Where do I submit an idea?

December 16, 2006 2:17 PM

I have an idea that involves cell phones, a web service, and participation from OS developers and designers/printers. It would be a time saver for many people and I am sure could provide profit to major players in these industries. Who/where/how do I get my suggestion out there?

I am not concerned about making money off this idea. I would just appreciate the service being available.

As I have many ideas, and have long given up trying to profit from them, a more general question would be: Does anyone know of a forum where ideas for new products are posted or submitted for industry review?

After a few responses, I will post the idea and would love to hear readers feedback on the posibility of bringing this service to market.

posted by superdeluxe to technology (11 comments total)

LazyWeb? I will say that OS developers already have to-do lists that are, like, a million items long, so if you're depending on their involvement, forget it. Try rethinking your idea as something one person who already has a full-time job could do, and then be that person.
posted by boaz at 2:44 PM on December 16, 2006

http://www.halfbakery.com/?
posted by krisjohn at 2:54 PM on December 16, 2006

Cambrian House?

And perhaps some sort of crowd sourcing thingy?
posted by Freen at 3:51 PM on December 16, 2006

Ok. Here is the idea.

1. (Cell Phone manufacturers) impliment a bar code scanning device into their cell phones. Purpose: When someone give's me their business card I scan a bar code printed on their card with my cell and all their contact information is uploaded onto my phone to a destination of my choosing such a "Business" "Personal" "Client" etc. Also included in this is a unique number that identifies that persons account on-

2. (website.com) A place where all individuals list their contact information (Job Title, e-mail, phone, fax). Once listed, a downloadable eps, pdf, .jpg (image file) of your information in bar code form can be sent to your designer/business card printer/even home user to have printed on a business card. Ideally you could also upload your business card artwork and it would be displayed on this site and available to-

3. (i.e. Apple's Address Book) Now when I sync my phone with my address book it automatically uploads the contact information of the business card I scanned. Now I can ask address book to "get data from website.com" and it will download the current business card art from website.com as well as check for any new contact information. (if joe smith, a current salesperson for vendor X goes to work for vendor Y, he can immediately update his contact information and when my address book checks for updates I will have his new data.

(and just for fun)

Then apple will createa virtual rolodex widget for my desktop with all these business card images so I can use my scroll wheel to flip through them.

This feature alone would get me to buy and iphone.

If you like this idea, then create a website called "psst...passiton.com" where people can read ideas or suggestons and them forward them to the most influential people they know until it ends up in the inbox of someone important, sent to them by someone who won't get flagged as junk.
posted by superdeluxe at 4:10 PM on December 16, 2006

There are a few cellphone manufacturers doing neat RFID-cell mixes you might want to consider ...
posted by bhance at 4:20 PM on December 16, 2006

It doesn't seem like you've researched this very thoroughly:

1. Phones can already do barcode scanning of business cards. (scroll down)

2. Can't you build this website yourself?

3. Why does this have to be OS-level? You could try integrating it with Thunderbird, or write some kind of addon for Outlook or the Apple address book (I assume). And can't you write your own widgets for apple?

In short, I don't think you need to go as high-level as you imagine to get this idea working. Obviously it would require a lot of work, but any good application would.
posted by jacalata at 4:28 PM on December 16, 2006

I know all the technology is available already. But as an individual working from the bottom up it would take an incredibly long time to get a majority of users to adopt this idea.

An integrated system pitched from a major manufacturer could have this implimented and have a large user base in a couple years.

This is also just one of a hundred ideas I have, many of which require a lot less work to make a fair profit on.

All of this stems from the fact that I am too lazy to keep track of a business card or enter it in my address book because I know there is a better way. I am sure that there are others who feel the same.
posted by superdeluxe at 4:45 PM on December 16, 2006

You idea requires too many unrelated parties to conspire in order to be useful. You'd need everyone to get a new phone, you'd need everyone to agree to use the same website service to store contact info (and not to mention that now everyone's business card info becomes publically available information and some people have a problem with that), you need everyone to print new business cards, you need everyone to install your software. And everyone has to do this for it to be useful, because nobody goes through all that hassle if only 12 other people in the world are using the service. In short I just don't see it being very realistic in the slightest. Just getting any one of these things to happen (such as adding a feature to all the various existing address book software apps out there) is pretty unrealistic, not to mention all of them.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:46 PM on December 16, 2006

Who/where/how do I get my suggestion out there?

The truth is that there isn't a place where industry types go to get lists of great ideas about what they should do.

If you'd like an individual company to do something, you should send them email asking for it. Marketing types are well known for interpreting any customer input that agrees with them, no matter how slightly, as being indicative of the vast yawing customer demand for feature X. Write accordingly.

If you want a feature that crosses company boundries, however, you'll have to devote some significant timet to evangelizing it. Essentially you'll have to create enough buzz for companies to believe that they'll fall behind if they *don't* implement.

Sorry to rain on yet another idea-ist's parade, but that's the way it is. Coming up with ideas is the easy part, realizing them is hard work.
posted by tkolar at 8:23 PM on December 16, 2006

It already exists, and without steps 2 and 3
posted by cillit bang at 8:35 PM on December 16, 2006

Uh... cellphones scanning barcodes to either gather info or go to an address has been around in many forms and in many places. I think it is sort-of-kind-of in place in some hip areas (and in other countries) but the main obstacle is not technology or companies, but the lack of a network in place
posted by tmcw at 12:21 AM on December 17, 2006