Thread.com in less than a minute from Thread.com on Vimeo.

Iconoculture: Lonely hearts looking for love online, but tired of registration-heavy dating sites and wary of total strangers, can tug on Thread for a Facebook-friend-vetted flame-finding alternative. Launched in September 2009 and currently in beta, the currently free Facebook Connect-powered service only requires users to fill out a bare-bones questionnaire to get started. Once up and running, users can easily browse other Threadsters sorted by degrees of separation from themselves. If someone looks appealing, users can ask a mutual friend for an intro or be gutsy and send the possible paramour a Facebook message directly.

Thread couples online singles via mutual Facebook friends [Iconoculture]

Iconoculture: Teens love to buy virtual goods from videogames, but if they don’t have access to Mom’s plastic, they’re often out of luck. That could change dramatically, now that Kwedit has launched. It’s a sophisticated honor system that allows anyone over age 13 to buy virtual goods with a promise to pay later. How will they pay later? By taking cash to any IRL Kwedit partner, such as 7-Eleven.

And if they don’t cough up the dough? It’ll reflect poorly on their Kwedit Score, which is similar to other commonly used credit scores, but dedicated to the Kwedit payment system. Lower Kwedit scores due to a poor payment history will make less Kwedit available.

Play now, pay later: Kwedit is a unique new honor system for buying virtual goods [Iconoculture]

PlaceLocal automatically creates unique display ads for local advertisers. Type in any local business and PlaceLocal gets to work, searching the web for relevant information, reviews, and photos to use in the ad. Within seconds, your ad is designed, ready to be tweaked or ordered. Just type in any local business to create an ad — how much simpler does it get? Anyone can build a customized, rich-media banner ad, no technical expertise or manual effort is required.

Springwise: Each month, Reknit will unravel old sweaters and re-knit them into a different item; this January, it’s scarves. Consumers begin by choosing from two different scarf styles—each priced at USD 30—and sending their old sweaters to Boston-based Reknit. Then, “my mom will turn your old sweater into a new scarf,” as the site’s creator explains it. Visitors to the site even get to vote on which type of items “mom” will convert sweaters into next month: a beanie, an iPod case, cut-off gloves or socks. (Spoiler alert: the cut-off gloves are currently in the lead.)

More upcycling: sweaters into scarves [Springwise]

The idea of take-out has taken off. The emergent trend of buying online, picking-up in-store (‘bopi’ for these purposes) was listed as eMarketer’s #7 Key Online Predictions for 2008 and NearbyNow’s #4.
While seemingly inherent that companies would diversify their distribution efforts, many are still 1-pronged. Yet with benefits like bigger shopping carts (27% of bopi customers make additional purchases in-store) and opportunities for web cross-selling (44% of bopi customers buy more merchandise online than average), it’s easy to see why it’s on the ‘08 countdown.
Recently Circuit City, founder of the bopi method, added a 24-minute guarantee for pick-up customers. This comes, not surprisingly after the Forrester report noted the top reasons to buy locally were ‘want it now’, ‘try it first’ and ‘no shipping charges’. Further, mobile bopi is forecasted to spike as well. ‘Order en route’ has quite the ring to it. With giants like Wal-Mart (see Site to Store launch in Q107) and the top 3 pizza distributors jumping on board, their success will determine how quickly others join in.
Because who doesn’t want a generic prescription or a Lexus or a latte, to-go.

Katie Sherman is a NY-based freelance writer. After years of multi-tasking at downtown ad agencies, she’s recently returned from a European backpacking sabbatical. During the day she works as a Copywriter in Soho. In the off-hours she concentrates on analyzing social/ cultural trends, business innovation and local entertainment. Her work has been published on PSFK.com, CoolBusinessIdeas.com, EatDrinkSleepny.com, and Glamourite.com. Email her at katie_sherman@hotmail.com