Maison Reserve & Co. launches cryptocurrency tied to the supply and demand of their manufactured consumer products. A huge twist on “Cash Back”, where consumers are “gifted” cryptocurrency as their rewards. Flexible / wider margins exist on the wholesale of manufactured goods, and “white label” consumer retail brands. The wider the margins, the more loyalty incentive can be passed onto the customer in the form of % of the purchase, and the rewards in the form of cryptocurrency.
Maison Reserve manufactures products consumers regularly buy such as deodorant, lotion, or shampoo. They then sell their products at competitive market prices and give the customer 50-75% cashback in form of Maison Reserve crypto (MRSV) which can be swapped for USD, BTC, ETH, or used for buying more products on the Maison Reserve & Co. website and partner sites.
Significant opportunity for big-box retail companies, such as Costco with “white label” brands/products. The new business model provides “Cash Back” for purchases in the form of cryptocurrency, % of the retail purchase.
The idea for the “What If…” Business and Technology series for me, comes directly out of Marvel comics. The comics ranged from “fictional” battles or plots that were so abstract yet tangent that it was nearly impossible to happen other than in a “one-off”, alternate reality, comic book in the Marvel Universe. On the same premise, I will spin several stories that will most likely not happen in the “real world”, but we will bring them to light.
Apple Adopts the Palm OS Business Model
Apple spins off its mobile hardware business and focuses on the iOS operating system. The mobile OS business unit, in theory, will have a robust and direct focus to drive revenue to their area. We may see partnerships that would have never developed if these units are continued to be tied together. Mobile iOS on OEM, 3rd party devices? Multiboot mobile hardware for Android, Linux, and Mac iOS out of the box. Competing and evolving lines, between the iOS tablets. How about mobile hardware from Motorola, Nokia, or Blackberry using iOS?
Allow Customers to Buy Gasoline as Units at Current Price on Loyalty Debit Cards
A legitimate reason IS NEEDED why in this day and age of commodities trading, storage, pipelines, trains, tankers, and trucks, why if I can buy stocks at current market value, or go on Ebay and buy 50 yards of antique bobbed wire at an auction, why can’t I go to a gas station and buy 50 UNITS of gas at the current price of gas that day? Upon return to the same brand gas station, I should be able to use my same loyalty debit card and subtract units of gas from the card, instead of the current price of gas that day.
EVs “in the field” Use Existing Home Energy Provider, with Transportation Charges Applied
Similar logic can be applied to Electric, and EVs but with a twist, incorporating the use of your home “energy provider”, and when charging ‘on the go’, only pay local “line usage/distribution” fees.
Fundraising Using Public WiFi, and an UL/DL MB Meter Reading
What if commercial, public WiFi Hotspots partnered with a fundraising cause, and every MB exchanged (up and/or down), a donation of N cents would go to a charity-sponsored by you with Paypal. The business providing the WiFi would match the donation.
Greece Prosperity / Tourism: The World will Come See You in Augmented Reality (AR)
While perusing through all of the ruins, looking at the sites, watching the tour groups, and the tour guides explaining these empty ruins, I pondered, wouldn’t it be amazing to see the people of ancient times dressed in their clothing of the times, interacting with each other through the ruins as though the tourists were not even there. In effect, acting out scenes that perhaps took place thousands of years ago, echoes of the past. I thought why wouldn’t for starters, the government pays the people of the Arts and Sciences to go through scenes, such as basic interactions with a Librarian, studying in one corner, ignoring the world, and just reading and thinking, and in another corner of this library, there might be a quiet debate going on, in Greek of course, and through a translation application, any foreigner could hear their native language the interactions. It could be ancient commoners, to known ancient people of the past acting out scenes like echoes of the past, while tours just come up close and personal, pass by, even wave their hand in front of an actors hand, and he continues to act as if the tourists were not even there. All of these Greek actors would be prerecorded and play out in Augmented Reality (AR).
r Netflix is testing a way it can limit password sharing, in what could signal a notable shift of the streaming giant’s posture toward users.“Is this your account?” an on-screen notification asks some of those trying to log on with credentials from someone outside their household, according to users’ screenshots. “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.”Users can then enter their own information and create an account, which comes with a 30-day free trial in certain territories.“This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
This measure is an ineffective approach at best, and a hindrance, worst-case scenario to those valid Netflix users who travel often and take their streaming service on the road. Many other Internet Services, beyond content streaming, are now implementing a 2-Factor Authentication (2-FA) approach. With 2-FA, a user will log into the Netflix app, and then is sent an email or text message with an authentication code. The code is then used to complete the login of the Software as a Service (SaaS). This approach could be extended to VOD streaming services, and for each account “Profile”, there is a defined mobile number and email address where the access code can be sent. Only the default account profile can unlock the security details for profiles, allowing the assignment of mobile numbers and email addresses.
How Will Consumers React?
The initial pilot solution seems like a half measure at the moment. I’m not familiar with how they will implement the location-based, “Outside Your Household” solution because of a legitimate use case where some people who have subscriptions actively travel, for example. Surely, these people who travel will appear to be in various locations, according to network topology. On the other side, if you apply a multifactor authentication approach, that’s bound to be more successful in inhibiting the “password sharing” issue. Netflix defines/reevaluates a maximum number of user-profiles per account. Will this help generate more revenue for the “fledgling” streaming service, or anger their audience who may take flight to one of the many other services offered. It’s not the cheapest streaming service in town. Let’s see.
Google – Cloud Print. I know it’s just in beta at this moment, but I know these guys. I also wrote a previous article about 3D printers in the Cloud not that long ago. Coincidence?
The business model: connect your 3D printer(s) to Google’s Cloud Print, and allow people to print to your small storefront, stationary, or office supplies stores, as if they were printing two dimensional paper copies.
I wrote about the consumer taking their three dimensional models, and they have a wide range of ‘turnaround’ profit applications, as listed in my previous post.
I was just looking at eBay, and what items I had on sale. Then as any eBay enthusiast would do, I thought about what other things I could put up to the eBay market. At the moment I don’t have access to my own personal effects. I was sullen for a moment, and at that moment the spark of inspiration struck, why can’t I use a 3D Printer, build, create something from my imagination and put it up for sale on eBay. It could be literally anything from a piece of Jewelry, a Craft, a Reproduction of an Antique, in fact, any reproduction I am able to envision. I see a period when massive amount of reproductions are put up for sale, legally, of course, where ‘reproduction’ is stated. The art is being able to capture all perspectives of the object, and reproduce it. As an example, if you’ve been to a museum, and take pictures at many multiple angles of anything from a painting, jewelry, statues, and so on, then use your imagination to push the image into 3 dimensional reality.
How much would you pay for an amazing 3 dimensional Diorama of Vincent van Gogh‘s painting of Cafe Terrace at Night? At the Home Depot, a Mural 18 in. x 24 in. Wall Tiles sells for $260, and that’s for a 2 dimensional view. How much would an art collector, or anyone appreciate someone pushing the image to a third dimension. An excellent perspective, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, could sell very well.
Then I looked up the price of these 3 dimensional printers, and the prices were what you would expect for a new technology entering the market. The prices range on eBay for these printers from a few hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, to several thousands, and this is, of course, due do the size of the machine, and how big the reproduced object would be manufactured. There are costs of the materials to build these items, similar to an ink cartridge for a printer. MakerBot seems to be a name brand in 3 Dimensional printers, and they tout the price of $2,199 as affordable model.
Apparently, this is a feasible business model today.
The price of a printer to steep? Now imagine a big cloud company comes along, and allows you to use one of their 3D printers in their cloud, and then ships it off to you, or puts it in their “Amazon Locker”.
I’ve noticed that both the Financial Times and the New York Times seems to have articles I want to read, but the Financial Times, on clicking the title link in Twitter makes me take the time to register or become a subscriber, which discourages me to open the article even though it has an eye catching title. On the other hand we have the New York Times, which also has eye catching titles, but allows me to read 10 articles a month without registering or subscribing. The content was so good I became fustrated every time I reached my limit and eventually, since I quote them so much in my own blog posts (or students for school), they get me thinking about opportunities, I finally payed the initial .99 cents and also will probably renew for the $35 USD. It’s a good business model for online periodicals. The New York Times experimented with showing the first paragraph of the article as a preview to help move forward the consumer with the subscription purchase; however, that was not enough to entice me to purchase, AND only annoyed me further which caused me to want to go somewhere else for my news, a detraction to the content no matter what the preview said. If the preview was very good, it almost enticed me, but it was a detractor in a quantifiable way, outweighing the + & – of the psychological effect .
Thanks for sparking the idea Newsweek with your announcement, Newsweek Will End Print Magazine in 2013. It has been floating around in for a while in my head, but thought it was fairly straight forward. I was wondering why very periodical didn’t adopt the NYT #subscription#business model of how to charge for #periodicals . Then I thought, maybe it’s just different cultures, different people, different mind sets on acquisition of news / media, which could still be true. The Financial Times headquarters is in #London , #UK, but these periodicals both have diverse cultures where their headquarters are ‘posted’, so no that can’t be it. Is it the target market? No, not really both audiences seem very busy, time is money, so that can’t be it. Maybe the spark flashed, the New York Times #nytimes just has a better approach to getting subscribers than the #financialtimes , so here’s the post I whipped up.
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Definition: Product Owner (PO)
The Product Owner (PO) is a member of the Agile Team responsible for defining Stories and prioritizing the Team Backlog to streamline the execution of program priorities while maintaining the conceptual and technical integrity of the Features or components for the team.
