Cool Product of the Day

With all of the websites we can visit to find deals from retailers online, there seems to be very little innovation left to make any one better than another.  Patroneer is, offering an array of unique services that set is apart from typical websites offering discounted merchandise from major brands.  The app’s creators call it your deal scout, and it does a few things differently than users might expect.  With all of the email lists, subscription services, and websites with hundreds of pages of individual items to browse, the key with Patroneer is organization, de-cluttering, and consolidation. Read more »

While it is easy to see the work done by famous artists or to connect with large companies, smaller local artists and vendors simply do not have the resources and connections to maintain such a large public presence.  ZIIBRA is an app that allows them to connect much more easily with potential customers as well as providing a platform for users to discover them more effectively and thoroughly. It is a place online to meet artisans and creators to discover their creative works.  ZIIBRA lets you explore artists and makers from around the world so that, in its developers’ words, you can get closer to the people behind the art, products, and experiences you love.  It lets you browse a variety of categories to satisfy a broad range of interests including music, food, handcraft, and a lot more. Read more »

Building, maintaining and growing a successful sports organization or club is an ongoing and often challenging effort, and while most keep pace using modern technology, not many products exist focused solely on this challenge.  Korrio is a cloud-based service for organizing youth sports designed, in the developers’ words, to unify and amplify the sports life of every athlete. According to its creators, Korrio provides the tools required to get players on the field as well as an online environment for staff, families and fans to share and build community. The app offers clubs, teams, families, and fans the ability to stay informed and connected through one integrated and safe solution. Read more »

For all of the social media that we engage in daily, there is very little that tailors directly to families while allowing the privacy we need in a potentially dangerous online environment.  Along with the dangers that can come with browsing the Internet, it can be challenging to keep family coordinated and emotionally connected.  Squarehub is an app that, in its developers’ words, is the private social network designed exclusively for your family. The development of technology brings with it unique new problems as well as solutions, and Squarehub looks to solve these problems.  While social media offers us myriad new ways to branch out and connect to people we may not otherwise meet, the lack of privacy can become increasingly worrisome. It can also be difficult and complicated to gather family information through multiple emails, text messages, and social media accounts.  Meanwhile, teenagers desire more freedom while parents are concerned about their safety, and they do not always understand online etiquette.  Along with all these things, communication between family members can significantly diminish between all of the online chatter and busyness.  Squarehub offers an innovative solution to deal with all these dilemmas. Read more »

As one of the most important elements of working toward improving our future, some organizations are putting a great deal of effort into implementing technological advancements in education.  While technology has improved the admissions process by making it faster, easier and more efficient to conduct online, we have taken very few steps beyond the basics.  Ravenna’s developers claim that their app is transforming K-12 admissions for private schools by implementing a fully paperless process for every step from the very first inquiry to the final decision.   Parents looking for private, higher quality schooling for their children and administrators of these schools often face the most difficulty in the process.  This is due to higher standards and the submission of many more applications than a school is able to accept.  A great deal of review also needs to go into every one.  Ravenna looks to address this issue in a number of ways in order to improve the admissions process altogether. Read more »

There are many apps and products dealing with company to consumer business interactions, but relatively few dedicated to aiming technology toward enabling local organizations to team together in joining the online marketplace.  Deal Co-op’s creators advertise “group buying and daily deals made easy,” based on their belief that, in their words, anyone with an online audience can generate sustainable profit by creating their own deal store.  Deal Co-op is a software platform built specifically for group buying, which is a business practice in which a company offers products and services at significantly reduced prices on the condition that a minimum number of buyers purchase them.  While the general concept is the basis for many online special discount programs, Deal Co-op’s designers aim to make the process much simpler, faster, and more effective to implement. Read more »

As far as we have come technologically, there are some aspects of everyday life in which we could still put the progress we have made to more thorough use.  One of these is public parking, particularly as it relates to those who operate civic or workplace parking facilities. Parkio’s developers saw a need to apply better solutions to maximizing parking space while allowing more income for those who own and control it, creating their app to fix a few difficulties that technology could serve to improve. Firstly, space is a valuable resource because of its scarcity, particularly in certain urban areas, and few organizations get any real value from owning and operating this space.  Secondly, many companies, especially retailers, are spending large sums of money for parking, increasing the costs of the goods they sell in order to make up for it.  Finally, transportation initiatives being implemented focus on moving vehicles rather than making the best use out of the limited space available. Read more »

Even with the technological progress we have made, the problem of misplaced or even permanently lost luggage is one that still plagues thousands of flyers every year.  Passenger Baggage Express is a product that exists to curtail this dilemma by applying technology to facilitate communication between airlines and passengers in order to increase the efficiency of the baggage handling operations while enhancing passengers’ travel experiences.    The app’s designers were able to pinpoint an obvious and widespread service deficiency, and they created PBX to keep airlines and passengers permanently connected.  The application serves to provide the convenience of knowing the whereabouts of your luggage while offering its partners a time saving method to get “troubled” luggage back on track. Read more »

While advancing technology enables us to accomplish things much more simply and quickly than we previously could, there is still a great deal of unrealized potential for it.  We can search for anything online that would have taken much longer to find otherwise, and with mobile technologies such as smartphones and tablets, we can do it wherever we happen to be at any time.  We have applied these advances in almost every imaginable way, and Personify.it looks to employ them for something better by directing them to social good.  According to its developers, Personify is “volunteering made simple, social and fun.” For those who seek to be of help in their neighborhoods or want to volunteer in their communities but are not certain where to start, Personify seeks to make a sometimes long and difficult search quick and easy. Read more »

Starting a business is rarely easy, and one of the greatest challenges is designing a recognizable image that can serve to increase growth.  Poor brand marketing can prevent a company from gaining the recognition it needs, while exceptional brand marketing could lead to its recognition as a household name with time.  Opal serves to help companies fulfill one of the most difficult tasks a business must undergo.  It works on the simple principle that planning how a business will run is complicated and can be simpler as well as more efficient.  Branding is almost dependent on social media now, and the customer relationships a company is able to gain can improve significantly with exposure to the much larger crowd it can reach through social media websites. Read more »