Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Blockbuster, Online is Offline

Here's a suggestion for Blockbuster. In order to compete better against Netflix they have to make a better process for instore purchases. My suggestion is that they already have a rent 3 movies at a time program and when u return one u take out another one program. They should implement their queue system instore as well so that once I take out my 3 videos the next 3 will be waiting for me. Using fast burning technology and inventory management they could have a machine there that will just burn the DVD for me, slap on a bar code and away I go. When I return it they either destroy the DVD or return it to a shelf, if its on request by someone else. In this way they will also never run out of DVD's in store as even if they have used up their in-store quota, they could always "borrow" from some store that hasn't.

Friday, June 16, 2006

Match.com, Yahoo Singles Lets get Safe

How about a simple safety program from the leaders of Online Dating. What they can do is set up a small department (even based in India) that will call you at a predetermined time to see that you are safe. Before going on a date you go online, put in either your cell or home phone number. Then specify a time when you will be home. If you are not home by then, then they will call your "emergency number" which could be a friend, family member etc. There will be certain enhancements for example a contact number to call or SMS to say that you are home, or that you need another,1,2,3 hours etc.

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Nasa and the world cup soccer.

One of the problems of the space shuttle was detecting if the tiles were damaged after takeoff. As a solution they have a camera that they need to pass all over the underside. Perhaps a neater idea would be to have a soccerball sized robot that has 6 air valves each pointing in a different direction. Also a camera embedded in the ball as well. Following a preprogrammed program the air valves will shoot out air moving the ball in different directions. By making a simple control an astronaut could also direct it to a place they want to check again.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Incubation vs Angels and Venture Capital

Here's an idea for Google or Yahoo or Amazon or eBay or any large Internet based Company.
Similar to American Inventor on TV. There are thousands of individuals with great ideas for web sites that can possibly grow to MySpace proportions. The problem is that these people dont have the technical expertise, money or project management skills to get it working.

For a company say Google to create an incubation division of say 10 people 8 developers and two managers would be a great idea.

They would choose say 4 projects a year and work for 1 year on them. In return they would get say 25% stake in the revenue and have a special "content" voting capacity of 50%. If the person wants to change the content to be off Googles company policies then they need a majority vote. This allows Google to retain control of the content.

After 1 Year the person is then on their own. The site will also get Google labeled and promoted in a special google section.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Monster Income

This idea is for a company like Monster that has tens of thousands of companies using it for employment. When it comes to the summer they should contact professional firms like law firms, engineering companies etc. The intention is to place interns into those companies. The aim of Monster is to eventually build up to about 100,000 students who they will take $1 / hr from.
For 6 weeks of work over the summer this will generate revenue of $24 million. The other added advantage is that they could add into their deal that if the student becomes a full time employee after graduation they get say a 5% commission. This will add another $25 million dollars assuming that only 10% of the students get placed.

Monday, June 12, 2006

GOOGLE, YAHOO, MSN increase your revenue by 25%

For companies that base their revenue on Online adverts, here is a great idea.

Instead of trying to open up hundreds of new products to create more space in which to advertise. Rather concentrate on getting a higher click ration on your existing sites. One way to do this is that MSN and Yahoo already have a ton of info about each user, use this to narrow the searches. For example Yahoo had personals, so in there someone might say they like scuba diving. If that person then searches for Florida vacations, the adverts offering vacations in Florida with scuba facilities should come up first. Google would need to build up this info. An easy way for any of the companies to do this is partner with a company like www.townsingles.com or match.com as well as a site like monster.com as each of them have tons of info about their members.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Rentals Make More Money

For a company like Avalon Bay or Equity Residential, that has tens of thousands of apartments.

Instead of taking 1-1 1/2 months of rent as a security deposit, they should self insure themselves and ask residents to rather pay a premium. Residents can choose either the one or the other.
for each 10,000 apartments this could generate about $250,000 a month of new revenue, depending on how you price the premiums

Saturday, June 03, 2006

MSN, YAHOO CNN. Help the world see me!

There are currently huge numbers of online surfers that visit CNN, or Yahoo or MSN.com every day. For these large portals they all offer news of some kind on their pages. What you often see is some esoteric article about a small company that eventually grows that company. A good example of this is that CNN had links to the million dollar page that eventually helped its author reach a million dollars.

Well they should offer say 4 links on their home pages to small individuals trying to make a go of their site. In return the site should offer the Portal a percentage in their company. In this way these Portals can help incubate entrepreneurs. In return they will have revenue in companies that could make it big as well as advertising on the page that would bring more customers to the portals site.

Pick and Pay make your plastic bags pay more.

Now that stores are charging 50c and upwards for their plastic bags (in South Africa) why don't they approach advertisers like Coca Cola or BMW to give away free bags with their logos on. Advertisers would pay the costs for a week or month etc and the major win would be that the consumers now collect these bags, so instead of being a one-time advert the advertisment would be seen plenty of times.

For supermarkets in the USA and the UK etc this would also be a great tool to market to large firms.


Please note all these ideas have a much more in depth business plan behind them. You can contact me for more info.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Clearchannel can you hear me now? Barnie wants you to be part of the family

Hi

Heres an Idea for Clearchannel. They are a radio station with over 1000 markets. What they should do is make a deal with childrens channels like The Wiggles, Barnie, Elmo, Thomas the Train etc. and get them to have a morning and afternoon channel, say between 6-10am and 12:00-3:00pm so that parents taking kids to school can just turn to that channel instead of having to buy dvd's, tapes etc to keep their kids quiet. Im sure by approaching firms like pampers, kellogs, toys r us they can make it into a very profitable enterprise


Please note all these ideas have a much more in depth business plan behind them. You can contact me for more info.