Idea: Building a Better World Meeting Planner
I'm often having meetings (phone calls, really) with folks on the other side of the planet (Europe, Asia, Australia, etc.). Rather than thinking too much and trying to convert time zones in my head (and inevitably screwing things up), I turn to sites like The World Clock Meeting Planner.
There, I enter my location (Los Angeles), the location of the person with whom I'm meeting (say, Sydney), and it shows me a really useful grid:
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| Results from The World Clock Meeting Planner. |
The green indicates the "safe zone" for scheduling a meeting (the typical working hours, 8AM to 5PM, for each location). So, at a glance, I can see that, say, 3PM to 5PM Los Angeles time would likely work for me and the person I'm meeting with that's in Sydney.
Really useful, but not great. I'd like something that's better. Specifically:
- Remember my location! Every time I visit World Meeting Planner, I have to re-enter my city (Los Angeles). It should fill this in by default.
- Remember my history. While it's I might meet with folks across hundreds of different cities and time zones, it's unlikely. Remember the locations that I've used in the past, and suggest them to me (like a sidebar that allow me to choose a location I've previously used with one-click).
- Autocomplete. Allow me to type the first few characters of "Sydney" or "Auckland", and complete it for me. Don't make me scroll through a big ugly list of possible locations!
- Be flexible with location names. Let me type "Sydney" or "Auckland" or even just "New Zealand". If it matters (it may or may not depending on the timezones and time of year), force me to choose a specific city or time zone.
- Ideally, integrate with Google Calendar. Create a Google Calendar plug-in* or browser extension extension that improves the UI when creating a new calendar item. Allow me to choose a number of locations and see the "safe zones" for meeting. As above, remember the locations that I've used in the past.
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| Adding an event in Google Calendar. Aside from the fact that this UI could use a lot of work, it would be great to have an integrated world meeting planner. |
Idea: Screenshot Archive of Home and Landing Pages
Learning about MOAT ad search today (via TechCrunch), I was reminded of a company called Who's Mailing What! that I stumbled into while doing some Zumbox R&D.
Who's Mailing What! is a really simple and useful low-tech idea: scan the direct mail (paper) that's sent to folks around the country. Make this database browseable and searchable to anyone who might want to see, say, exactly how Geico markets its products to consumers. Really useful to other direct marketers.
Why not offer something similar for web pages?
Take screenshots, at regular intervals, of home pages and landing pages of leading web companies.
Not just archive.org (too coarse: Spreedly vs. Recurly vs. Chargify)*. I don't care about links or preserving functionality, I just care about layout, wording, button design, calls-to-action, etc, which have presumably been refined over time by these companies. Most modern web companies respect that home page and landing page design is "a process of ongoing improvement," and employ analytics and A/B testing tools (like unbounce, which is awesome BTW) to track and increase conversion rates.
I suspect that enlightened web marketers (folks who design home pages, landing pages, manage search engine marketing campaigns, display ad campaigns, e-mail marketing campaigns, etc) would pay for a subscription service that showed them how (and when!) their competitors designs have evolved (again, changes to layout, wording, buttons, calls-to-action, etc.).
* P.S. Any way to link to multiple web pages? One link opens n pages? Like how Hipmunk enables you to open multiple tabs on their site?