Idea: FriendHitch - Online dating with a difference

You know why online dating is so unpopular these days, its because sweetgirl18 is a 24 year old Tom and hot_chick_for_you is 38 years old Harry, promoting his home business. When angel_gal1989 and jenny362635 eventually decide to meet up in a community park, it so happens that they're both straight and looking for girlfriends.

The problem is that you cannot have a background check for each and every individual who is signed on for a dating web service. Even if you can verify the individual using their credit card, social security etc, you still cant verify if the person is as legit as he/she may look.

FriendHitch, is the idea of a social networking app for dating. Its uniqueness would be in the fact that it would only provide you results from your friends' friend lists. The app, when being used to search for a probable date, would scan the user's friends' friend list to identify singles. The singles would then be matched with the user's age, location, interests et all and returned in the most probable matches. The app would also allow users to specify a lot more than just age/location etc, this would help in searching for matches on a broader criteria. Thus once someone uses the app to find a date, the app would send a notification to the identified date and give both of them a platform to interact. It would even send a notification to the common friend to spice things up and request him/her to arrange a meeting if he thinks you'll click instantly. Since both, the user and the identified date would have a common friend, they would need to worry very little about the authenticity of the other person and could also get to know more about them.

Disclaimer: This post is not based on any personal need and the idea was just an accident between disfunctional grey cells and paranormal grey cells in the author's so called brain. However, the author definitely thinks this idea is a killer and would be an instant hit.

Idea: My Hangouts - Favourite Hangouts of Your Friend Circle

Tired of visiting the same club night after night? The bar tender offers you your drink before you ask for it? The coffee guy doesn't give you sugar sachets cause he knows you don't use them? Wake up! Time to change your place.

My Hangouts is the idea of a Facebook/My Space app, which would let people show their hangouts in town. People could select from a drop down box or add a new area, mark it on the map, define it and rate it. Once a hangout is on the list, people could still add or delete features from the Hangout's dedicated page. This page could also link it to a fan page if it exists. Users could also mention their presence in their hangouts in a particular time slot. Thus, this maps enabled app would in real time, display not only the list of hangouts, their features, user comments, location on the map but also people on your friends list who are currently chilling at the hang out or would be when you plan to be there!

This app is bound to be a hard seller cause a lot of people love to show off their 'chill factor' and the so named hangouts would pay large to be featured on your app. You could also set it up as a website and take it to the next level...

Cheers!

Idea: AnswerMe - Answering Machine With a Difference

Have you ever felt the need to turn off your cellphone for everyone until unless there's something really important. This is a condition you can not achieve without having a personal secretary or a set of callers who you can really connect with telepathy and use it to send a broadcast message!

Well, AnswerMe is an intended mobile phone app which would serve as an answering machine with a special feature. The answer machine can be programmed easily for a mobile phone. Once the app is turned on, any incoming call would be auto answered after a select number of rings, a pre-recorded message stored as an audio file would be played back, after which a new audio file would be set for recording using the incoming phone number and the time stamp. This would function as a simple answering machine.

The difference with AnswerMe would be that it would have a specific mode 'Urgent Only'. When this mode is selected, a different voice message will be played conveying that "The user is only accepting urgent and important calls at the moment, in case this can wait please leave a message and wait for a response, else hangup and redial to connect." Now that the app knows the number from which the call originated, if another call is received from the same number in a gap of 120 seconds, the app will let the call pass through otherwise it will route it to the answering machine again.

Idea: ePenance - Online Confession, Repentance and Absolution

I might sound like it but I haven't committed enough Sins to reach this idea of an online confession application. In fact, this idea struck me when I was thinking what would be the perfect way of repentance for someone else who is the biggest sinner i have known (No disclosures!)

The idea is to have an application 'Penance' for social networking websites like Facebook, MySpace et all. The application would allow users to confess their Sin(s) of the day/week and would provide them an action for repentance after which they would be forgiven in the absolution. The excitement would lie in the fact that the user's friends would select the repentance/punishment that would be suitable for the Sinner (User!), these could also be suggested by the app*. Friends can not only select an action but also vote on someone's suggested action. The action with maximum votes (random in case of a tie) would be assigned to the user for repentance. Once the Sinner confirms that they have faithfully performed the action of repentance, they would be forgiven for their Sin by the Lord.

*Examples of suggested actions could be:
Feed a poor, Say Sorry 100 times on the Wall (Facebook),Visit the Church/Temple, Compliment 10 females on their shared photos, Donate to Charity, etc.

Note: This could even be a full fledged website if additional features can be thought of!

** Lord, I hope you forgive me for all my past, 'upcoming' and "special featured" Sins by thinking of this application ;-) **

EDIT: Please excuse the image, i avoid any possible controversies

Idea: I-Deal - Mobile Search for Best Product Prices

With the mall culture setting in so fast and retailing being the new buzz-iness, it becomes almost inevtiable for people to compare, rate and select the best for there use. What if You get to decide which superstore they go to?

I-Deal is a business idea for startups to help customers determine the ideal deal they're looking for. Imagine using your camera phone to click the barcode of a product and receiving the best deals available in your area for the product. The camera would capture the barcode, convert it into numbers, add your demographic details and send an SMS to a server. This server would compare the price quotes of the product from all superstores in the location and send an SMS back with results classified as Nearest, Best Price and Best Deal. The user can choose if they want the cheapest price, or willing to travel the smallest distance or looking for that free with the product offer.

All this is possible by setting up an SMS Server, a mobile app and product list, store location and quotes from retail stores chains.

Idea: In Da Hood - GPS based Friends Locator

In Da Hood, is my idea of a service for GPS based mobile phones. This would be developed as a mobile app which would be map based (Google Maps for ideal) and would record the users location with a map place-mark. It would work in conjunction with a Social Network (Facebook, MySpace) website to auto-upload the user's current location. It would also download the locations of the user's contacts and display the same on a map with place-marks. It could also be set to auto alert if a particular friend's or all friends locations change and move away from/to the user's vicinity.
Now that the GPS mobile phones are fitting in the pocket, physically and financially, who wouldn't bet on a service that would help them locate who's In Da Hood!

I'm sorry guys, but a turn off button would also be a feature to protect the interest of Girlfriends, boyfriends, wives, husbands et al. Better safe than busted!

Idea: WeCards - Mobile Contacts Backup and Transfer

Switching brands of cellular phones makes it a pain to transfer your entire contact list, calendar entries etc.

This idea 'WeCards' is based on virtual contact cards (also called: vCards) and is perfect to capture the niche created by the above requirement. This would be maintained as a simple web based service which would allow users to register and identify the make of their current phone. Then the users can periodically update their contacts list (option of automatic pre-set time or manual) which would be saved in a universal contact format. The concept that would distinguish this service from other contact back up services would be that users would be allowed to identify the make and model of their cellphone before they restore contacts from the latest backup.
This would ensure that they can backup contacts from any phone and restore to the same or another.

Notes:

• This idea can be extended to Calender entries and Notes in cellphones
  
• If any of the user's contact is also a registered site member, they're latest contact details would be updated automatically in the user's contact list. (Like Plaxo, ZYB etc)
  
• A small Java app can be developed for users to install on their phones, this could automatically detect target phone and allow auto-sync of phonebook.

Idea: RandomsUp - Social Network Apps

We do not interact with everyone on our friend lists on Facebook, MySpace etc. Well, if you do, this aint for you. To randomly keep in touch with our friends, i had a thought of a small application.

RandomsUp (I'd acknowledge someone who suggests a better name!) is a small application that can be built for Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. This App would initiate each time a person logs into their FB/MS account and search for online friends. It would randomly select 1,2...n (preference based) friends and send them a random 'Hi/Whats up' message. In case there are no friends online or other privacy constraints, the app could send a random 'Hi' to any random offline friend. Everything in this app would be customizable, the friend list to be considered, the set of 'Hi/Whats up' messages set, the number of unique friends to send the message, message to be sent as Wall Post / PM (depending on the website) and an option to run on log-in or run daily at a pre-set time.

Come to think of it, this app wouldn't require more than a week to start from scratch, develop and run online on the likes of Facebook and MySpace.