All posts by nienkestrijks

Student Ideas

Myholidaycreator

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Design your perfect holiday with Myholidaycreator

Summer is on its way. Lighting the BBQ, having a beer, 30 degrees Celsius outside.. it’s about time to plan your holiday! But where to go? There is an overload of online information about traveling. Destinations are all over the world, and as low-budgets airlines offer cheap flights, many more destinations have come within reach! As McLuhan already said a long time ago, the world is becoming a global village (McLuhan, 1964).

But, back to the previous question of where to go? Firstly, where to go to find information? The travel agencies, the library, friends, blogs, the internet? There are many options, and all have its own benefits, but.there is just too much information available online (Garcia-Molina et al., 2011). But now there will be a single source, a platform; Myholidaycreator, which combines all the information from the sources previously mentioned in a single source. No need to find dispersed information from different devices anymore!

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Business Case

Surfing on the backseat

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Why choose public transportation, trains which are always delayed, taxies which are way overpriced, or busses which are way too full? Now there is backseatsurfing.com, an online platform where you can find a cheap ride to where-ever you need to go.


The slogan of the website is ‘the social network for hitchhikers’, and Backseatsurfer is meant as a platform where people can get cheap (sometimes even free!) transportation. The network facilitates contact by means of profiles people can create, and people can chat and/or make appointments on the platform. This online form of trading an offline service, transportation, seems an opportunity to counteract expensive public transportation.

How does it work? Continue reading Surfing on the backseat →

Business Case, News

Pornhub gives America wood

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Watching porn will never be the same again. You don’t have to feel bad or guilty watching porn, as Pornhub gives people a good incentive to watch. By watching a video they contribute to a better, greener, society! How? For every 100 videos streamed in a certain category (for this campaign they choose the ‘Big Dick’ category), Pornhub will plant a tree! Watching porn now is justified as a form of volunteering!

The Pornhub gives America Wood campaign has received much media attention due to the strange connection (which linguistically perfectly makes sense) between porn and a sustainable, green initiative. Next to media attention, many memes have been created on popular sites (eg. 9gag.com),  given the campaign a boost. These memes can be perceived as value co-creation, as they are not made by Pornhub, but by people who are intrigued/inspired by the campaign. The many memes, comments and blogs about Pornhub’s campaign (see one of them below) attracts more attention, and thus creates value (both for the environment as for pornhub).

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The campaign has been a very successful one for the porn site; 15.473 trees have been planted (http://www.pornhub.com/event/arborday). The campaign lasted merely week, and easy calculations show that over 15 million videos (in the ‘Big Dick’ category only!) have been viewed on the platform during that week.

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Mini Cases

How could you trust other users when they sell?

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Don’t feel like cooking yourself, but you don’t have the time nor money to go to a restaurant? Shareyourmeal.net can solve this problem! http://www.shareyourmeal.net is a website, where people can offer their (prepared) food to their neighbours. The ‘Foodie’ (or in other words, the hungry person who doesn’t want to cook) can subscribe to the website and then see all the meals in his/her neighbourhood. The tool is not meant for any commercial interest, and restaurants and professional cooks are therefore kicked out. Cooks don’t get paid (they get a small amount to cover for the expenses of the ingredients), they merely cook for love & glory.

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However, these kind of C2C platforms have some disadvantages. One of the problems is anonymity. Users could create fake usernames and as a user you generally don’t know who the cook is. But then how could a user be sure that this platform is safe? How do you know whether the cook prepared the food in a right, hygienic manner, and whether all the ingredients are safe? The website clearly states that they are not responsible for damage caused by any of the parties. So how could you trust the other users on the platform?

Continue reading How could you trust other users when they sell? →