There are inspired products, and then there are products that makes me scratch my head, wondering just what were they thinking (WWTT). Among the second type making news this week --Bookswim is a startup company that wants to bring the Netflix model to... books. You remember books- bound paper, conveniently printed on both sides? For $20 or so a month, readers can borrow the books they want to read. The tomes arrive in the mail with a return envelope, and the readers can take as much time as needed to enjoy them.
I know you're thinking what I'm thinking, and that is... library. Maybe I'm spoiled by having some of the best libraries in the country nearby, but why would I pay $20 for a service I can get for free? With online requests, I can have any book in the system, usually within a day or two. If the idea is that readers are saved the time of going to the library or book store... readers LIKE going to the library and the book store.
This week is the 50th birthday of one of the most famous WWTT products, the Ford (NYSE:F) Edsel.
The mid-priced Ford with the lemon-sucking grill hit the showrooms like a bag of garbage dropped from the penthouse. Buyers stayed away in droves from the 1,500 new dealerships established to sell the brand, which Ford had spent $400 million to develop.
Amusingly, Ford invited noted American poet Marianne Moore's input on possible names for the new line. Any of her suggestions, including "Thundercrest", "Intelligent Whale", "Pastelogram", and "Utopian Turtletop" would have been a much better choice, imho.
Another rather over-the-top vision is being advanced by a group of business people in Dessau, Germany, who are planning to build The Great Pyramid of Germany. This Giza-style edifice will be ten times the size of the largest Egyptian one. But wait, there's more...
For about $1,000, you can buy a slot in a communal tomb in the pyramid (ashes only, please). Famed architect Rem Koolhaus is advising the group on the project, which has some government as well as private funding. There is no truth to the rumor that it will be accompanied by the figure of a crouching lion with the face of Michael Schumacher.
Do you hate soft bananas? Then rejoice in the news from our sister blog Gadling about the Banana Bunker, a hard-plastic case is shaped to fit your fruit and keep it safe from injury. Say what you will about the age of excess, I wouldn't want to go back to a world with bruised bananas.
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