Startup #88 – Prize Patrol

I was at the Microsoft company meeting last week and they were giving away a wide variety of awards.  I was hoping to win “Most Likely To Succeed”, or maybe the coveted “Most Improved”.  Of course I didn’t win (not even the congeniality prize!) but it did inspire today’s idea – a site where you could award fake prizes to your friends and family. 

The basic concept is pretty simple.  It would be set up just like an eCard site where you could browse through a list of humorous awards (“Most Likely to Get Plugs”, “Most Deceitful MySpace Photo”, “Best Suit/Top Hat/Oversized Novelty Check Combo”) or create your own.  The site could stand on it’s own and the awards could be sent via Email.  Or, better yet…wait for it…a Facebook app!  Bet you didn’t see that coming.

I got me some cats!!!  Ridiculously cute…

Startup #87 – College Collage

Ahh, the first day of school.  My condolences. 

Extra condolences to students at my alma matter.  Try to forget about Saturday, the team will get back on track…I hope… 

Today’s idea is pretty simple – a brain-dead simple collage making site.  The collage would be a combination of user-uploaded pictures, words/quotes, and images pulled from flickr (based on keywords entered by the user).  Users could drag and drop the images and words to create a collage of a killer party, a semi-creepy ode to a crush, an homage to your fellow dorm-mates, etc…

There are a few killer features that would help drive adoption.  First, the would be the obligatory “post to facebook/bebo/myspace/orkut…” functionality.  Also, it would be cool to have reverse functionality: users could enter in a Facebook username and the site would pull images and keywords from the user’s profile to auto-create a collage.  The basic functionality would be free, but users could purchase items custom-printed with the collage, such as stickers, posters, screen savers, beer coozies, wrapping paper, socks, and toilet paper.