With my own iPad on its way to me soon, I’ve been looking at accessories I can pair it with for the perfect experience. The video capabilities present me with a need for a good stand to put the iPad on while watching a TV show or movie, but most of the stands on the Internet are pretty lifeless and they’re all pretty similar in features. Then a stand found me.
UPDATE: This stand now has a web site and will be taking pre-orders in the near future : Perfect iPad Stand
Yeah… The bottom part is a bowl meant to eat food from. I’ve posted a couple times about Quirky, a site that takes product ideas through a community-driven process that refines the idea into a product, logo and all. This is where a site member, Jeff Tromp entered his idea for the perfect iPad stand. Just watch the video to see how it works.
A Better iPad Stand
What will make this iPad stand better than everything currently on the market? The thing that stands out the most to me is the full range of motion it provides. Jeff makes some great points in his video, showing how Apple’s stand sticks you with portrait positioning and walks away. His racing game demonstration in the video above (and additional racing-specific demo) show his iPad stand going beyond portrait or landscape, turning the iPad, itself, into the steering wheel for the game. From what I’ve seen, it really seems to provide the freedom that all the existing stands are lacking.
The amazing part about this new (hopefully) soon-to-be-product is that people are already reviewing it and consumers are lining up to buy one. Across the globe, a site in Korea posted a favorable opinion (translated) and views on his YouTube demo just keep going up. A lot of his video traffic is viral and that says a lot.
Make it happen (and make some money)
The two best things about Quirky are that you can help guide the development of a product and that you can make money doing it. This is no exception. Jeff’s Perfect iPad Stand is in the running to be chosen as Quirky’s Product 46 and I think it will win, too. Just click that link and create a free account at Quirky to vote for Jeff’s idea. If it wins, your vote will earn you a little piece of every single sale. Seriously. Not only can you say you helped it become a product, but when it’s ready for sale, you can wake up in the morning and see earnings from its sales. I know this because I’m currently earning on 21 products at Quirky and the highest earner for me is their Cloak iPad case.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of broadbandgenie.co.uk. All opinions are 100% mine.
I don’t move much, but when I do, one of the important things I look at is what broadband solutions will be available to me. I need my high speed access. Just last weekend, my mom, who has lived in the same house for years, got new broadband internet access. She called me for help with figuring out what all this stuff meant and which provider to use, but what if I didn’t know?
This is where a site like Broadband Genie comes in. They offer comparisons of broadband (and other) services along with guides, news, tools, etc. Here’s what they have to say about why you might want to use their site:
* Save time and money. We spend loads of time gathering and checking all the price and package data from all the top providers, so you don’t have to.
* Be a sheep, make your life easy. If you don’t want to trawl through the comparison tables looking for that special deal, see what our experienced editors and users recommend.
* Get an education. If you want to learn all about broadband internet, how it works and how to compare it, then let us translate it all into plain-English for you. We’ve got help guides, blogs, daily news, and loads of places you can ask questions or just have a good moan.
For those in the U.S., the site won’t be much help in regards to comparing services. Non-UK readers still have plenty of reasons to visit, though, so keep reading.
Compare Broadband Providers
In the interest of the review, I pretended I was in Staffordshire and used Google to find an address where I could pretend to live. This yielded much better results from Broadband Genie, which returned a list of broadband providers in order of suggested use. The list displayed the initial setup cost, monthly cost, contract length, speed, and download caps as seen below.
I was able to sort by any of the columns I mentioned above and more information was a click away, taking me to a page loaded with information specific to the provider. The provider page included service highlights, an overview of different packages, a “road test” widget showing overall user ratings, and customer reviews. This page proved to be a pretty good snapshot of what the provider has to offer.
Compare Mobile Services and More
This site goes beyond just home/office broadband to also compare mobile phone services, pay as you go mobile broadband, and even deals that give you a laptop (with a contract for the mobile broadband). These work in the same way, providing a sortable ordered list and detail pages.
Tools and Guides
Before buying any services, it’s helpful to get educated. Broadband Genie starts with a broadband guide right on the home page to answer questions like “What is broadband?” and “What are modems, routers & dongles?”. Additional guides help you determine compatibility, understand broadband speeds, and even help guide you through setting it all up. Along with the guides, the newsletter, frequently updated News section, forums, and “Ask the Genie” form seem to make sure you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.
Once you’ve learned all about broadband speeds, you can test your own to get an idea of what your needs might be. The first time I ran the speed test, it actually crashed Firefox. When I loaded it up again, it worked great, so I can’t say if that’s a bug or my browser was just having one of its fits. I’ve since tried on another computer in Firefox, and Chrome with no crashing problems, but I’m not sure the results are reliable. They seemed much lower than I had expected, so I headed to another site that returned vastly different numbers which were very close to my expectations.
Conclusions
The speed test didn’t impress me at all, but it was a small bump in a very smooth and freshly paved road to broadband knowledge. Broadband Genie had what I expected. Then it had more and more and even more. I still feel like I left some stones unturned on this site and can only imagine other features I’ve missed. It really only needs two things to be perfect, a U.S. sister site and maybe a better speed test (assuming it’s actually inaccurate).
Also, for those in Australia, Broadband Genie has an Australian site too, which also compares mobile broadband and broadband deals.
People make money online all the time, and some people make a lot more than we’re talking about here. The difference is that it usually happens as a result of putting out a lot of money in a risky venture or having some specialized knowledge or even just getting incredibly lucky. This story is about a guy who had a good idea and brought it to the place that could turn it into a product with very little investment. The guy is Jim Robinson and the site he took his idea to is Quirky.com.
What is Quirky?
In short, Quirky (which I mentioned last year) is a site that brings together thinkers to take a good idea from just that to a product on the shelf. People like Jim spend $99 to submit an idea for consideration. Phase one starts with people voting on ideas, which helps the company select a winner. Subsequent phases such as naming, industrial design and logo design and selection all earn people “influence” for helping guide the product’s creation. In the end, those who helped all have influence (which translates to a percentage of sales) in the final product, the original idea submitter earning the highest. Involvement can be as little as filling out a survey or voting in the winning logo or it can be more involved like creating the winning logo. The more you contribute, the more you earn on every sale of the final product. When a product is designed and ready to go, it experiences a presale period with a threshold of sales to meet before actually hitting the production line. This final hurdle completed, a product sells on the Quirky site as well as through any vendors that pick it up.
How Jim Made All That Money
My first instinct is to say that he didn’t have to do a lot of work for the money, but truth be told, Jim already had some man hours into this before becoming a part of the Quirky community. He had owned several pocket knives over the years, but he never felt any of them really got it right. He wanted to build the perfect pocket knife. Realizing that “perfect” meant different things to different people, the idea of a modular pocket knife was born.
After a few prototypes, Jim’s idea materialized as a product idea submission for Quirky. With $99 on the line, the idea had little more than a decent description and high hopes. After voting and discussion, the then unnamed product was chosen for production and began to work its way through the development phases, getting a name, logo, design, and even a tag line from other Quirky community members (or “quirks”) along the way. Last week, Quirky announced Switch, the modular pocket knife kit.
In pre-sale, Switch had a decent start and was moving along at an average pace. After seeing some great press from top tech blogs, it caught the eye of major online retailer, Think Geek, who committed to a large purchase and helped the sales total for the day reach 1,170 units. At $8.90 per unit sold, Jim earned over $10,000 in just one day for his cut. That doesn’t count the almost 300 units sold in previous days and the countless sales to come.
What about the other contributors? They’re not doing too bad either. The second highest contributor, Kelly Saglibene, has earned $1,311 in the 5 days Switch has been up for sale for the logo she created and Julie Kowal is taking home over $1,000 so far just for submitting the winning name. Sadly, I was busy during the Switch product development process and did not contribute.
My Q & A With Jim
I had some questions I just had to ask Jim. I’m sure he’s busy, so I kept it brief.
How did you first come across Quirky?
Through a prior investor that knew them.
Why and when did you decide to submit your idea for production on Quirky?
When I first met Ben we talked about various products. I had been tinkering with pocket knives for years trying to modify them. He thought it was a natural idea for Quirky. As a test of their site, I submitted it.
How did you feel when your idea won the selection phase?
I was a bit surprised – it had not won the first time through. I thought perhaps it was too complicated a product for Quirky. Evidently not!
How about when you saw all those sales?
Beats a stick in the eye!
Do you have any plans for all the money Switch is making you?
My guess? Charity. But who knows, maybe a boat J
Will you be submitting more ideas to Quirky after such a success?
Definitely. I have always been a tinkerer and have several ideas. Just hard to find the time; you can’t just submit on a whim. The community expects (and rightly so) a well-thought out concept, complete with pictures, or video, or schematics and whatnot.
Jim ended with a very good point. If you’re going to pitch a product idea or business model to anyone, it needs to be a well thought out idea and it’s the same for Quirky. Don’t let that scare you though. If you have a great idea, figure out the details, draw up some artwork (or get help) and submit it to Quirky. You may just have the next hot product.
A couple weeks ago, we had a contest to give away a few Dog-E-Minders. For those unfamiliar, it’s a digital dog ID tag that helps track when you last fed, walked, or gave your dog medication. Click either link above for more information.
To enter, I asked people to tweet a photo of their dog or link to a Facebook photo of their dog while linking back to the contest. Some entries came in and after some procrastination (sorry, everyone), I finally plugged them into random.org and came up with three winners:
What an adorable group of dogs. Congrats to all the winners. I will contact each of you for mailing information.
Thanks to everyone who entered and to Dog-E-Minder for providing the prizes! Everyone who didn’t win should go check out their site where you can grab a Dog-E-Minder for only about $20.
