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The Graffiti application on Facebook has become one of the most popular applications on the site. Tim Suzman, one of the developers, talks about the success of his application and the incredible interactivity that members have had with it, as demonstrated by one Facebook member's masterpieces below.
Midomi is a new online search engine that can identify an artist or song title after a user sings, hums or whistles a few bars into his/her computer microphone. Users must sign up to use the service, but once members, they can purchase tracks, create profiles and share musical tastes with other members. Midomi is also a place for people to display their musical talents since users can listen to recordings from other members.
Japanese communications giant NTT DoCoMo and Mitsubishi have unveiled a prototype Wellness phone that not only measures body fat, pulse, distance walked and calories used, but it also has the ability to sense depression and provide an occasional pep talk if it feels you’re in need. And now the kicker: the user can breathe into a small hole in the bottom of the phone and a special sensor can detect bad breath and notify the offender.
ThisNext is a social-shopping site where everyday people blog about products they like. You can recommend, share and discover great products. Every product on ThisNext is picked by the ThisNext community and organized into product playlists called shopcasts.
Fly for Good is a travel search engine designed to meets the needs of consumers interested in volunteer vacations. Fly for Good offers discounted airfare on over 24 airlines exclusively for non-profits engaging in international humanitarian missions
The popularity of volunteer vacations continues to rise, with nearly one in four travelers interested in taking a volunteer vacation. With Fly for Good, humanitarian employees, volunteers and their families can search and book airfare at www.flyforgood.com, saving up to 50 percent off published airfares and getting more flexible rules and regulations.
TGI Black Friday is a repository of one-day-only cheapness, TGIBF lists an expansive range of internet sales and their frequently early start times, allowing you to wake up, groggily time-bomb your credit rating, then circumvent buyer’s remorse by passing back out. 
Viddler, the online video sharing service, is announcing the launch of their innovative contextual advertising program today. Ads are tied to timed tags and show up on the timeline. There is a 50/50 rev share for publishers. 
To infuse some entrepreneurial spirit in itself, Yahoo! has created a sub-division called Brickhouse, designed to shorten the time it takes to bring new ideas to market. “The goal is to take the idea, develop it, and make sure it’s seen by senior management quickly,” says Salim Ismail, head of Brickhouse. Any of Yahoo’s 13,000 employees can submit proposals for possible new products. And these aren’t just one-liners either. Employees are posting screenshots, creating mock-ups, presenting cases and describing potential hurdles in their submissions. A council of five top company executives, including CEO Jerry Yang and his co-founder, David Filo, review only the best five to 10. It’s a great idea to bring fresh, new energy to a large company.
In Williamsburg, Brooklyn, Jay Parkinson offers the convenience of a small town doctor with the connectivity of web technology. Rather than having a physical office, he treats residents from age 18 to 39 via email, video chat or IM. For all face-to-face visits, Dr. Parkinson goes to a patient's work or home. His patients pay an annual fee of $500, which includes an initial consultation plus two additional face-to-face visits as needed. Parkinson says that he prefers to run this business this way because healthcare needs to be more accessible, cost-friendly and honest.
The cover of the November 17th issue of Billboard Magazine is titled "The iPod Generation Takes Vinyl for a Spin,” and features an article about the growing trend of today’s music fans buying 180-gram vinyl LPs for home listening and MP3s for their portable devices. Due to its perceived higher quality of sound, vinyl has become “the format of choice for people who care about music,” according to Matador’s Patrick Amory. Production is estimated to increase 25% over last year by the end of 2007 to satiate the discerning musical appetites of this generation.
Based off of "The Tipping Point" concept, as well as the idea that you always want to know what others are doing before you act, The Point is a site that helps groups of like-minded people get together to influence change. If a designated number of people rally behind a particular cause, then the "tipping point" is reached and members are obligated to follow through with their contribution to the campaign. Check out the site to see some campaigns for change.
Planning group travel just became a little less stressful thanks to Triporama. Once you know where you want to go, you can use the site's deals, group scheduling and travel tips to plan it all. Along the way, Triporama allows you to coordinate with your friends and family so that everyone who wants to, shares in the process.
Iminlikewithyou is a new web-mobile hybrid service that has turned flirting into a game. Inspired in part by the eBay auction process, IILWY gives participants the chance to woo others and get their attention with points bids. The service fosters connections with its built in communications features like instant messaging, photo and video uploading as well as anonymous calling.
Ashley Qualls, founder of Whateverlife has created a million dollar, ad-supported business by tapping into an integral teen need: customization. Ashley creates social networking page and cell phone layouts for teenagers to decorate their spaces for free. Ranked #349 out of over 20 million for most visited websites, her site has also been a primary vehicle for viral campaigns for music artists like Lily Allen, Jonas Brothers and 30 Seconds to Mars.
Lily Allen is getting her own BBC3 TV show that will essentially be produced by Allen’s audience. The show pays homage to social networking sites like Myspace that made the singer popular, and invites viewers to virtually "befriend" Allen. Once they do, they will be able to contribute to the show's discussions and put questions to the singer's guests.
Instead of spending countless hours researching gadgets yourself, Smart Ratings aggregates dozens of expert opinions on everything from cell phones to digital cameras in order to provide you with easily comparable ratings.
Gourmet food purveyor, Zingerman's, offers its specialty Z Club members surprise food packages throughout the year containing "adventurous" delicacies uncommon in local grocery stores, like raw milk Stilton, and chocolate covered candied peels.
RazorGator's proprietary software manages Bank of America's inventory of hundreds of thousands of sporting event tickets in order to increase return on its investment. According to this Fast Company article, RazorGator's CEO Jeff Lapin says that the company is "morphing from a traditional ticket broker to a provider of services to corporations in the ticketing world."
Grand Opening, located in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, is a business that completely reinvents its entire operation every three months. Right now, Grand Opening features Manhattan's only drive-in cinema, complete with outdoor ambiance.
RedesignMe allows consumers frustrated by mobile phones, coffee machines, or products of virtually any type to submit a photo or video of the product along with a description of what they think needs redesigning.
HouseFront allows you to text the address of any home (ie: 123 Main St., San Francisco, CA) to HOUSE(46783) and in a matter of seconds, you'll know all about a specific property, from the year it was built, to the number of rooms it has, to its estimated value.
Kellogg’s research found that busy lifestyles mean people are struggling to eat enough fruit and are looking for easier ways to eat their '5 a day'. As a result, Kellogg's is launching a totally new Stretch Island Fruit snack brand called FruitaBü
that is not only set to revolutionize the fruit snacks category but
also contribute towards the way consumers get their '5 a day'.
Appearing on shelves in January, the products in the new range all
contain one portion of fruit per serving with no added sugar,
artificial colors or flavors.
All the previous November trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_for_november.doc
All the previous October trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_october.doc
All the previous September trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_september.doc
All the previous August trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_august.doc
All the previous July trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_july.doc
All the previous June trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_june.doc
All the previous May trends:
Download weekly_dose_of_trends_may.doc
Dear Omelets,
Welcome to the new Omelet Strategic Department blog formerly known as Ryan Stoner's blog. Whenever we have new trends or any other pertinent information to disseminate, we will do so within this blog. I'm sure you all will miss the lengthy, text-heavy trend reports greeting you in your Omelet inbox, but hopefully you will grow to love them in this medium just as much.
Thanks!
And now, the Omelet Strategic Department is proud to bring you this week's...
Dose of Trends
Check out this fun new contest that XBOX is doing involving a time limit, clues and a bunch of green X's.
Project code Propod considers itself just that. It will seamlessly integrate all of your videos, audio, photos and writing in one place. Frank informed us of this site, and although they haven't launched yet, you can send them your info for updates.
Gas pumps made by Gilbarco Veeder-Root Inc will include an Internet connection and will display Google Maps on a small color screen. Motorists will be able to obtain directions to hotels, restaurants, hospitals, or other local landmarks as specified by the gas station owner and get a print out from the pump to take with them. Read more here.
Whiskerino encourages men to say, "I WILL HAVE A BEARD!! I WILL BE A MAN!! I WILL NOT CONFORM TO YOUR RULES!" From November 1, 2007 until February 29, 2008, Whiskerino will hold its second competition to see which user can grow the "manliest" beard. Thanks to Dustin who told us about this, we can keep track of the participants' progress by viewing the hairy photos on the Whiskerino site.
Snap Shot City is a world-wide, urban photographic scavenger hunt where teams are given a list of 30 items which they must photograph within the city they live, in order to tell a story. The photographs are judged by a global panel of judges from the fields of architecture, photography, urban design and social philosophy, with awards and prizes allocated for skill, artistic merit, evocativeness, and social commentary.
Stickam is a social networking website that features user-submitted pictures, audio, video, and most prominently, live webcam chat. Additionally, it allows users to embed their streaming webcam feeds into other web sites via a Flash player.
Anne’s Fitting Show is an interactive ad display that allows shoppers to dress up a holographic incarnation of Japanese supermodel Anne Watanabe in 12 different fall/winter outfits. The 3D ad system (which is the first of its kind) features an external touch-screen control panel that allows aspiring fashion coordinators to select clothing pieces for Anne's hologram and then watch their creation as she walks around in the glass-enclosed booth.
Top Floor Live touts itself as the world’s first interactive webcam dance party. Laptops, DV cameras, digital projectors, and other prosumer equipment are used to create a stunning array of graphics for The Top Floor’s multi-sensory experience. All the digital elements are mixed on-the-fly, projected onto the walls of the dance floor and piped over the internet into the rooms of those users logged in from home. The home users, who are available on both chat and webcam, are integrated into the live dance scene via digital projectors.
Alex let us know that Harmonix has made a Guitar Hero-esque iPod game called Phase that can take your own music and lay down a rhythm game on top.
Deliver LA provides fast, affordable same day deliveries without the restrictions and deadlines that make using other companies like FedEx or UPS so difficult. You can ask them to deliver a set of keys or a sweater across town without any particular packaging or paperwork required. You can even ask them to go to the market, buy something and bring it to you. All you have to do is make one phone call or place your order online.
The Brussels Dexia Tower, in collaboration with the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium, will forecast the next day's temperature, cloudiness, precipitations, and wind, by using LED lights and geometrical patterns on the building to visualize these data. Different colors represent temperature in relation to the current day, so if the colors of the building flash yellow, then citizens can expect tomorrow's weather to be two degrees hotter. Check out the site for more explanation.
HEMA is an international retail organization with stores in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg and Germany. Check out their really fun site that Alex brought to our attention.
Here's a new video from the Pet Shop Boys that uses time lapse photography and QR (quick response) codes. The track uses a 1984 narrative as a launch-pad for an attack on ID cards, so naturally, the QR codes link to civil liberties websites.
