Related to this is the emergence of specialized services for sharing the stuff you own: your house (AirBnB), your office (Loosecubes), and yourcar(Wheelz,RelayRides, andGetAround).
Politics and Law
Crave
Touch the real world
This was the year of mobile startups, but not all the best ideas for new businesses were based on smartphones or mobile devices.
Crunch down big data
Other sensor technologies are showing up in wearable devices: TheJawboneUP bracelet monitors activity and sleep. AndBasisis building a watch that measure skin temperature, sweat level, heart rate, and even blood oxygen level.
Come to think of it, this is one of the reasons mobile is so big: App stores are platforms where developers can make money on top of large bases of users and communication networks.
Rafe NeedlemanRafe reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business. Feeling lucky? Send pitches [email protected]. And watch Rafes tech issues podcast,Reporters Roundtable, every Friday.
Build a studio
AsFacebookandSalesforce.comhave shown, a tech companys proprietary data can be valuable as a substrate to other businesses. Build a tool that other people can build upon and then collect the rent when they do.
The best examples of these are two hardware products, theNestthermostat and the minimalRoku LTstreaming media box. On the mobile front, new apps likePath 2andOinkare distilled into spare and engaging mobile experiences, instead of going overboard with features and slowing down the on-the-go user.
Technically Incorrect
Cutting Edge
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Spotify, for its part, has a valuable but not unique music-streaming service. People are paying for it. But will they continue to do so? By allowing other businesses to build apps that run on top of the Spotify library--basically, music discovery and recommendation apps--Spotify is able to leverage its licensing deals and give other music brands (like Rolling Stone and We Are Hunted) a great way to offer new services to their ns.
Is Sonys Cyber-shot TX200V the most powerful ultracompact ever?The TX200V might be small, but its packing some serious technology.
Rafe Needleman has been reviewing technology products and businesses since 1988. Formerly editor-in-chief of Byte Magazine, and author of the Catch of the Day column for Red Herring, hes interviewed thousands of tech execs. For this blog he talks to entrepreneurs and start-up CEOs to explore the strategies behind new technologies.
Best startup ideas of 2011,There are more ways to make money than by building a product that immediately hands 30 percent to Apple or Google. Here are the best startup ideas or models from 2011.
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Is Facebook run by sociopaths?A commentator on the Guardian suggests that companies such as Facebook are the corporate worlds equivalent of sociopaths. Might this be true?
Wont buy Apple products anymore? Then dont stop thereIn the wake of some calls for an Apple boycott, its worth noting that human-intensive mass production has ced problems with abysmal working conditions in just about every major industrial economy.
Its hard to come up with a viable product, but some smart startups dont try. Instead, they are building new studio systems to help other inventors raise the funds to build their dream products--and then give them built-in marketplaces to sell them.
Apple
roundupThe maker of iPads and iPhones is hardly alone among tech companies that rely heavily on Chinese ctories under scrutiny for labor practices. But its become the flashpoint.
Jobs near you, on Zaarly.
Make it a platform
Technology can help you realize your true potential. It can take you further. It can get you there ster.
KickStarterandQuirkyboth encourage nascent inventors (and artists, in KickStarters case) to pitch their ideas to their audiences. People who like ideas pony up either a cash pledge or some of their limited votes. Good ideas and projects bubble up, in theory. More importantly, people who might not otherwise be exposed to very early-stage projects get to participate in the development and, in doing so, can become ambassadors to new ideas.
Nanotech - The Circuits Blog
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Will a health-monitoring watch be the next mobile platform?
Digital Media
Get consumers to sell stuff to one other, 2.0
The Internet is awash in information and data, but few companies, other than Web giants themselves (Google, Facebook, Amazon), make real use of it. But finally, services are emerging that give other businesses, and even consumers, access to this data and the analytics to use it.
Cutting Edge
For example, in the retail arena,Decide.comanalyzes prices of consumer technology products, and predicts if prices on particular items are going to go down, up, or hold steady. Its a valuable tool for consumers. On the smaller retail front,BlackLocusscours data sources (like competing retail sites) for tech prices. It can be programmed to adjust a stores own prices to make sure they are always competitive.
The best examples of this that come to mind:BoxandSpotify. Box is a cloud storage provider. Its in a boring space thats becoming commoditized. The solution to staying in front? Make it possible for developers to build apps that leverage the data that Boxs enterprise customers are paying to store. Thats likely the only way to fend off the competing cloud storage providers.
The best idea in startups to come in 2011: simplification and beautiful design. Consumers, it turns out, appreciate strong design and clear user interaction. Were seeing new apps and products now that take technology and strive for simplicity, rather then trying to show off how technological they are.
Hydrogen sponge could extend EV driving rangeNovel molecules with as much suce area per volume as a football field could be used to store more hydrogen than compressed gas, extending the range of fuel-cell electric vehicles.
commentaryThe justices have ruled that GPS tracking requires a warrant. Now Congress needs to act to balance privacy and public safety regarding location data.
MegaUpload data could be erased Thursday, says reportWith MegaUploads assets frozen--and no way for it to pay the storage firms it used--and with the feds unable to further access servers now that search warrants have been executed, data could begin getting wiped, says the Associated Press.
Nearly every new mobile startup, it seems, is now location-aware. But consumer tech is getting eyes and ears as well, and its for very interesting new businesses. The startupIntoNow(sold to Yahoo) is a mobile app that listens for TV shows airing in the same room. Consumers use it to get additional data about the show theyre watching; marketers get much richer data about whos watching what, where, and when.
A new take on an old appliance, the Nest thermostat.
Invest in design
eBayandCraigslistreplaced the garage sale and the classified ad, but commerce moves on, and newer ideas are these models seem old-shioned. Services likeTaskRabbit,Zaarly, andCoffee and Powerare opening up a new economy where consumers can do direct deals with each other, with the benefit of more up-to-date community features. In most cases, the key is the social network connection, so you know with whom you are dealing.
A thermal battery for villages in IndiaStartup Promethean Power had to ditch its dream of solar-powered milk chillers in rural India, but the company hit on a novel energy storage system thats cheaper and overcomes the unreliable grid.
