OpenIdea: Idlster.com – ScreenSavers
An old friend reminded me of this idea I had almost 10 years ago (1996 to be precise) to build a Screen Saver for companies. Not just any Screen Saver but a sort of Subliminal Advertising Screen Saver that people would actually like using.
When the Screen Saver would be activated it would show you a range of facts that are related to the amount of time it has been running. Here are a few examples:
- an average of two Barbie dolls are sold every second
- a Moët & Chandon cork pops every second
- The Business Software Alliance estimate that software piracy costs the industry $482 every second
- The Sun’s mass decreases by 4.000.000 tonnes per second due to conversion of Hydrogen to Helium by thermonuclear reaction, this conversion will continue for another 5000 million years before the Sun’s energy supply is exhausted.
- A violent crime occurs every 16 seconds
- 450 Hot Dogs are eaten every second of every day
So after a few minutes the screen would be able to tell you that ever since you stopped working 360 bottles of Moët & Chandon were opened and 162.000 Hot Dogs were eaten.
That would be the fun part.
The other 50% of facts would be facts about the company you work at. The amount of items that were sold, the number of people who took a toilet break and the money your boss makes. This data could be extracted from the financial data the company publishes every year and which hardly anybody in the company ever reads.
That would be the fun and useful part.
There are a few benefits to this: people are more likely to get an urge to get back to work when they see that the company as a whole has sold 129 items of X and they are still is on the phone doing nothing. But it also educates them so they will know a lot more about what the company actually does and how much money it makes and which products sell well.
This is a pretty good idea so I decided to offer it, as usual, to anyone willing to invest time in it with me. I came up with a few domainnames (Idlster.com, Scrauto.com, Perceptr.com, Subsed.com, Subscreener.com, Effectro.com, Blipra.com, Plipr.com) but haven’t decided which one is good. But maybe you don’t even need a special domainname because this is a B2B project.
And to finish this post I would like to quote myself: “There is no shortage in good ideas but only in people to implement them…â€
Boris
You are truelly God’s gift to the global internet community in general and the one in Amsterdam particular. Thank god he sent 2 photography angels to capture your every move while handing out all your gifts of enterpreneurial intellect to us, the idea-deprived
Hugs and kisses
Peeping Tom
I can’t c how u’re going 2 get around the negative aspects.
U’re basically doing something that ‘appears’ to have an effect on the consumer i.e. they buy the goods or get the brand … whatever
Great 4 the business side…
pretty crappy 4 the consumer…
Can’t c how u can “hide” the fact of what its doing.
So that then begs the issue of how u’ll be able to get distribution of it (unless u’re going to jump in with the sleezy ad/spam guys that constantly pay fines etc..)
?
Lal
@Brendan: we would sell the product to companies to be used in their offices on their employee computers. It wouldn’t be a consumer product…
Boris,
Awh.. that makes a lot more sense
… you must work harder… you must work harder…
… my boss is good… my boss is great…
would think it would require plenty of univeristy research/studies b4 companies would buy into it.. and what messages would they be brain-washing— i mean sending :)
Lal