Innovation round up - May 09

Recently we had Google in to discuss financial services, information, data, search and other things, and of course the sheer size of Google and the scale they can create. In Australia, Google accounts for over 90% of the search market, which makes as equally worrying a monopoly as Microsoft in the operating system space. Thank god they're not one and the same .... yet.

And we discussed the idea of search being a declaration of intent, you're not searching for words, your trying to solve a problem, or answer a question. Searching, when you go back up the chain, is also linked to the life stage events. A search for interest rates might reveal a savings or mortgage need, which reveals a life stage event, or an aspiration of a potential customers. Google insights helps you understand the relationship between different terms and intents.

But don't just think that Google is the only way to search for information. Despite there really being a desperate need, a new generation of search engines has appeared that categorise or tag information, images, video in different ways - it may be by colour, location, origination; it may by diverse information relationships or connections; it may be by a community.

Have a look at the few below and find your favourite. You must visit Vark and Wolfram Alpha. I of course like the shop by celebrity styles on Like.com.

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FINANCIAL SERVICES INNOVATION

PAY STUDENTS TO GET GOOD GRADES - GradeFund lets students recruit sponsors—usually friends and family—who donate money for each good grade. Participating students upload their transcripts at the end of each term and GradeFund verifies them and then collects funds from the sponsors

VIRGIN PLANNING AN ONLINE BANK IN UK - Richard Branson is to launch an internet bank in a move designed to exploit public disgust with Britain's big banks in the wake of the credit crunch and following Tesco

MY INSURANCE IDEA - IAG wants you to enter your ideas, comment, and vote for those you like (or not!) in Your Ideas. Join the Blog. Or, take a Quick Poll or a short, fun Survey to express your opinions and see what others think. Out of this has come THE BUZZ - New car insurance brand, with a simple - yet complex - site.

THE FUTURE OF BRANCHES - Interesting presentation from Jeff on branch evolution

AB+F AWARDS - Held last night, HSBC took out website of the year over UBank. Westpac named Bank of the Year. CBAs Michael Harte named CIO of the Year.

COMMBANK TAKES NETBANK TO THE NEXT LEVEL - Single sign on, enhanced internet banking, personalisation, security enhancements, the lot. Big move.

WELLS FARGO LAUNCHES IPHONE APP - Ho Hum ...

THREE BIG TRENDS THAT DEFINE EVOLUTION IN BANKING - From Jeff Carter, Founder of MIT Future of Banking Lab.

MOBANK FOUNDER TALKS TO CHARIS - Hear from this new mobile only bank startup

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SEARCH ENGINES

BING - Microsoft's new attempt at better search - click on the more button and watch video - I like the bit where he says "We don't rank results by popularity, we categorise them ... " Is that wise?

TWITTER - The ultimate in real time search, twitter comments reflect real time information and opinion

WOLFRAM ALPHA - You enter your question or calculation, and WolframAlpha uses its built-in algorithms and growing collection of data to compute the answer.

LIKE - Find that product you've always wanted by visual search by colour, shape, object, pattern - or which celebrity wears it!

ETSY - Search handmade products by location, editor picks, bought/sold, recommendation - do the colour search - beautiful!

GOOGLE VOICE SEARCH - Speak into your iPhone app

DOGPILE - Searches Google, Yahoo, Live Search and Ask.com all at once

VARK - Ask it a question, it goes and finds a PERSON who sends you an answer back - even by click to chat. Interesting review here.

GOOGLE INSIGHT - Track search terms over time, in a certain location, - real intent search

SPEZIFY - Interesting page layout approach with some visual treatment of different objects as newspaper clippings, images as polaroids etc

VIEWZI - See your results in a 'powergrid' as text or screenshots, in a tag cloud, timeline, whatever

BLACKLE - The famous black version of Google that claimed to save monitor power use by having a black background

GOOGLE OPTIONS - Filter results by date, mentions in forums, reviews, video, images etc

BAIDU, QQ - Outside Google the most popular search engines in the east - character overload!

CIUL - Excellent categorisation of results in a crafted interface

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INNOVATION

BBC BLAST - Digital and experiential site from Fallon and BBC

INCREDIBLE TOKYO FASHION MAP - Watch the parka being passed along, click on Index Map and have a look around

GOOGLE WAVE - a new tool for communication and collaboration on the web - kinda of like Gmail. plus Flickr, plus Chat, plus other stuff

CHANEL NO.5 - New beautiful microsite for the famous fragrance

BUY A PIECE OF MOVIE HISTORY - Remember in Ferris Bueller, the cool house with the Ferraris ... its for sale. And its brilliant.

AMP AMPLIFY 09 CONFERENCE - Thought leadership and innovation, with speakers from all different countries and industries

OSREMOTOS - See how LG is helping Brazilians transition to Digital TV through this immersive site and film

GOOGLE MAP ALPHABET - My mate Rhett has made an alphabet of geographical objects from Google Maps - got massive press

QUIRKY - Earn money for your ideas

BEAUTIFUL INFORMATION VISUALISED BY INFOSTHETICS - Twitter data, obama stats, etc

STAYING HUMBLE - Listen to this podcast about what customers want - and its the basics!

TIME FOR GEN Ys TO SUFFER, SAYS MITCHELL - The big bloke whose eMitch has made a killing from Gen Ys now has the nerve to revel in their current employment crisis. Read the comments from Campaign Brief readers.

RENT REMINDERS (SMS, EMAIL, TWITTER) VIA TENANTTXT - Landlords can send txts to tenants to remind them of payments, etc. Possible in IB?

GOOGLE NEXT GEN PHONE RELEASED - The second-generation Google phone will go on sale in Australia from the middle of next month, with a sleeker design and updated features aimed squarely at the iPhone's youth market.

DESIGN YOUR OWN GARMENT AND SELL IT VIA EXUVE - Community votes on your designs, which can be sold online. Not new - see Threadless and others.