People Power Internet Shapes New Innovations

By Michael Ha
Staff Reporter

Independent research firm Trendwatching.com has released its latest report on social and business innovations around the world. The report, compiled with participation from more than 8,000 members in 70 countries, says people empowered with online communities now lead many of the new innovations worldwide.

The report compiled by the Netherlands-based company also showed a number of business trends, including the model that encourages giving away products for free by financing operations entirely with embedded advertising. It also said companies are making big profits by marketing energy-efficient and environmentally friendly products and services.

Here is a summary of emerging innovations and trends discussed in the report.

Tapping Into People Power

Trendwatching.com calls it ``The Crowd Express," social and business innovations that are funded, organized, sourced, managed and powered by an online crowd.

One group leading this trend is called Carrotmob. This San Francisco-based non-profit group organizes consumers so that they can make purchases that give financial rewards to environment-friendly corporations.

The group has created a broad network of consumers and is forming partnerships with other larger advocacy groups. Chosen companies that agree to adopt socially and environmentally positive changes are rewarded with what the group calls ``shopping sprees'' by the group's members, which boost short-term profits. One of the group's principal members is a Korean-American named Jacob Park. This non-profit group says it hopes to eventually finance its social campaign activities with various advertisements.

In one campaign in March, the group's network members turned up at a local retail company. As agreed to prior to the event, the retailer spent a quarter of the profit from the members' shopping sprees to make its stores more environmentally friendly and energy efficient. At least 300 members showed up and spent more than $9,000, according to the group's Web site.

Another association hoping to leverage crowd power is a Web site called The Point. It organizes group actions to promote environment and social issues.

``We help people congregate around the issues they care about and combine forces to make things happen," the group says. Its campaigns use the so-called ``tipping point" model.

This tipping point ― a point at which group actions will produce a clear result ― is applied to organizing group efforts. Those who join a campaign pledge to take specific action ― to boycott a company, for example, or donate funds toward a cause. But no one actually acts until the campaign reaches a certain number of pledged participants. When that critical mass is reached, the action is triggered and participants make their donations, attend an event or boycott as planned.

A Scottish company is also using people power in its latest business endeavor. It is starting a new music concert series, called Tennent's Mutual, which will organize live music festivals where online fans select artists, debate locations for gigs and decide on fair ticket prices. Fans are given founder member status and the right to vote on all corporate decisions including how the start-up money is invested.

And a U.K.-based company is looking to the online crowd to make the company's strategic decisions. The company, called BeerBankroll, aims to start a brewery where online members make most of the business decisions.

It is currently recruiting 50,000 members, each of whom will contribute $50 in exchange for voting rights on ideas such as the company name, logo, product design, product mix, advertising and sponsorship.

Profiting From Giving 'Free' Products

In addition to tapping into crowd power, another growing trend involves giving away free products. A growing number of companies around the world are deciding to give away their products, but are still making big profits, according to Trendwatching.com.

One company that's been succeeding with this business model is BLYK. And its service could very well represent a dream come true for many Korean youngsters.

BLYK, a U.K.-based mobile phone network operator, targets 16- to 24-year-olds with its free mobile phone service, which includes 217 texts and 43 minutes of voice calls every month.

In exchange, youngsters have to put up with advertisements ― up to six messages sent to their phones each day. Britain's youngsters don't seem to mind, Trendwatching.com says. BLYK reached its 100,000-subscriber target last month. The service was launched in the U.K. late last year and the company now plans to expand its services to other parts of Europe.

Another company that has embraced this business model is a company called ``The Shadow Notebook." The U.S.-based manufacturer gives away its notebooks to students for free. These notebooks are co-branded with participating universities across the United States and are distributed by the schools at the start of each semester.

The university's logo appears on the cover, while pages of school-related information are included within. Meanwhile, 13 four-color, full-page advertisements act as subject dividers in each notebook, allowing advertisers to reach the coveted young consumers.

Students carry the notebooks with them throughout the day over the course of a semester, which, from the advertiser's perspective, amounts to 96 viewing impressions of these ads over a four-month period. So far, more than 700,000 notebooks have been distributed to university students at various U.S. campuses, according to the company's Web site.

Connecting Supply and Demand Online

There are now countless Web sites that act as online intermediaries between product sellers and potential buyers. But one innovative Web site that has attracted Trendwatching.com's attention is from Holland's ING Bank.

The bank is trying out a new service on its financial Web site that is anything but traditional. In a bid to connect homebuyers with potential sellers, the online service encourages people to make an offer on houses that aren't even on the market, but that they'd love to own.

After potential buyers fill in an online form, including their dream home's address and the initial offer they're willing to make, the bank contacts them to discuss whether the offer is reasonable, and adjusts it if necessary.

A mortgage consultant from the bank then determines whether the potential buyer would be able to finance the purchase. The bank then sends a preliminary offer to the property's current owners and inquires whether they'd consider selling at the right price.

Another Web site featured in the report is called parkingspots.com. Launched earlier this year, the Toronto-based company gives parking-spot holders a way to list their spots, along with a price they want to charge. Those in search of a place to park can see what's available and choose a spot based on location and price. The service is free for renters and for owners with just one or two spots to rent.

Sampling as Advertising

Anyone who has gone to major Korean grocery stores knows how this concept works: giving away free samples as a means of advertisement. Trendwatching.com calls it ``Try-vertising."

The France-based wine company WineSide offers wines packaged in small sample-sized tubes. In addition to giving consumers a new way to sample and discover expensive wines, WineSide's tube format also promises to give vintners new ways to advertise their wines to potentially new customers at an affordable price.

Making Money by Being Green

Launched last year, Motorola's ``Motopower" project has brought 55 solar-powered recharging kiosks to Uganda. These stations offer free mobile phone charging to local costumers. Each station uses a 55-watt inverted solar panel and can charge up to 20 cell phones at a time. The kiosks also offer one-stop shopping including sales of handsets and operator SIM cards as well as phone repair services.

For local people without their own phones, the stations also function as a local phone booth. Motorola is using this environmentally friendly approach to help increase Motorola's share of the local phone market in Africa.

But before installing new solar panels or windmills, it would serve well to find out whether the area receives sufficient sunshine or wind power.

A company called FirstLook sells detailed reports to corporations and consumers who want to generate their own electrical power. It offers analyses on how much wind or sunshine an area is likely to receive, based on years' worth of meteorological data. Information can help determine whether a windmill or solar-panel installation at a chosen location would make good sense. The U.S.-based company plans to expand its service to other countries.

Having Fun With Food

Now for more entertaining innovations, U.S.-based snack company Mars Inc. began an online service that allows customers to have their own pictures printed on the popular M&M candies. The service lets customers upload one or two photos online, pick their colors and add up to two different texts to be printed on each M&M candy.

And finally, what better way to celebrate one's newborn than to have his or her picture imprinted on a sack of rice?

Yosimiya, a Japanese company, is helping parents everywhere celebrate their new babies by offering bags of rice printed with a newborn's photo, name and date of birth, Trendwatching.com reported. The bags are shaped to resemble a swaddled baby and contain the baby's exact weight in rice. Yosimiya is apparently the first company in the world to make these personalized rice bags to order.

michaelha@koreatimes.co.kr