Author Archives: billboebel

About billboebel

Bill Boebel is founder and CEO of Pingboard.

Brain dump of startup ideas #2

– twitter based speedtrap reporting/discovery app

– twitter based service to let people meet up on short notice to buy/sell, such as for tickets at concerts or sport events

– Speech messaging. I’m driving mode for native SMS.

– Craislist type site but which let’s you accept up to 3 offers before selling

– iPad app to learn popular tunes on the piano

– iPhone app that captures a persons voice and uses that to let another person make phone calls using the other persona voice. Plus a marketplace of celebrity voices.

– music site that charges $10/mo and let’s me pick which artists my money goes to. The $10 can go towards band merchandise purchases too. His models the real world better.

SXSW 2011

” “= You sucked; “!”= You didn’t suck; “!!”= I’m gonna buy your album; “!!!”= I’m gonna buy your cd & tshirt and tell my friends how awesome you are.

The Chevelles !
John Wesley Colman !
The Types !
Hunx and his Punx !!
Laura Jansen !
Telekinesis !
Tennis !!
The Naked and Famous
Alexander !!!
Ham Sandwich
Cults !!
Revolver !
DeVotchKa !!
Bob Geldof !
The New Mastersounds
The Preservation Jazz Band !!
The Black Lips !!
Dom
City and Colour
The Bangles !
ANR !!
Cloud Nothings
Danny Brown
Fang Island !!
Diamond Rings
Gold Panda !
Das Racist !!
Deer Tick
J Mascis !
Fake Problems
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin
Sea of Bees !
Thao with the Get Down Stay Down !!!
Noah and the Whale
The Dodos !
Social Studies
The Airborne Toxic Event !
Tapes n Tapes
Oh No Oh My !
Maps & Atlases
Starfucker !!
Ivan & Altosha !
McAlister Drive
Reptar ! (Athens represent)
Ava Luna
Surfer Blood !
Family of the Year !!
Jonquil
Greek Fire
The Parlotones
Royal Bangs
Blue King Brown
Steve Adamyk Band !
Sunbears
Mean Jeans

Brain dump of startup ideas #1

– car mirrors controlled by computer that adjusts them based on where the driver’s eyes are

– “should I sell?” site that let’s people post stuff and accept bids so they know what their item is worth if they choose to sell.

– website to remove the balance of political power from millionaires. Reduce cost of running for office. Let people “write in” candidates (people they know) and let people vote up one candidate per ballot. Heavy viral social stuff. Tie to Facebook for identities.

– social network that models your neighborhood and let’s you meet neighbors better than in real life

– social music streaming exclusively between fb friends, music is a social experience, ppl want to share their playlists and help friends discover new music

– wikileaks for food companies or all companies, where insiders can post how shit made, foodstuff.com, thatsdisqusting.com

– I want my music videos back. IPod option to buy/steam/play videos w your songs

– pay friends via CC by letting them take a photo of your CC. Then sends you an approval notice.

– group fundraising to make political lobbyists irrelevant. Replace that income with money from the people, but people only pay if the politician vows off all lobby money. Essentially a site for collective buying power for anything.

– social network with scarcity to the membership. Different levels: 10 members, 100, 1000, 10000, etc. Allow people to trade/sell membership.

Legally sell copies of your mp3s to your friends

People often discover new music from their friends. I tell people about new bands all the time, so I want to publish my iTunes library to the web and let my friends buy songs from me, rather than from Apple. And I don’t want any of the money… I want it all to go to the artist.

I imagine there is a creative legal way to do this. There is definitely a technical way…

– install a light weight agent that monitors my itunes folder and pushes the following data to the server: list of songs, playlists and meta data like number of Plays and Last Played.

– I’d be given a friendly URL like “http://mymusic.com/billboebel” and people can “Friend” me, just like on Facebook.

– my page would let people sort by “recently added”, “most played”, “recently played”, etc.

– people can buy any of the songs I own and the website would securely handle their payment and then would act as a middle man to let the buyer download the song directly from my computer (or queue it for download later if I’m currently offline). If the song’s file is DRM protected, a non-DRM version of the file would be created by the agent on my computer using my credentials that are stored in itunes.

– the website would need to take a cut of the proceeds to handle operating cost, but the rest of the money would go to the artist.

– the website could even let artists set their own price for songs.

– the sound quality would vary from seller to seller, but since the sale takes place between friends, I’m sure the friends can work it out if the buyer is unhappy with the quality.

Repurpose old iPads into elegant single-purpose devices

In 2011, when the second generation iPads are released, my first gen iPad is immediately going on eBay. I want the new shiny one with a camera for video conferencing! I’m not alone.

It is a safe bet to assume that over the next couple years, millions of used iPads will hit secondary markets. Today’s devices will likely be too slow to run iOS5, but they will still have enough compute power for many great uses. How about repurposing these hardware devices with new software that serves a single purpose in an elegant way… such interactive restaurant menus? or upgrade those audio devices that old people rent at museums? or a kick-ass kids toy? or a better remote for a home control system?

Start thinking about how to disrupt a market with a special purposed hardware device. All you will need to write is the software. You will be able to buy “magical and revolutionary” hardware at an “unbelievable price” soon.

Elevator floor cancel button

Can someone make it so that if I press an elevator button for the wrong floor I can press it a second time and it cancels that floor?  You can probably invent an hack to the standard elevator electronics that does this.  Then sell it to every hotel and office building in the world.  Thanks.