Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Support 3 great organizations at once!
Investing in our raise helps support Profounder's launch, GoodsforGood's incredible mission, and of course... neigh*borrow.
We are thrilled to join the other entrepreneurs in Profounder's first class of companies to seek public "crowdfunding."
The Internet is one of the most disruptive mediums in history and will continue to drastically change the way people communicate, consume and live. Peer-to-peer networks and transactions are thriving and we continue to see amazing innovation in this space. It has even begun to change how start-ups raise their initial capital! :)
Monday, December 6, 2010
You need the hole, not the drill.
Borrowing (heavily) from the simplistic experiment, goingtorain.com, we are adding (another) experiment to neighborrow, drillavailable.neighborrow.com. We are building an inventory of every drill in America and creating a marketplace for short term use.
The page shows the real-time availability and current price for access to a power drill within 3 miles of your current location.
The page shows the real-time availability and current price for access to a power drill within 3 miles of your current location.
Rachel Botsman and Roo Rodgers point out in their book, "What's mine is yOURs" that the average drill is used between 7 and 13 minutes in its lifetime. They also guess there are around 50 million drills currently sitting in people's homes today.
That just doesn't make any sense! Even @ $50/drill (and power drills cost much more) people are paying $300 an HOUR just to own a drill. Silliness! We can do better than that. Let's see how many of them we can catalog (and help the other half of the households when they need a hole and not a drill).
That just doesn't make any sense! Even @ $50/drill (and power drills cost much more) people are paying $300 an HOUR just to own a drill. Silliness! We can do better than that. Let's see how many of them we can catalog (and help the other half of the households when they need a hole and not a drill).
Victor Papanec would be proud!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Monday, May 24, 2010
Competition. It's a beautiful thing:)
Once in a while, we Google ourselves. We search for "neigh*borrow" and other keywords not only out of curiosity but also to see how well our pages are being indexed and what our SEO campaign looks like. Sometimes we are pleasantly surprised to find a nice blog post that we hadn't seen before. Rarely do we find an unpleasant surprise as even criticism helps us learn and improve.
The other night, we found the ad below in the sponsored links section. Not only did swaptree use "neighborrow" as a keyword that they bid on (a borderline move itself) but they used our copyrighted name as the HEADLINE in their ad, basically purporting to be us! We were flattered that they feel as if they need to resort to these antics, but also annoyed. And confused (did they not think we would see it?).
You need not be familiar with Google's algorithm to see, unequivocally, the organic search results on the left and the sponsored links on the right.
Anyway, rather than waste time sending them a letter, we wanted to use this opportunity to focus on something positive. We at neigh*borrow have always tried to reach out to the brave and bright people trying to solve the same problems that we are. It's not easy to start a business from scratch, especially in an infant industry. We have nothing but respect for the fine folks at NeighborGoods, Loanables, and others attempting to use this unprecedented human interconnectivity to save financial and natural resources. We even talk to Micki and Ryan from time to time on Facebook, Twitter, etc. To them we say, keep up the good, important, difficult work!
Using a copyrighted name without permission in advertising copy such as the one above, is not only illegal and fraudulent, but a tad classless as well. We encourage our readers to Google the term "neighborrow" and click on the top organic link and the top paid link to see which one is more useful in finding you something you need to use. Enter #stcopyr along with your search!
The other night, we found the ad below in the sponsored links section. Not only did swaptree use "neighborrow" as a keyword that they bid on (a borderline move itself) but they used our copyrighted name as the HEADLINE in their ad, basically purporting to be us! We were flattered that they feel as if they need to resort to these antics, but also annoyed. And confused (did they not think we would see it?).
You need not be familiar with Google's algorithm to see, unequivocally, the organic search results on the left and the sponsored links on the right.
Anyway, rather than waste time sending them a letter, we wanted to use this opportunity to focus on something positive. We at neigh*borrow have always tried to reach out to the brave and bright people trying to solve the same problems that we are. It's not easy to start a business from scratch, especially in an infant industry. We have nothing but respect for the fine folks at NeighborGoods, Loanables, and others attempting to use this unprecedented human interconnectivity to save financial and natural resources. We even talk to Micki and Ryan from time to time on Facebook, Twitter, etc. To them we say, keep up the good, important, difficult work!
Using a copyrighted name without permission in advertising copy such as the one above, is not only illegal and fraudulent, but a tad classless as well. We encourage our readers to Google the term "neighborrow" and click on the top organic link and the top paid link to see which one is more useful in finding you something you need to use. Enter #stcopyr along with your search!
Monday, May 10, 2010
Things you should be neigh*borrow-ing
neigh*borrow a BOOK instead of buying one. It's more fun, it's cheaper than buying, it's easier than going to the library. It saves paper. END OF STORY!
neigh*borrow SOMETHING FOR A VACATION. A CAMERA, TENT, A MEMORY CARD, A DVD PLAYER. We guarantee you will save money. We are not TRIPPING!
neigh*borrow a VIDEO GAME or BOARD GAMES or a BOCCI SET. It's really easy. You don't get stuck buying something you will get board of. We are not TOYING WITH YOU!
neigh*borrow BABY ITEMS. BABY TOYS, BABY CLOTHES. These items are the epitome of temporary use. Borrow the things you need from people close to you. Keep the things that are sentimental and lend out everything else. NO KIDDING!
neigh*borrow SOMETHING FOR A PARTY or HOUSE-GUESTS. An AEROBED, EXTRA TABLES AND CHAIRS. These are definitely things you need once in a while. They are things you need, but don't need to own. ISN'T THAT FUN!
Launching "B&W and read around the world"
PHASE I - neigh*borrow offices in NYC to stickybits offices in SF!! REQUEST THE BOOK HERE
We have flushed out the details and are pleased to announce the launch of this exciting project. For the sake of simplicity, we will start with phase one, getting the book from here in NYC to stickybits offices in SF. The only rule is that you can't put the book in the mail. We are reaching out to the neigh*borrow and stickybits communities for the very first borrower and all subsequent borrowers!
**UPDATE - THE BOOK IS IN LA. Dembo is getting antsy, help the book travel up the coast to SF!
The book is in Irvine Ca, from NYC! After phase 1 is complete we have borrowers lined up from SF, to SEATTLE, to ALASKA, then around the world she goes!
We have flushed out the details and are pleased to announce the launch of this exciting project. For the sake of simplicity, we will start with phase one, getting the book from here in NYC to stickybits offices in SF. The only rule is that you can't put the book in the mail. We are reaching out to the neigh*borrow and stickybits communities for the very first borrower and all subsequent borrowers!
**UPDATE - THE BOOK IS IN LA. Dembo is getting antsy, help the book travel up the coast to SF!
The book is in Irvine Ca, from NYC! After phase 1 is complete we have borrowers lined up from SF, to SEATTLE, to ALASKA, then around the world she goes!
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