The Internet is becoming more and more a part of the world around us: our homes, our neighborhoods, our communities. Services such as BuildingBulletin and Neighborgoods allow us to be efficient and productive neighbors and homeowners. A new service we just found takes that one step further, allowing users to put their entire moving process online. Using online tools to streamline real-world processes is nothing new, but we think MoveIdiot is a particularly useful application. Sponsor The app is a free web-based service set to launch this month. It allows users to manage their moving experience from a central location online. Users can track boxes, manage budgets, keep track of their belongings and manage to-do lists. With its pre-made moving checklists, MoveIdiot reminds users of every imaginable circumstance, need or errand, such as notifying one's doctor or bank of a move, changing one's address with the DMV or even planning a farewell party. MoveIdiot further allows users to track their moving budget, with fields for each expenditure and category, such as travel, hotels and rentals. Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of MoveIdiot (and one that, if enhanced, we'd actually pay for) is the ability to track one's belongings. The site lets users upload and organize data on all their possessions, so users know exactly where each item is packed. MoveIdiot has pre-fabricated lists of common household goods, and users can also input items themselves. The app allows users to print the packing details as well as box labels. Then, MoveIdiot's box tracking feature lets users upload or e-mail tracking information from multiple shipping companies and then view real-time updates on an interactive map. If this feature also included RFID tags from MoveIdiot itself, that would provide an interesting value add for users making cross-town moves, as well, or using moving companies that don't have thorough tracking systems. According to MoveIdiot, tens of millions of people move each year. The MoveIdiot application provides these folks with a central and intuitive application for managing this process. It speaks to the growing trend of using online and mobile tools to manage, simplify and expedite one's day-to-day life. And with the right mix of features, such as the aforementioned RFID tags and a good mobile suite, we can see a freemium model going over very well. We also wonder if MoveIdiot has considered enterprise applications for corporate moves or the same kind of labeling and tracking for items in storage. What do you think, friends? Would you use a free web app to help manage your next move? And what features do you think would be worth paying for for such an application? Let us know what you think in the comments. Discuss
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MoveIdiot: Use the Web to Manage Your Move, Track Your Stuff
With the first week of 2010 in the books, we thought we would take a look at the most popular posts of the new year in ReadWriteStart - our channel devoted to entrepreneurs. In this ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup, we've got tips for funding advice , keeping organized and building loyal communities , but be sure to check out the newest post in our new series "Never Mind the Valley," highlighting thriving startup communities outside of Silicon Valley. Sponsor 5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized In a world where emails, phone calls, texts, and Tweets constantly bombard us, it is getting harder and harder to manage the firehose of data and information being thrust our way. For young companies to succeed this environment, it is imparitive they become organized and efficient lest they fall behind and quickly become overwhelmed. While there is no shortage of online solutions, it can be hard to know which one is the right tool for the job, so here's a list of five web applications to help kick-start your company and keep it organized without breaking the bank. 5 Great Blogs For Funding Advice The best advice we can give you is to know your audience. You don't try to sell booze to pregnant women, you don't make God-jokes in Utah and you don't get a term sheet without tailoring your pitch. Investors are already blogging about what they want from potential portfolio companies, so if you're looking for funding you should be reading their blogs. While we know there are plenty of useful investment-related blogs, here's a list of five to get you started. Community First: How Wufoo Created a Captive Audience So you've got a fabulous idea for a startup? That's great, but before you get wide-eyed and start thinking about wireframes, venture capital and moving to San Francisco, get your feet wet first by beginning to build your community. Having a strong and loyal community behind you is an important step in the startup process. After all, it will be much easier to convince a potential investor of the viability of your product if there is a thriving community eager to get their hands on it. Never Mind the Valley: Here's Los Angeles Best known for its movie stars, sun and surf, Los Angeles probably isn't the first place you'd think to breed technology. But when you consider the influence of investors like Jason Calacanis and Mark Suster, in addition to the fact that companies like
Excerpt from:
ReadWriteStart Weekly Wrapup
Best known for its movie stars, sun and surf, Los Angeles probably isn't the first place you'd think to breed technology. But when you consider the influence of investors like Jason Calacanis and Mark Suster, in addition to the fact that companies like
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Never Mind the Valley: Here's Los Angeles
It's no secret that we at ReadWriteWeb have a lot of love for startups that make their homes outside Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. Over the last year, we decided to make a few videos spotlighting some unique, unexpected locations where startups thrive, where tech scenes are vibrant, where cooperation outstrips competition, and where creativity runs rampant. One of the first cities we'd like to introduce you to is home to between 150 and 170 startups as well as a thriving entrepreneurial and creative community. Welcome to Boulder, Colorado. Sponsor Editor's note: This story is part of a series we call Redux, where we'll re-publish some of our best posts of 2009. As we look back at the year - and ahead to what next year holds - we think these are the stories that deserve a second glance. It's not just a best-of list, it's also a collection of posts that examine the fundamental issues that continue to shape the Web. We hope you enjoy reading them again and we look forward to bringing you more Web products and trends analysis in 2010. Happy holidays from Team ReadWriteWeb! With the startup accelerator program at TechStars acting as a lightning rod, this area has grown from an earthy university town to a true hotbed of innovation. In certain parts of downtown, you can't throw a rock without hitting some startup's offices, and I could barely walk three blocks without bumping into at least one entrepreneur, developer, or designer working at a company such as Threadless or AOL. We interviewed a couple of local startup advisors and one startup team about the culture and community in Boulder. Watch and listen to what they have to say; there are more than a few reasons tech-minded residents love this gorgeous mountain town. Discuss
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A Startup Movie: Never Mind the Valley, Here's Boulder
According to a report released today [ PDF ] by Reporters Sans Fronti
A subject of interest to us ReadWriteWeb folks this year has been smart grids - a method of delivering electricity to users' homes in a way that has been the cause of many green technologists for some time. Smart grid tech uses digital means to control appliances at users' homes to save energy, cut costs, and increase reliability. However, some experts are beginning to wonder how safe and anonymous this data is and how much end-user privacy could be compromised. Sponsor And as the concept of "anonymized" user data is continuously being poked full of holes by everyone from hackers to academics, we must wonder just how much smart grids "know" about individuals. For example, the energy fluctuations of home appliances are so unique that a smart grid can tell the make and model of a user's refrigerator. A recently released report from the Future of Privacy Foundation states that although more modernized approaches to energy consumption are absolutely necessary, uninformed enthusiasm about smart grid technology might lead to privacy breaches for end users. "The infrastructure that will support the future Smart Grid," the report reads, "will be capable of informing consumers of their day-to-day energy use, even at the appliance level. While this is beneficial and supports valuable efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions and reduce consumers' energy bills, it introduces the possibility of collecting detailed information on individual energy consumption use and patterns within the most private of places - our homes. "We must take great care not to sacrifice consumer privacy amidst an atmosphere of unbridled enthusiasm for electricity reform. Information proliferation, lax controls and insufficient oversight of this information could lead to unprecedented invasions of consumer privacy." Another report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology states that, because of the lack of standards and procedures on data collection and storage, "Distributed energy resources and smart meters will reveal information about residential consumers and activities within the house." The Foundation's co-chair, Jules Polonetsky, stated in a Washington Post interview today, "We're a little worried that without some serious planning now, there's going to be quite a challenge in a couple of years when people start realizing that maybe should think about developing some solid data retention policies that address what's going to be done with all of this data." Valid concerns, all, especially for users who would rather keep themselves, their families, and their homes "off the grid," under the radar, and largely unmonitored by corporate and governmental entities. Will user privacy be the factor that undermines cleaner, smarter energy for all? Or will smart grid companies find better ways to protect user data, just as social networks and marketing firms have had to struggle to do? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Discuss
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Are Smart Grids Undermining User Privacy?
