New Ventures BC Competition - round 2 here we come

We recently entered the New Ventures BC competition. This competition is for start up companies looking for venture capital to expand and or survive. During the competition you get a mentor and access to seminars and other tools to make the startups in BC better and more competitive.

We like competition.

So we found out today that we made it to round 2. That's roughly the first 50% of the entrants weeded out.

On the scale of eliminated entrants, that is the largest. From the point of view of how well we did, it only places us in the top half of the competition.

It's a positive step forward. It means that the judges may see some value in our idea and we are getting better at explaining our idea to potential VC guys.

The procedure for entering the competition has already helped us improve our presentation skills and the further into the competition we make it the more polished we will have to be.

A voyage of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

You've got to see these falls!

According to a site I found "If you’re ever in Zimbabwe, don’t miss the chance to take a swim in The Devil’s Pool, a small lagoon, enclosed by rocks, on the edge of one of the biggest, most beautiful waterfalls in the world, Victoria Falls. Set on Livingstone Island, at a height of 103 meters, Devil’s Pool is definitely one of the most surreal locations on Earth."

These falls look absolutely gorgeous, you should check out all the pictures of the guys hanging over the edge to enjoy the view! I am mildly afraid of heights so I wouldn't put myself over the edge if I didn't have someone holding my legs.

When you look at the map and you see where Zimbabwe is in Africa, you know that going there would be a hell of a long trip - but seeing something like this in real life would be worth a bumpy plane ride or two.

Contest Starts Soon

I'm working on an outline for a series of contests that will hopefully do a good job of inspiring people to put really good content on our map.

Oistr is designed for showing off locations on a map, and the contest will rate the popularity of locations that people submit. One of the upcoming is "Summer Nightspots".

Where's the best place in your city or, in general your favorite place to have an evening beverage. Is it the beach around a bonfire with friends, or is it a quiet patio at a restaurant with a nice view? Either way every entry on the map will allow users to find that spot if they choose.

I personally don't have any idea what the best beaches for a fire are around my own city, and I'd really appreciate it if I can monitor this contest and find these great places.

Other upcoming contests will include your favorite winter activity and where it happens - is it snowboarding on a mountain or sledding in a nearby park? The pictures are going to be rated on popularity so users will be looking at how much fun it looks like it is, how many people are there and how interesting the activity is to them.

Prizes will be awarded and a year end prize will be given out for first annual "most popular submissions" contest.

I'm really excited about this and can't wait for it to start in June. Please stay tuned and spread your knowledge for a chance to win great prizes!

Twitter

Hey, maybe twitter is useful. I created a twitter account for Oistr and I didn't even post. Between yesterday and today it translated to 3 tweets and 90 hits on the site as of 3.45pm, so a little less than 24 hours. That doesn't include any hits from yesterday evening.

I'm still struggling to figure it out. When I first looked at twitter I thought "140 characters, are you kidding me? Who can write anything worthwhile that short?"

Then I heard a great quote, I think it was Mark Twain, "I'm sorry I wrote you such a long letter, I didn't have time to write you a short one."

I turns out that writing in a very small amount of space and conveying meaning is very hard. Since then I've had so many emails that I've cut down and added more ideas to without making them longer - and I hope people appreciate that. More information, less reading. less reading, less time spent on this and more time for something else.

So, I'll be twittering. www.twitter.com/oistr, check it out, I need all the followers I can get.

Weird Hotel You Have To See

I found a list of hotels today that are probably the coolest in the world. Some are simple, some are incredibly complex and expensive - but they are all extremely unique.

The first is an Ice Hotel, built every winter in Sweden. There are hot and cold rooms, the website has tips on sleeping comfortably in -5 Celcius and they even have an ice garage for your car.

I hope the ridiculous Ice Hotel in the James Bond movie didn't ruin this places reputation because it looks fantastic.

I can imagine snuggling up to a sweetheart under the furs on a bed. It would be very romantic - but probably not nice for a long term stay.

Does Anyone Care?

I came across a marketing 2.0 posting today on blogs. They said, "don't talk about your company because no one cares".

I tried to think about the types of blogs I read. Do I read company blogs? Once in a while. Google has some interesting things in their blog. I like that they have ground breaking technology some times, and other times the social impact of new tech.

Well, we have some groundbreaking technology. Our interface is a completely different way of shopping for travel. It's more like a video game then Expedia or Travelocity. We call it "Visual Travel".

Maybe in my blog I've been writing about the wrong things. I should probably focus on how great our site is - and how it can affect your life.

My last posting talked about using "trips" on our site to be useful. Now, that's relevant isn't it? That's saying hey, here's something you didn't think of that our site can do that you might appreciate.

We are still working on some bugs in the system but it's coming along nicely, it is a great tool for a lot of things and we're going to make it great.

A Useful Feature: Trips

Ok, here's an example of a great use of Oistr.  I'm working in my office.  My stomach growls.  Where am I going to go for lunch?  Ah, I did McDonalds yesterday and Ricky's the day before, I want to go somewhere I haven't been in a while.  Somewhere I know.

Luckily, as I've found restaurants or bars that I enjoy for lunch in my neighborhood, I've added them to a trip on Oistr.  That's the screen shot above.

The trip is open so anyone can add to it, play with it, or whatever, here. If you live or work in the neighborhood, please contribute.

So now I can browse the map and immediatley weigh my options based on how far away they are from me.  I find it very useful.  When I find a new restaurant I snap a couple pictures with my camera phone, throw them up on Oistr and call it a day.

Pictures And Privacy

I had a friend today and she asked me about privacy.  We've seen plenty of news articles about Google getting in  trouble over street view.  I think Google is already blurring people's faces but there are still many complaints about pictures of private property.  Some people are saying that they're afraid of burglars or terrorists getting information from street view to plan attacks or burglaries.  

Of course, everyone is afraid of terrorists - all the time, brought to you by the terrorist channel.  Side note - terrorists actually did use google maps to attack troops in Iraq.

As Oistr uses maps and lets people put pictures on the map, this friend was saying are you worried about these issues?

I had three responses.  

One, we didn't capture the map images, Yahoo did and they're freely accessible on yahoo.com.

Two, we don't take the pictures ourselves and we let people report pins that they find offensive and want taken down.  How are we going to know if someone is bothered by something unless they tells us?

Three, though not quite the same thing we're protected as a common carrier.  In the states especially it's like suing AT&T because someone phoned up your wife and told her you were sleeping around.  We're just providing a service that is meant to be used for good, but like many other things in the world (I can think of cars for vehicular homicide and fire for burning down buildings) could be used for evil.