My friend just launched this site - http://www.truconnection.com/ . I've been happily married for many years so I'm not really the target demo for the site....curious to see what others think of the overall site and the concept.

His idea is that there is room for disruption in the current e-dating market and his way of matching couples is more of an art than a science. I guess he's thinking that people will post "creative" things they like and that seeing the type of art, books, articles a person reads is a better way to match couples.

It's a cool idea, but the vast majority of people are not skilled at a creative type of activity. I think he'll find that he's targeting a certain demographic (young creative types) very well, and the rest of the population not at all.

Also, for his demographic, he doesn't have the best possible design. It's nearly a nice Web 2.0 style looking site, these are holding it back, IMO: ugly serif fonts, ugly face silhouettes, and blah gray color scheme.

There are tons of review(recommendation) sites and tons of dating sites...

why hasn't someone combined the two?

or somehow let friends recommend single friends to other single friends but online...

haha this is a pretty sick idea, might be hard to get around guys writing awesome fake reviews about themselves...

couch surfing website has verified and non verified reviewers/host/surfers...

Great idea, would help people recognize where they are going wrong with dates as well.

I think the "recommended dates" site is a great idea also.

One negative thing about rating/reviews imo is that people might be embarrassed by bad reviews and then quit your site for good, also I imagine with online dating as it is right now, some are taking a different approach from date to date and/or are especially liking the clean slate they get.

One date went wrong between 2 approved people could seriously harm the chances of one or both of them on your site and while I like the idea in general and think it could up the % of successful dates (however you measure them), you're still wanting to be paid monthly by everyone, losers and and winners alike, no?

Something like "only pay after a successful date" would be cool, but I guess there is no way to enforce it and even if it were you'd probably still make less money than by charging everyone regardless of outcome or if they ever even go to a date or just browse your site all day.

Great read.

The bad review thing is a problem but on the flip said woman might be more likely to use a site where the guys have been reviewed (more women is usually good). If it is recommendations only then it would only be positive. I.e. the site where "nice guys finish first" . You could let people decide to show or not show reviews. Of course they would only show good reviews but people would get a sense of people by how many good reviews they show....anyways I'm not saying its a perfect idea...just a random thought really.

When ever a show is advertised on T.V a small barcode shows up that you can scan with you iphone that put the show into a t.v guide reminder app. Sky over here have series link but not many shows are on it.
All I need is a T.V station

As a hardcore fantasy sports player, I think a smartphone app that alerts you when major news breaks (injuries, trades etc) is something I'd be willing to pay for on a subscription basis.

You'd think there would be something out there already, but I'm yet to find it.

In a world where information is king, I think a lot of people all over the world would be willing to pay for it. As it will mean the difference between picking up that hot free agent like Jeremy Lin, and having another team pick them up.

That's what separates the winners from the losers in fantasy sports.

Plenty more ideas about how this would be executed to cater for the different league formats etc. But will leave out for now.

Thoughts?

For real football there's http://www.fantasyfootballscout.co.u...ball-injuries/
I was almost certain I saw they (or a close competitor) had something in the app store.


Definite gap if there's no similar site/app for handegg and other made up games.

am i missing something? how does that work in fantasy sport, Are there a limited amount of teams that can have a certain player in it or what?
i thought any one can buy a certain player for there team if they have the budget to do so?

Just wrote a big post about your question, and lost it. Bugger.

So in brief:
- lots of different fantasy sport structures.
- Aimed at the leagues where each player can only appear on one team's roster. Typical league size is 10-12 teams, with 15 or so players. This is for basketball
- Negative with idea is that big players like ESPN, Yahoo and CBSSports will probably enter the market soon. But as of now, don't think there is much.

Looks like there are a few companies already out there that offer alerts. Matter of time before they all have their own smartphone app.

http://www.fantasyalarm.com/
http://www.fantasyfootballstarters.com/alerts.jsp

A system for showing which parking spots are available.

Start in a private underground parking garage:

In the middle of every parking spot you put a wireless light sensitive sensor (stick it, make a tiny hole in the ground, whatever). When there's no car on it the sensor detects the artificial lightning, when there is a car on it the light it detects will be a lot less strong. This seems like an easy way to detect whether a car is in that spot or not.

So then you get that information (how much light is detected -> is a car in that spot) on a display showing the free spots. Rather than entering a parking garage with xx free spots and still having to circle around 5 times because you can't find the free ones you can know just see on the display where the free spot is and ride straight to it. That should save you a couple of mins in busy garages. I think people would value that and would be willing to pay slightly more for a garage that has this system in place.

And maybe in the future you don't need a physical display but you could integrate it into people's GPS's or on board computers.


You could also do the same thing outdoors. Will be a bit harder technically (sensor has to be more durable, detecting lightning/whether a car is over the sensor will be harder probably), but if the above works this should work too. When you go to a supermarket at a busy time it can take you a couple of minutes to find a spot just circling the parking. Being able to check the display at the entrance of the parking and drive straight to the free spot seems like it would provide value/make the experience of shopping at that particular supermarket more enjoyable.

Thoughts?

And yeah, I got this idea while spending 15 minutes circling the block for an available spot wondering why I still have to do this in 2012.

For the dating site thing, how about a site where people have mandatory vid reviews of them by friends its sorta gets rid of the predatory behavior concerns to some extent?
I understand people might not like the idea of making a video where they present themselves as it might not be an easy task to be charming/know what to say, but it wouldn’t be that hard for friends to do.


Also anyone know a bit about the patenting process in Canada/US and how complicated it is?

Home automation sucks and I feel like our homes are so archaic.

I don't have the skill set to do any of these things but I'd love to invest in companies that are trying to innovate home automation.

This is a step in the right direction http://www.nest.com/ .

My ideas:

Electric windows. Why doesn't this exist? It's a pain in the ass to go around the house to open and close windows. Some are behind couches, you have to pull up the annoying wooden blinds, unlock the window etc...

Then there's those times of the year where you can cool down your house by opening the windows instead of using A/C. Why aren't my windows connected in some way with the thermostat? The windows could automatically open and close to control the temperature in your home. I always end up just putting the A/C on instead.

I want to be able to control everything with my phone. Any other ideas for getting our homes to be more high tech?

It exists but the cost is prohibitive. Retrofitting an existing house could easily exceed 100k, there isn't much demand due to the cost.

Even replacing standard windows is very expensive. You have to add wiring from a power source to power the motors in the windows, controllers, etc..

When I was doing remodeling 15 years ago we installed 2 electric powered skylights (each was only about 2' x 3') and each one opened a total of 4 inches to allow for ventilation. They also had moisture sensors that would automatically close them if it started to rain.

If I remember right it cost about 12k total for the windows and installation. Window prices haven't come down and labor has gone up so its a pretty expensive luxury.

Its obviously a lot less expensive if planned into new construction since you can pre wire and allow the extra space needed in the rough framing but still there aren't a lot of people willing to spend 50k for power windows.

I should of stated that I know it exists. I just find it crazy that there isn't an affordable/practical solution in this day and age. If you get it in the 25K range I think it becomes a no brainer for homes over 500k.

If it actually works for reducing energy use I'm sure you could get some nice governmental help behind it.

I have an idea for a simple dating app on facebook that makes money just by advertising (They watch a 30seconds clip before the app works).

If any one knows how to program for facebook let me know

I know lots of people who have homes in the 500K range. I'm pretty sure none of them think that 25K is just a drop in the bucket for their house just because the house paper value is 500K. It is still 25K and 25K is a lot of money - and it can buy much more pressing things than automated windows. People do not plunk down 500K on their houses, either. They pay their mortgage each month and to most of them, 25K is a huge one-time expenditure.

Personally, I can count on one hand how often I open windows and I don't see the point of opening inconvenient windows at all. I have central a/c and heating. If I want to feel the breeze and sunshine, I will walk out on the deck. I don't really want drafts between rooms and windows. To me, windows are in the house primarily to get natural light inside.

My idea is for an online based classified ad service, like Craigslist, that isn't the absolute worst ****ing website on the ****ing Earth. What the ****ing hell is it 1994 in here or what. I'VE ALREADY SEEN THIS ****ING APARTMENT AD 15 ****ING TIMES SOME ******* POSTS IT EVERY 15 ****ING MINUTES. WHY HASNT GOOGLE PUT THESE ****ERS OUT OF BUSINESS ALREADY.

This idea may be better off in one of the trading threads, but hopefully it gets some response.

From James Altucher's blog
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2012/04...ed-stockpickr/

But I still needed money. I pitched a major $10 billion hedge fund on an idea I had. Here’s the idea: (you can steal it if you want. It’s still a good idea): I would take the top 30 best investors: Warren Bufffett, Carl Icahn, etc. and I would buy all of the stocks they own but at discounts to where they bought them. Any big investor has to file every quarter what they own. So I could roughly guess what price they paid. And if Buffett owned Exxon at $100 and it went down to $50 its like Warren Buffett works for me, gave me his full analysis about why Exxon was cheap at a $100 AND I get the 50% discount to what he paid. Thanks Warren! And guess what: I pay Warren nothing for his hard work. BAM!

I would diversify across 30 of the top investors and diversify in every industry and hedge my positions by shorting (betting against) the broader markets. I don’t want to get too technical here. But I modeled out the idea and the results were phenomenal. I pitched the $10 billion hedge fund and they loved it. They were willing to start me out with $100 million and build up from there but I had to come in and sit at their office. What?? AND I had to stop all of my writing and all of my other “activities”.