Madison Who’s Who Blog

Madison Who’s Who members who often make presentations or would like to package an introduction to their consultancy services might be interested in a new site that seeks to serve you as well as entrepreneurs who are pitching their wares. Springwise.com features Vator.tv.

“Pitching the next great idea to prospective business partners, investors, service providers and fellow entrepreneurs just got easier with Vator.tv—a new venture that combines online video and networking. Based on the proverbial elevator pitch—the notion that you should be able to sum up a new business venture in the few minutes it takes to ride an elevator—Vator.tv is an online marketplace for new ideas. “Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.”

Here’s how it works: users sign up for a free account. They then create pitches for their ideas, projects or businesses in a rich media environment by uploading video, images, PPT or PDF files. They can choose to share their pitches with a personal network or with the entire Vator.tv community. Users build their networks by inviting friends to join or browsing through other ideas and connecting with like-minded people on the site. The website includes tips on creating compelling pitches, such as how to pack the most punch into a three-minute video clip. ”
from Springwise.com

An excellent tool for collaborative efforts as well as B2B networking and yet another instance of the innovation continually spawned on the net.

Reality is having a more and more difficult time finding purchase in today’s world. Most have heard of Second Life and have been amused by the news and antics that emanate from that pretend world. But then, maybe not so pretend. We’ve mentioned the delusional idea that virtual rapes might merit prosecution in the real world. We also have written of Sweden establishing an embassy as well as sundry corporations establishing Second Life outposts.

If you have yet to find merit in a fabricated world, perhaps a tour will change your mind. In fact, if you are an entrepreneur, there is opportunity for you to profit from introducing Second Life to the uninitiated.

“Since volunteers make wonderful guides, but can’t always be relied on to show up at the agreed time and place, SL Tourguides is offering newcomers professional tours for a fee. The company focuses on business travellers: “You will learn the lingo, learn the protocols, ask questions as you go and find the places/experiences you need to know about. Once you’ve done a tour you will be better placed to decide whether you want to do business in SL.” SL Tourguides offers a 30-minute training session to get to grips with handling an avatar, learning to move, take pictures and store locations. Once they’ve covered the basics, customers can take shopping tours to see what’s happening in virtual retail (90 minutes), or visit examples of what other companies are getting up to in SL (90 minutes). All tours are priced at USD 10 per 30 minutes. SL Tourguides works with freelance guides, who pay the agency a 20% commission fee.”
from Springwise.com

Perhaps it is good that boutique hotels and pop-up camp grounds were not in existence during Woodstock and during the many years the Grateful Dead toured with a minor city of bedraggled hippies trailing behind them. Given the irreverent disposition of those in that supposed counter-culture crowd, such accommodations might have been torn to shreds.

Music festivals have come a long way since the days of dirty hippies wandering, acid-dazed, through festival grounds that resembled refugee camps more than anything actually festive.

With the advent of new start-ups such as BoutiqueCamping in England, one can attend their outdoor festival of choice posing as a care free hippie while living like a well pampered capitalist.

“BoutiqueCamping.net Ltd is a fresh, new production company set-up by the existing market leaders in providing alternative festival and campsite accommodation. Our aim is to provide a ‘one-stop-shop’ for both festival organisers and festival goers alike, supporting the whole process of bringing stunning and funky places to stay into your favourite festival fields across the land.
At BoutiqueCamping.net you’ll be able to browse the accommodation on offer and book your crash-pad all in one place, knowing that when you get to the festival our team will be expecting you at our on-site check-in and reception.

For 2007, many of our festival boutique camping villages will provide access to the best toilets and showers around, usually as an all inclusive provision.”
(Source:Springwise)

Oh, before we forget to mention it, Madison Who’s has been written up and reviewed by SmartWealthyRich.com.

Effective global networking and extensive travel go hand in hand. There is nothing so enraging as arriving at your hotel and find that it is totally out of synch with your expectations. Today’s consumers are steadily developing online sites that offer real time reviews of hotel accommodations around the world. The disgruntled businessman can now sit in his sub-par suite of rooms and describe them vividly on his blog or in an online forum. Marriot’s Bill Marriott has started a blog, potentially opening the chain up to the criticisms of dissatisfied customers.

Going one better, Trivop, located in France, has started a site featuring hotel video tours.

“Launched a few weeks ago, Trivop claims to be the first online hotel video portal. Using Google maps to help users find hotels, the website gives them the next best thing to visiting a hotel in person—a video walkthrough. Each video begins with some street footage near the hotel. The video camera then takes the viewer up to the entrance and into the lobby and other public spaces, and on to a room. Videos are available for each of type of room a hotel offers (standard, deluxe, junior suite, etc), including shots of the bathroom and the view through the window.”

Coming soon is their invitation to both travelers as well as professional film makers to upload their own videos.

“Trivop is convinced that hotels must provide a video on their website. We want to open up many business opportunities for you by building the biggest community of filmmakers all around the world for the hospitality industry.”
from Springwise.com

Do you Jott? Jott is a new free online service that allows the caller to dictate a message from their cell phone which gets sent to the recipient via text message and email. You can jott to yourself, to your group and to individual recipients.

“The service is deceptively simple, and lends itself to countless applications. It can be used to leave notes to oneself, from a reminder to buy a carton of milk, to capturing a brilliant idea. Or to draft emails, memos, or the next chapter of a novel while driving home from work. Lawyers and doctors, accustomed to speaking their correspondence and notes, can dictate on the fly.

Intriguingly, Jott has humans transcribing voice messages. Since phones are often used in noisy environments, and Jott’s founders didn’t want members to have to train speech recognition software, Jott uses a mix of machines and overseas agents that also work on medical dictations. For privacy protection, agents have no way of associating personally identifiable information with the recorded jotts they’re transcribing (unless a users makes that information part of the recording).”
Springwise.com

Presently the service is free but the plan is to offer an ad- free premium service. For now, the service is only available in the US and Canada.

Citizen spotters consist of a world wide network of 8,000 people who report innovative business ideas. Were there a who’s who for highly inventive and intelligent business concepts, then the three startups featured at Springwise would definitely be worthy of nomination.

Veno, My Medical Control and MedBillManager are all startups that are “attempting to shift power back to consumers by helping them negotiate lower medical costs”

Vimo allows the consumer to comparison shop health costs. They are also encouraged to submit charges that have already been incurred.If they are not the lowest available wholesale prices, Vimo will negotiate a price for a share of the savings.

My Medical Control focuses strictly on negotiation bills.

“The average provider — doctors or hospitals — has between 5 and 100 reimbursement rates for the exact same procedure,” said Timothy Cahill, president of My Medical Control. “A hospital chain with multiple locations may have 150 rates for the same procedure.” (Source: nytimes.com.) Reimbursement rates are negotiated between health care providers and insurers, and are far from transparent. My Medical Control takes customers’ medical claims, looks for over-charges and contacts the provider directly to discuss and settle the claim at a reduced amount. The entire process takes 7-10 days and My Medical Control charges a fee of 35% of the savings.”

MyBillMed is free software that will manage all medical expenses as well as provide access to data that gives a picture of what other people will pay for the same procedures.

Find links and full article at Springwise.com