Limbo

Unbelievable. What business models people think of. Limbo is a mutant bidding site that has been around since October 2005. It’s a game where you compete against other (real, live) players to find and retain the lowest, unique bid. If your bid is the lowest and unique (no one else has submitted the same) then you win! Keep in mind that if someone else puts in the same bid, then yours is no longer unique. And the game moves to another, higher unique number. Don’t think of overloading the bids by submitting all numbers because there is a daily limit of 20 bids per person.

Damn.. somebody actually won a Mini Cooper for $50.43! So you are thinking “How can they give away those prizes for nothing?”. Seems like the guys at Limbo have created partnerships with big companies who give away stuff in sweepstakes all the time. Limbo provides these big companies to still throw away their ‘prizes’ but get a heck lot more eyeballs and action in their target customer age (18 to 35 year-olds).

I was so intrigued by it, I signed up. Haven’t played much, but I can tell right now that it is addictive. I’ll update this post when I find out more (or win ).

AirlineMeals.net

Brilliant. Another site that makes you wonder ‘where the hell did someone get that information?”. AirlineMeals is the ‘world’s first and leading website about nothing but airline food’. You can find out what a particular airline serves, including pictures (where did they get those from?).

The founder must be pretty ticked off by the ?confusion regarding what airline food is available.. Geez.. some of us have too much time on our hands.

MyFinalParty.com

Another example of what lengths people will go to differentiate their online startup idea. MyFinalParty lets you keep a log of what you want your death ‘celebration’ to be like, and then offers to notify your near and dears when you pass into the unknown.

Now how exactly does the site get notifed of your death remains a mystery to me. Maybe they have a ‘deafulting’ formula – if you dont login to register ‘all well’ every 15 days… well, you are dead online.

MyDeathSpace.com

Like MyDeathSpace puts it, welcome to ‘Your global resource for MySpace.com member obituaries’. What can I say, there seems to be a market for anything and everything online. This one goes straight to the ‘weird’ category.

cRANKy™

Allright, someone has finally claimed ‘age-sensitive search’ title- cRANKy is a search engine geared towards the baby-boomers. How many more cuts can we take at internet search? The hits(or misses) just keep on coming.  [Site Link]

stikkit

They claim to be the intelligent stiky note. Lots of Natural Language Processing in the background, it seems. But I dont seem to be convinced that folks will use a web-based sticky consistently, no matter how intelligent it is. What happens when you dont have a net connection? Kinda beats the whole ‘organize-peoples-lives” goal. I’d like a desktop extension that is seamless with it. That could be neat. [Site Link]

Jaiku

Jaiku lets you ‘publish’ your location, and a free-text ’status’ (as in, what I’m doing/feeling like right now) through your mobile phone. You can also see your contacts or public folks in a same way – so the idea is that you know where your friends are and what they are doing real-time, using mobile phones.

Now why would I want to do that? Why cant I just call them and ask (yeah, i know they might be busy or unwilling to answer.. in that case, why bother at all). Also, it’ll take some mobile carrier or manufacturer minimal effort to do the same, making the idea very volatile. Seems like a lot to do for minimal gain. I’ve seen smarter web 2.0 ideas. [Site Link]

Meez

Now why would you want to make a virtual avatar of yourself – choose things like skin color, facial hair (?!), dress, shoes, what-not? Apparently, there is someone who thinks you might – which is why he/she made Meez.

I was so intrigued that I actually tried it. The experience was technically unpleasant (site was slow, things not obvious to use), and at the end of it I still couldn’t understand what would I want to do with my arguably-ugly and nothing-like-me avatar.

They have a business model, though. You pay actual $$ to get fancier/better customization choices. I guess designer-wear costs more, even in the virtual world.

TinyURL

Here is a perfect example of a website at the intersection of ‘Cool’, ‘Weird’ and ‘Useful’. TinyURL lets you convert a long, complex URL (that tends to break off and become unusable when forwarded) into a very short one- for free!

Useful? Yes (sometimes). Cool? Very. Weird? Yeah – I cant understand how they will make $$ off of it. Advertisements help, but I’m sure there is business idea in there, waiting to be monetized.

Sketchswap

In SketchSwap, you draw something on the screen, and when you’re finished, you hit “Submit drawing”… to receive a random drawing from someone else.

The countless (almost) random, useless yet questionably viable websites that spawn on internet never cease to amaze me. It’s like there is one more lurking around the corner, everytime you surf the net. Sketchswap isn’t original, it is based on fileswap.