditional Roanoke Meditation." The back cover states in modest italics, "A nonzero percentage of Sacred Leaf's proceeds benefit the preservation of Native American customs and culture throughout the US and Mexico." Brain Tangler Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Toy and Novelty Price: Free Target Audience: Description: On the plane, in the park, or even at home, Brain Tangler gives you the quiet satisfaction of untangling string, wherever you might need a break. Available at four difficulty levels, each Brain Tangler gives you a different problem to solve - and no two are alike! And once you've solved a Brain Tangler, you can carefully coil the toy's string around a standard-width pencil and read a secret message - or see the amount of money you've just won! The pocket- and purse-sized puzzles are made of all-natural and biodegradable material, and are available at check-out displays and ticket windows nationwide for one to five dollars, depending on difficulty. Or you can subscribe to Tanglers' Brain magazine and get a free Double Black Diamond (Advanced Level) Brain Tangler with each issue. Good Luck! Undie Bond Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Consumable / Office Products Price: 100.00 Target Audience: Paper manufacturers Description: You may be a conscientious recycler, but no one will take your old undies, tatty t-shirts, and other unsalvagable garments, so you have no choice but to throw them all away. And to think, cotton is one of the most resource-intensive crops of all - you might as well put a gun to Mother Earth's head! The makers of 100% Cotton Undie Bond paper offer an alternative: they'll take anything you've got with an all-cotton label, and turn it into paper. Don't believe the so-called post-consumer recycled cotton fiber papers from the big paper companies - they come from institutional tablecloth, towel, and linens suppliers, who routinely sell them off after just one use. Undie Bond is truly post-consumer; it comes from people like you, who care enough to send boxes of old underwear to the Undie Bond factory, third class postal rate. And each pound sent in earns five cents off any paper purchase. The beautifully textured, archival paper is a cult favorite for PhD dissertations, and features a distinctive "bloomers" watermark. Brass Balls of Chicago Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Durable / Toy and Novelty Price: 50.00 Target Audience: Description: In the opening scene of the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, the Alec Baldwin character tells a sales office that all but two of the commissioned staff will be fired, and that they will compete against each other to find out who. He ends his talk by removing a pair of polished brass balls from his briefcase, and reverently draping the silk cord connecting them over the back of his hand as he intones, "You need balls of solid brass to survive in this business, gentlemen." Now Brass Balls of Chicago brings you polished, solid brass balls just like the ones in David Mamet's movie. Furnished in an elegant black velvet sack, with optional tropical hardwood display case, the original Brass Balls make a strong statement on any desk. They're a great gift idea for outstanding team members, and they make great "honorary balls" for women employees who successfully adhere to strongly male-oriented workplace cultures. But beware of imitations! Only Brass Balls of Chicago have the unique "Brass Balls of Chicago" microstamp. Alter:Native Acoustiguide Tours Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Culture / Art / Exhibition Price: 50.00 Target Audience: Art museums Description: You learn interesting things from art museum acoustiguide tours – it's just too bad they're all so annoyingly precious! What's the point of art if you can't have some fun? Alter:Native Acoustiguide offers a different perspective – informed, but funny and irreverent. Not above lusting for a nicely-muscled Jesus on the Cross, or even questioning the Art Establishment's assessment of a contemporary painter's talent (as long as the sentiment is not expressed in ways that would make the museum's benefactors feel cheated, or capable of trusting their own cultural judgments). Through it all, Alter:Native Acoustiguide Tours convey a love of art, old and new, and relate it to current events and pop culture. They make art in museums relevant to everyone – civic-minded communicators rather than a tools of elitism. ShOtgun Beer Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Consumable / Beverage Price: 200.00 Target Audience: Regional beer company that wants to introduce a canned beer nationally. Description: Dude: do you like to party? Do you like to chug? Say hello to ShOtgun Beer. Always canned - never bottled - ShOtgun creates an instant raging chugfest. Diagrams and instructions printed on each pre-scored can explain how to drink the beer "ShOtgun style" (as if you didn't already know). And each six-pack comes with its own "party spike," to poke the hole with, right on the "O" target - above the liability disclaimer, which your pre-law brothers may commit to memory, and recite reverently before opening each can. Napa Valley Mouton Date: 2003-03-14 Category: Consumable / Food Price: Free Target Audience: Niman Ranch, other boutique ranches Description: Sophisticated Americans are ready for mutton -- especially if it's from their own back yard. Napa Valley Mouton's skilled shepherd-professionals travelled to Europe, where the meat is a popular mainstay, and acquired a variety of breeding sheep known for their excellent flavor. The flocks now live a carefree existence of California sun and Pacific breezes. Sheep are slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law and the meat is completely kosher – as well as completely delicious. Say hello to the other dark meat! Gourmet Coverup Stove Date: 2002-07-10 Category: Durable / Appliance / Kitchen Price: 200.00 Target Audience: Williams Sonoma, Pottery Barn, High-End Appliance Manufacturers Description: Upwardly mobile professionals are moving further from urban centers and many are hopscotching around the country to fulfill contract jobs and projects that last six months or a year. One minor side effect of this trend is that the gourmets who loved the gas stoves in their urban apartments have to do with electric coils in their temporary, rural setups. It just isn't cost-effective to make a complete changeover to have gas plumbed to the home temporarily. In other words, you're sunk unless you have a Coverup. It's a gas range that sits over the standard metal frame of an electric stove and gives you four gas burners. It comes with 5-feet of gas line that you connect to a small, standard propane tank on the kitchen floor. The setup should cost less than $50 dollars at retail, since small gas grills cost $15 at Walmart currently. The cost is low, users can buy refill tanks at the hardware store, and the setup doesn't give off harmful fumes. It does not need a vent. Now you're cooking with gas!
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