New eBay search tool for bargain hunters
August 22nd, 2008
"Encan Bougon " is a system that allows you to watch last minute auctions on eBay and for which the current price is below one dollar.
Why? Well the reason behind all this is that many auctions go unsold because they have typos and thus are not found by people. A lot of sellers are pretty bad at making their item "marketable" and have very bad title. And we humans are bad buyers. Most people only browse title, they don’t actually open the item to read the whole description. So a market of bad sellers and bad buys creates an opportunity for good buyers!
I started this tool sometime ago for my own personal use. I use it all the time to look for cheap baby/kids stuff and of course geek stuff. Instead of going on eBay, I use this tool to scan for products. You’d be surprised what goes unsold on eBay!
So I decided to convert my own research tool to everyone. This is a great tool for bargain hunters and although the site is only in French now (Canada, France and Belgium), it will be available for all eBay sites. Try it out and if you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know!
Posted in Launch, Startups, eBay, ideas | Comments (0)
I’ve seen this before…
August 22nd, 2008
I remember the good old days where you had to dial in a BBS (using a modem) to get information, talk to other people, download images and files, chat and so on.
I’m sure many people remember this. In the early days, each BBS was independent. This means that if you wanted to leave a message to a certain person, you had to visit that BBS and leave a message there. Pretty innefficient as you can see (compared to email).
Then came "network messages". There were various network message providers. Some very local which deserved many sites in a single city level and some were international. FidoNet is one that I remember. It was fantastic and please remember that this was back in the early 90’s…
Fast forward in 2008. Facebook, MySpace and all those so called "social" sites use local messenging systems that are not interconnected to each other.
History does repeat itself after all…!
Posted in social network, technology | Comments (1)
PodCamp Montreal coming up!
August 19th, 2008
Just a quick note to talk about the upcoming and very first PodCamp in Montreal which will take place at the "Pavillon du Design" at UQAM on september 20th and 21st.
Lots of speakers will be there and it seems very well done for an "anti-conference".
The word anti-conference actually makes me smile. "Unconference" I could understand as it’s a trendy word but anti-conference is a bit strong for my own taste. Let’s face it, it’s got speakers and sponsors: it IS a conference and that’s fine 
As of today, more that 200 people and 15 speakers registrered. I think this will be the biggest event for september. Do not miss it!
Posted in Event, Montreal | Comments (2)
I am silly!
August 8th, 2008
Well well… what do you know… Writing the story on the "I am rich" application made me think about something funny.
One bet, 10$ down the drain for a new domain name and a quick and dirty web page hack later, I present you the "I am rich" beer coasters .
You know you always wanted to show your wealth in bars to pick up girls. Now you can! I only need to sell one in order to generate a profit (unlike most startups).
This is a joke serious test experiment to see where people will go. You can really order them and I will really ship them. Enjoy!
Posted in humour, ideas | Comments (0)
I am dumb
August 8th, 2008
Today, while trying to catch up with my RSS feeds, I noticed many posts about the removal of the "I am rich" application. It’s really sad as I already had a draft written up for this wonderful application. But do not fear as I managed to edit it and keep it newsworthy (or at least rant-worthy).
My first reaction to this application was: Oh god… how stupid. My second reaction was rather: Oh god… Why didn’t I think of this before?!
The application was removed from the Apple store after 8 idiots persons downloaded the application (one by mistake? ). That’s close to 8000$ in pure profit. I’d say, that’s even more profit than many startups will ever make in their entire life. The publicity just started to kick in. That guy could’ve easily made 100 sales. 100 sales means $100,000 of free money from rich err.. mentally challenged people who have nothing else to do with their hard earned money. I say free money because although there was some initial investment let’s not fool ourselves: there was probably less than 3 to 4 hours of work involved, and I’m being generous… Most of it was probably put on the "ruby" image - if not taken directly from Google.
I get rather upset that I don’t have those type of ideas that are so dumb that people fall for it. Just like the million pixel page or the pet rock, these ideas require so little time and yet are financially rewarding. I only have ideas which require gazillions of dollars and a team of 50 developpers.
Since many great ideas work well in other domains, is anyone willing to buy a $1000 ruby picture from me? You’ll look really cool and people will know you’re dumb err.. I mean rich…
Posted in Rant, humour, ideas | Comments (2)
UNYK.com launches new features
August 5th, 2008
UNYK which was launched in 2005 is a smart address book that centralizes all your other address books in a few clicks, and updates itself automatically as soon as one of your contacts changes their information. UNYK is accessible through multiple platforms (web, toolbar, Outlook, and soon on any mobile phone).
The public profile can contain all the information included in the user’s UNYK profile (education, professional experience, hobbies…), except for contact information, which is always reserved to authorized contacts. Each user is given a unique URL in the format: http://www.unyk.com/id/firstname-lastname, which is easy to communicate to others.
Also, when a person accesses a user’s public profile, either through search results or through a signature on a blog, they can send a connection request to that user, to be able to make contact with them.
This is a great new feature for people who want to reconnect with old friends, or who want to be visible for potential employers or business partners. “On Google, 30% of searches are to find people. We want our users to be able to use their UNYK profile as their identity online,” says Sebastien Brault, UNYK.com’s CEO and founder. “They can share as much information as they want to be visible to other people. This way, they control their own visibility, and their own online identity. And they are able to make sure that the information visible about them is 100% accurate and up-to-date!”
Posted in Startups | Comments (0)
