Infolust at Springwise

Another week, another line up of interesting new business ideas from around the world: pop-up groceries in the Philippines, reading glasses for aging boomers in Canada, a healthy fast food chain from South Africa, and so on. Our next edition is due on 25 April 2006. In the mean time, check out the daily postings on www.springwise.com, send us your tips, and please don't forget to tell your friends and colleagues about us. Much appreciated!

	April 14, 2006
	Deviating from our normal pattern of one idea per article, we thought we'd dive into trendwatching.com's trend of the month and offer you a selection of the new business opportunities that infolust is giving rise to. Brief background for those of you who missed the briefing: instant information gratification is upon us. Experienced consumers lust after detailed information on where to get the best of the best, the cheapest of the cheapest, the first of the first, or how to be the smartest of the smartest. So forget information overload: the desire for relevant information is insatiable, and is spreading from the online world to the 'real' world. Get ready for a click-and-know, point-and-know, text-and-know, hear-and-know, smell-and-know, touch-and-know and snap-and-know world. How to feed the info need? Get inspired by these examples of entrepreneurs using mobile technology to satisfy consumers' infolust. • AskMeNow | Cell phone users who can't get online, can have still their questions answered by leaving a voice message with AskMeNow. Questions like "Why is the sky blue?" or "What is Zork?" are answered by text message within minutes, for a fee of USD 0.49 per question. The long-distance info search is taken care of by English-speaking operators in the Philippines. • Shazam and Gracenote's MusicID | Consumers who hear a song they don't know the name of, call a number and hold their cell phone to the music. Moments later, they receive a message with the name of the song and artist, as well as the option of buying the song or ringtone. • WeatherBug Mobile Weather | Live streaming local weather data, severe weather alerts, detailed forecasts, local radar, live weather cameras, photos and more. • ScanZoom | Using ScanZoom software downloaded to their cameraphones, shoppers can snap a picture of a product's bar code and get direct access to PriceGrabber's or Amazon's information for that product, from product descriptions and customer ratings to e-tailer prices. If the e-tailer's price is right, the produt can immediately be bought online. Next could be a service that would tell users which other real-world stores within one or two miles offer the same product at a lower price. • PriceNoia Mobile | Using Pricenoia's downloadable price comparison tool for cell phones, a consumer can enter a book's ISBN and instantly view reviews and price comparison for international Amazon.com stores. • Mobile SeatGuru | Mobile version of SeatGuru popluar website, that gives users information on the best (and worst) seats on a plane. Which allows consumers to have all the info needed to ask for a better seat at check-in, or to know which in-flight services will be available on their flight while there's still time to stack up on mags and DVDs. • SMS Een Huis, Real Estate Depot, Text Wow | These services provide potential home buyers with instant text information on their cell phones, based on unique SMS codes displayed on physical 'for rent' and 'for sale' signs. Asking price, floor plan, square footage and more, all delivered to the cell phone of a prospective client then and there. Want more examples and insights? Check out the trend briefing. And then figure out how you can gratify other people's infolust. For free if you're in it for the love, or cash if you have your own deadly sin to feed. ;-) ...Continue reading »
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