Bebo has over 14 million registered users worldwide. It’s the next open social Facebook or MySpace.

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A new year, and plenty of new opportunities. What would be the very best business ideas for this year, in which many economics predict an economic recession?

Aging population
It’s a problem many western countries have to deal with. In the U.S., the Bureau of Labor has predicted there will be one million nursing positions by 2020 that can’t be filled because of lack of educated talent. For you as an entrepeneur, look at opportunities for mobility aid, health care services, aid for the mental or physical disabled, anti-aging products, senior travel, funeral and/or retirement planning services, retiree support. Also think about the luxury items the elderly purchase of their life-long savings. Japanese elderly have small families due to the one-child policy and many own a small dog, pampering it with designer clothes and gourmet food.

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Entrepreneur.com:

Like most people, Darren Berkovitz and his partners were experiencing a common dilemma: too much to do and not enough time to do it. They did, however, find the time to create a solution. The result is DoMyStuff.com, an online community where busy people can quickly find assistants to handle their errands and tasks.

Here’s how it works: Busy people — known as buyers — post a task they need completed on the site. Everything from mowing the lawn to chartering a private jet is appropriate; no job is too big or too small.

Local individuals or businesses then bid on tasks by providing information, such as how much they’ll charge, when the task will be completed and details about the service they’ll provide.

Buyers review bids and choose the best assistant to help them. The site is free for buyers, while DoMyStuff.com keeps a percentage of the assistant’s winning bid.

In addition to providing a service to busy people, Berkovitz feels the site is a great opportunity for entrepreneurs who want to start their own business on the side.

Depending on how much time they’re willing to put in, assistants can turn the extra work into an easy weekend gig or work up to the point of becoming a contractor and subcontracting tasks to people below them.

“You can literally go on [to the site] this afternoon and start making money,” says Berkovitz.

Inquirer and Mirror:

It’s one of those mundane chores that annoys even the most cheerful Christmas enthusiast but is quickly forgotten shortly after completion in the glow of the holiday spirit: watering the Christmas tree.

Everyone knows the drill. Fill up whatever container that has been designated to do the job year after year with water, get down on your hands and knees and fight your way through prickly pine needles and boxes of neatly wrapped presents, all the while tryng not to spill the sloshing pan of water before reaching your goal: the tiny stand at the base of the tree.

Now there’s an easier way to keep your tree hydrated. It’s the HandyCane, the brain child of John Arena and his business partner Erik Dieknann.

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Houston Chronicle:

Pick a flavor — Rain, Frost, Lemon-Lime, Fierce, AM, Xtremo — and drink a toast today to Dr. Robert Cade, inventor of the concoction once nicknamed “Cade’s Cola” and now known as Gatorade.

Cade died Tuesday in Jacksonville, Fla., from kidney failure. He was 80.

Cade and three colleagues developed Gatorade in 1965 to help the Florida Gators football team replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in the swamp-like heat of Gainesville, Fla. The first batch cost $43 in supplies, and “sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner,” Dana Shires, one of Cade’s collaborators, told the Associated Press.

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Angie Mecklenburg is a mother of four in from Sutter, Illinois. Her blog’s about her Farm, God and chickens. Over the last 18 months, Mecklenburg has been writing three blogs. The most popular is Ang’s Chicken Coop, which has the tagline “a view of the world from the coop.”

The blog has only 250 daily visitors, but Angie manages to make as much as $1,200 a month, collecting fees from Google advertising and marketers who pay her to write about their products via the blog ad network iZea.

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Reuters:

A German scientist has come up with a solution for snoring — a computerized pillow that shifts the head’s sleeping position until the noise stops.

Daryoush Bazargani, professor of computer science at the University of Rostock and the pillow’s inventor, was displaying a prototype of his pillow at a health conference in Germany.

“The pillow is attached to a computer, which is the size of a book, rests on a bedside table, and analyses snoring noises,” Bazargani told Reuters.

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Springwise:

House-hunting can be a difficult and time-consuming process in which it often feels like you spend more time in a real estate agent’s car than you do viewing houses.

Pedal To Properties has come up with a novel concept whereby agents offer customers the chance to check out properties and neighbourhoods in a more healthful and leisurely fashion: via bicycle.

The free—and environmentally friendly—service is completely optional for clients, but those who choose to can tour through neighbourhoods and visit properties by cruiser bike.

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There’s been a great presentation by by Barry Schwartz on why too much choice is bad for us, and you can watch it below.

Too many choices cause:
1. Paralysis rather than liberation - people prefer to make no decision rather than make a complicated choice.
2. Less satisfaction with decisions as people have greater reason to regret the decisions they have made.
3. Unrealistic expectations.
Self-blame - when experiences are not perfect, people blame themselves.

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Uncomman Business:

MommyMixer is a networking event that brings together selected university students and parents who need babysitters.

A cost effective alternative to childcare agencies, the events allow parents to interview a number of candidates in an informal setting.

Parents pay a $100 entrance fee. On arrival, they’re handed a ‘Babysitter Book’ containing resumes of all potential hires attending the event, including references and their schedules for the upcoming academic term.

After brief introductions, parents and babysitters are encouraged to mingle and get to know each other. Attendance is limited to twenty to thirty moms and/or dads and the same number of candidates.

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