Business opportunities - anticipating future develops

If you are looking at business opportunities one of the best ways to identify them is by looking at trends. The trends might be in any of the following:
1. Technology development - for instance take a look at these developments
2. Lifestyle - clearly we are looking at living or retiring in attractive locations globally
3. Personal preferences - We are rethinking our priorities rather than just accepting social or parental values. Many of us are retiring earlier overseas rather than saving up a fortune to retire in the West.

You might think that large corporations will drive a lot of these developments, but that is not always the case. Even if large capital resources are needed to develop a technology, often its small service companies who could be the ones who benefit from the technology.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

The future of geographic search - with or without Google

Here is a decent looking web application - www.verveearth.com/landing. No doubt you are familiar with search engines. But I've often wondered where geographic information systems would take us since Google took centre stage. This company offers a 'geographic' search function rather than a concept or keyword search like Google. The reality is that Google revenues are going to plunge unless they can come up with a new paradigm. I think Verve might be closer to it. At this point it might be hard to imagine such a program being useful. Ok, you are interested in Arab people so you can scan some map to find links to Arab blogs. Interesting? Maybe...but not terribly lucrative.
The opportuinity here is to link GIS information with your cell phone. This gives prospective advertisers location-specific information about you. Now this might not sound so powerful to you, but consider the opportunity to:
1. Tie your location data in with knowledge about your likes, interests, tastes, etc
2. Tie your location data in with your general need to eat and drink. Maybe you'll be walking past a restaurant and they know from your membership that you like Indian food. In that instance you receive an email offering you a discount.

This is not hard to do. There are already products which tie GPS data to you. No one has yet made a revenue model from it to my knowledge. Of course already some models of cell phones have GPS already installed. Living in Metro Manila, I'm surprised how many people actually have N90 series phones. Makes you wonder where they get the money. Thats the extent of corruption I guess. :) But rest assured there will be more GPS-enable phones and cameras on the market in future. This is powerful in several ways:
1. The opportunity for advertisers to target people based on location & website profile data

2. The opportunity for cell phone companies to work with such GIS-based websites (like Verve) to develop an advertising model
3. The opportunity for telcos to generate revenues from advertisers for their location-specific data
4. The attraction of LAN-wifi, Wimax for providing GIS info as a competitive option to cell companies
5. The attraction of GIS-based websites to sell advertising through location data.

People currently have only limited search capability through their phones. Its also fair to say that these early GPS phones are pretty crude and cumbersome. They will however bevome sleak in time. I also suggest that

VerveEarth enables users to organize the information of the internet into a virtual world where content and users have a definite place. The neat thing about VerveEarth is that its a new type of search. VerveEarth enables you to surf the net in a completely new way and discover content you didn't even know existed. Curious to know what people in the Middle East talk and read about? Just go there. You might even strike up a conversation.

Clearly the value in this type of facility is in ‘just in time’ service delivery and advertising. More and more we will be doing business on mobile applications. The last aspect of this opportunity is the possibility of telcos offering free line rental if you are open to advertising news. If this is to happen telcos will have to make their incoming messages alot more enticing than they are now. Expect tunes, full colour images of some nearby restaurant, as well as other special enticements. eg. The first groups to fill the restaurant get a free beer! Of course they could also offer a web-based search as well. I think that car-based GPS might be a thing of the past. The other possible competition in this market might be GPS. It cannot be forgotten that GPS used by telcos is 'Geographic' NOT 'Global' Positioning System. Telcos use towers rather than satellites, so this will have implications for global reach and competition. But thats another story for another galaxy. Yeh I know.... I didnt need to say it.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Setting up a backpackers in Japan

There are actually no backpackers in Japan. There is a variety of discount accommodation, though nothing quite as cheap. I have always thought there is no better place than Japan for backpackers accommodation so it surprises me that I dont see any. The attractions are:
1. Lack of competition
2. Availability of the Japan Rail pass concession to foreigners
3. Availability of VERY CHEAP foreclosed properties which provides cheap accommodation in Japan.
For more information see my post on Foreclosed Property in Japan. There is a range of locations that suit a backpackers - coasta foreclosed properties, properties in rural areas, ski villages, onsens, and city suburbs. Everything is close to some commercial centre in Japan.
My idea was to establish a web portal to provide a gateway to internet-based bookings. If anyone is interested, let me know. Houses in Japan rent for Y50-60,000 per month ($150/week or $20/night) for a whole place, but I think we could charge $20-30/night per person depending on the location. Some people might only want to rent out for a season. Obviously cheaper for longer rentals.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Real estate agents of the future

This is the way of the future - you can use First National brand for familiarity, but the next issue is keeping the customer, afterall there are several 'brands' in your suburb. What distinguishes them? Do you think its the 'brand'? Nope. Thats what gets them in the door; your door, but maybe they went into 3 doors. So the next trick is differentiating yourself from the rest. So what do all real estate agents have in common? Well here is a few issues where they might be similar or upon which they might differentiate themselves:
1. Nice to you
2. Treat you with respect
3. They go out of their way for you
4. They show an interest in you that goes beyond the sale - beyond the commission
5. They dont treat you like a tire kicker
6. They how sonething about the local property market
7. They know something about the economy
8. They have information (support) to bring you up to speed, information in your language
9. They have local data - just numbers mind you
10. They have visual presentations of data.

You want to know the future of business, well here is it. It does not lie with real estate franchises. They should be doing this, but they are too comfy in their entrenched ologopolies. No the future is where some smart real estate agent starts designing tools for the customer. That agent or programmer is going to be showing developing tools which bring data to life. A tool that turns those facts in databases into graphical mapping images, charts, pie charts. This will increase the useability and utility of agents and ensure they retain customers. Any takers?

There are a number of appealing aspects to using charts. The thing is that its far easier to create charts in excel and just copy and paste them as images into Blogger or webpage. Where dynamic data is more useful is where you have dynamic data. The way I could use the dynamic data is:

1. Real estate prices in different markets
2. Share prices for the stocks I like
3. Share indices

Here is the code to get you started - http://code.google.com/apis/chart/. Offered by Google, though its quite possible you will outgrow Google. Afterall everyone has access to the code. Who has the time to do it? Who is so organised and capable to oversee a programming exercise. Real estate just took on a new direction.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Setting up an English School in Japan

Some ideas come from seeing opportunities in the things you can acquire. It might seem a little haphazard to go out on a limb and buy a property in order to set up a business. But if you are already in the business of teaching English, does it not seem like a natural progression to set up an English School. Here is a property well suited for that purpose, being sold through tender as a foreclosed property for a minimum of $US30,000. See the details at on my foreclosed website.
The only other costs I would think are $3,000-5,000 fixing the place up based on the court documents.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Online gaming ideas anyone?

Reading the following announcement, I can see where this is going. Your Google Maps will be rendered as 3D maps so that you can interact with them to play online games. You will able in future I dare say to place games like 'Race Around The World', where the idea is that you challenge another person in another part of the world to get to your place 'virtually' - who ever gets to their challengers house first wins. I expect they will even integrate these games into real-time train, shipping, bus schedules. That might be a while off folks, but some more basic variant will be available within 2 years I am guessing. Thats how fast the world is moving.
Google tools to power virtual worlds
Google tools to power virtual worlds — Get ready for online games set in your favorite Google Earth locations. — Virtual-worlds platform developer Multiverse Network is set to announce a partnership Tuesday that will allow anyone to create a new online interactive 3D environment …
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com