gdp's Comments

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Fri, 16 Nov 2007 09:33:26 +0000

eweddings.com

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:28:06 +0000

This sector 'environmental conscious consumers' is getting easier and easier to attract advertisement and sponsorship. It could be a good target for Facebook's new 'social ads' service. With the new facebook "pages" feature, businesses can choose to display their ads to our users who have saved favorite routes / trails nearby to their businesses.

I'm not 100% on how this could work, but I think it could.

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:23:18 +0000

i would expand this to favorite bike routes as well. I like the idea.

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:20:17 +0000

While it seems like a good idea. It could be too large of an endeavor to undertake in a weekend. Also, there is already a 'trips' facebook application that does similar things.

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Thu, 8 Nov 2007 21:27:28 +0000

There have been very similar ideas created as facebook applications such as runalicious and "easy finess log" http://apps.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=...

Neither have gained much traction but that doesn't mean it couldn't succeed as part of something bigger. A combination of cross-promoting,user-benefiting, "social gaming" applications such as the previously mentioned carpal tunnel, healthy eating, exercise, and energy bill reducing applications could be tied together successfully.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about. I suggest taking a look at the Acebucks facebook application to get a feel of how 1 application can have multiple affiliated applications that interact together. With each app, you can earn "acebucks" that can be "spent" in multiple ways.

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 09:07:06 +0000

prevent gaming? Simple answer- You wouldn't, unless someone was the *winner* of a certain challenge/contest upon which they would be required to submit their energy bill records.

"the majority of active users in social networks are young and do not pay the power bill" -This is becoming less and less true every day. Here are some stats that are becoming even more outdated since the launch of the platform.<ahref="http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/06/facebook-use...

Startup Weekend San Francisco — November 16-18 : Idea Form

Tue, 6 Nov 2007 16:31:34 +0000

Heres an idea of mine I have been kicking around for a few weeks.

Household energy bill tracker Web or Facebook application.

General description: A web based application that allows users to track their household energy usage on a month-to-month basis (based on their past gas + electric bill records) and compete against their friends and communities.

Goal of this application:

Allow people to compete against their friends, neighbors, and communities to reduce their energy bills.

Key features:
-group features to allow users to join and compete against their networks: block, neighborhood, city, all users)
-Individual household and network pages showing trends, statistics, and leaders in energy reduction.
-The more active users in a network = better and greater # of prizes awarded.

Advantages of this application.
-Appeals to anyone looking to reduce their energy costs because it would reward people not just for least used, but for also highest % reduced and most total reduced over time.
-Viral application not only through social networks, but in local communities as well. Greater rewards for larger networks = more incentive to tell your neighbors about it.
-If successful, (and I think the time is right) this application could increase the reach of Facebook quite substantially, thus being a perfect candidate for Facebook Fund. Why? For me being from Wisconsin and now Arizona, most of my neighbors do not even know what Facebook/Opensocial is. This app would encourage facebook users to go out and tell their neighbors to join FB and add the app.
-Easy to attract sponsorship from energy efficient products/startups. I do internet marketing for a major home appliance manufacturer and they would jump at the chance to sponsor something like this.
-many other ways to incentivize the process such points to spend sponsored products etc.

Similar applications in terms of technology include 'Runlicious' and 'Neighborhoods'.

Challenges and Opportunities: Please leave your feedback, thanks ;-)

James