Highway Exit Sign Radio

Tune your radio in to a standard station (like 1000 AM)

In a radius about 2 miles from an exit, a hyper-local radio broadcast is generated. Local businesses at that exit, their hours of operation and their distance from the exit are read over the air in a continuous loop.

Paid for (obviously) by advertising.

This expands the exit signage system, providing easier updates and longer range than the road signs.

The messages can be changed and customized based on date, day of week, and time of day.

Management is through a website and remote updates are instant.

The broadcasts will also be available on the web and through a toll-free phone call system, allowing access from further away.

Local WOW servers

I’d love to see local hosting of World of Warcraft servers, that DMs can customize. let artists and writers create dungeons and items, let the items get graded (and coded),and potentially merged into the official game.

Would Blizzard lose money with this? They could still make each person pay $14 a month to join locally? is there a server cost the people chip in for?

New adventures. New dungeons. New items and weapons. New races and classes. Just like traditional role playing games.

Netflix vending machine at airports

I would love to see a vending machine for netflix movies at the airport.

Top movies in each category would be available instantly. The credit card scanner would verify existing netflix users, or let you rent a single movie (for an extremely high single-movie fee) or sign up for a regular acount

Drop boxes would be placed at gates and near the baggage claim to ease return of movies.

Recording studio in the mall

Harken back to the old days when elvis walked in to Sun Studios and cut a demo for $25 bucks.

Imagine a storefront in the mall, with a picture window on each side of the door looking in to a recording studio, with singers cutting songs. You can go in, play some background music, sing the lyrics and cut a demo on professional quality equipment.

Karaoke for real.

For more serious talent, there could be backup musicians for live recording on call. (Musicians would _love_ live gigs, I would assume)

Pricing options would allow one song, a 5 song minidisc, or a full 10 song album. You can walk away with a CD of your songs, and the music will also be available to you on a website, where you can download mp3s, and order more CDs.

You can get a discount on the price of the studio if people walking by in the mall can watch or listen.

10% off if others can listen. (mic open)

10% off if others can watch. (curtain open). Use light polarized windows for digital instant on/off.

Some money needs to go to record companies/bmi/ascap (for all but performance rights, or performance rights if using backup track)

Tie-ins can include idol-like contests and voting, and karaoke nights in local clubs.

The Pillow Store

Have you ever stayed at your grandmother’s house, or a friend’s house, and absolutely loved the pillows, and wished you could go back 50 years and buy some for yourself? Have you ever stayed at a hotel, and loved the bedding? Or been at a department store and been disappointed in the pillow selection available?

The Pillow Store is a one-stop shop for buying bed pillows. Most large home goods stores have a fairly small and poor selection of pillows. There needs to be a single source to find a broad selection of high-quality pillows, in a wide price range, expert clerks to answer questions, and an onsite seamstress to customize pillows as you wait.

A small storefront in a mall or other existing high traffic area, or can be added to an existing larger store as a self-contained boutique.

Complimentary website for ordering, reordering, store locations.

An onsite seamstress, who can custom make pillows to fit _your_ needs exactly. Pillows can be shaped and customized to exactly fit our contour needs. Your custom pillow patterns are saved, and available again for reorder at any time.

Rehab and cleaning of existing pillows is also provided.

• pillows
• pillow covers.
• instructions on how to choose a pillow
• instructions on how to care for a pillow.
• pillow matching (bring in your favorite pillow, we can match it)

Materials

• down
• feather
• poly
• blend
• thermapedic

i-wish.org

This is envisioned to be a very simple web service that allows people to drop short things they wish.

An electronic wishing well, or a web version of the prayer ribbon trees.

Another variant, different but similar would be i-am-thankful.org

columns-r-us.com

Very thin vertical site that provides an authoritative source for information, products and services relating to columns, for both interior and exterior/facade.

Catalogs of where to buy, service ads for people to install and maintain, design information, and advice.

• Wood
• Stone
• Tile
• Concrete
• Laminate
• Antique rescues

InternsWanted.com

A simple site that allows companies to post available part-time work for internships, holiday and vacation workers.

The postings can include bios of the intern supervisors, and even a linkedIn-style “connection tree” from company employees to others for those college and high-school kids that realize networks are of prime importance.

brickhouse.com or newenglandbrickbuildings.com

New England has hundreds of small towns centered around former brick buildings from mill and industrial complexes.

Many of these buildings have been renovated as businesses or condos or apartments, but there are thousands more that are waiting to be resurrected.

Some of the buildings are even available from towns for just back taxes (at least, that has been true in the past)

brickhouse.com will be a website listing all of the brick and stone buildings in New England (and eventually everywhere).

Listings will include real estate listings of properties for sale or rent, contractors specializing in rehabilitation, zoning and local ordinances, state or federal grants or tax breaks, and data about each site (site size, location, year built, last used, current owner, tax assessment information, and hopefully pictures,, including historic pictures.)

carbonfootprint.com

A simple site to calculate and track your carbon footprint.

Include articles on how to reduce your footprint, product advertisements and reviews, and a community discussion board.

And, of course, a blog.