Buzvia Blog

elephantsonthewall.com is a great concept, executed perfectly!

When I first saw this site, I was impressed by not only their offerings but more importantly, how such a great idea has given power to children around the world to improve the looks of their rooms!

elephantsonthewall.com: Background

With the growth of “direct from the designer” sites on the internet offering not generally available elsewhere and the minimal costs involved with running an online site vs a brick and mortar one, these types of sites are only set to explode over the next few years. I myself saw this a while ago as well, and launched a WoodMarvels.com as a result to serve a similar market segment.

elephantsonthewall.com: How it Works

A customer simply chooses from their extensive gallery which design they think best suits a boring wall they have in their home. Once the blueprints arrive, they tape the transfer paper to the wall, follow the numbers in sequence then paint or draw in the designs. The entire process is no different than what is practiced in kids books but on a far larger scale! The added advantage of this is that if you have a child that has trouble with numbers, this is a great teaching tool as well!

elephantsonthewall.com: The Problems

Each kit they sell comes through the mail, it would be nice to offer a .pdf version as well (for a reduced price) for people with a little more experience and in a hurry. Waiting one to two weeks is a long time but I am sure they offer express as well. I guess making sure you supervise your child is also a great idea or even do it with them, otherwise, they may end-up painting more floor than wall. It would also be nice if they offered more complex and non-kid related patterns as well.

elephantsonthewall.com: The Good

The designs are very nice, the entire concept drop dead easy for the consumer and overall, providing self-esteem to children by creating their own masterpiece that they can cherish for as long as they live with Mom and Dad is worth more than gold. I really like this entire idea! There is also a very broad selection of designs to chose from such as construction to jungle, aquatic to medieval. They even got dinosaurs! How cool is that!

elephantsonthewall.com: What Alexa Says

They have a site ranking just hovering around a million, which is very respectible considering how niche their products are.

elephantsonthewall.com: Competition

I made a search for some of their competitors and to be frank, their stuff blows them so far out of the water that to call them competition is an insult to the word. Here is the only one I found:

• Trace Designs: tracedesigns.net

elephantsonthewall.com: The Final Verdict

This is a fantastic concept which has been executed wonderfully. From what I can see, they own their niche and that is always a wonderful place to be!

The Bottom Line

There is a lot of opportunity in exploiting niches!

Buzvia: Elephants on the Wall – Paint-by-Number Wall Murals

Social Networking Sites are a tangled web of friends, enemies and indifference.

So far at this point in my life, I see little to no value in joining-up to a social networking site. I view them as nothing more than a friend-collection system and I am too busy in my own life to intrude in that of my friends and associates.

Why do a test between Facebook, MySpace and Friendster?

Well, depending on where you are in this world, you are either a Friendster, MySpace or Facebook type of person. I enjoy traveling so I got a sprinkle of people on all three systems so I decided I would do a test to see which is the most useless.

Test parameters

I just set-up an account using the same (new) e-mail address, thanks live.com, and put in identical information in all three. I uploaded a photo for my profile picture (can’t figure this out on Friendster) and put in a brief intro (below), my real birth date, university I graduated from, location and name (Jon Cantin).

I am the founder of i3DS International Corporation, which owns in whole many web properties including DreamClue.com, WoodMarvels.com, LegendaryLife.com and Buzvia.com. My company also provides web and 3D animation services to companies around the world.

Differences

It was nice to see that I am able to post a public profile in Friendster with my own custom url but their user interface is a mess, I still can’t figure out how to upload my profile picture! See http://profiles.friendster.com/i3ds

MySpace is using an equally as frustrating user interface as Friendster but they also allow public viewing of my profile page. Just for signing-up, I also got a friend now so all my social insecurities can go away. See http://www.myspace.com/i3ds

Facebook has the easiest to use interface for putting in your information but doesn’t allow public viewing of my profile (why?). If you want to see it, just login and search for Jon Cantin.

Wait and see

Now, I will just promote this in a few areas and see what happens and report on it in future updates on the Buzvia Blog. My guess at this point is that these profiles will quickly pick-up a lot of people I don’t know but let’s see what the fisherman can pull in over the holidays.

The Bottom Line

Patience is a virtue that is best served with additional patience.

Buzvia: Friendster.com, MySpace.com, Facebook.com, Live.com

Update 20min later: Just figured-out how to add a profile picture to my page on Friendster.