Uber seem to be taking over the world. The company is valued at $62.5 billion, and it now sits alongside Mcdonalds, Apple, Facebook, Disney and General Motors as one of the world’s largest companies. Now they’re looking to expand and innovate further by offering their service on subscription.

The service being trialed in just one area of New York at the moment, offers unlimited rides for $100 for two weeks or for $200 for the month. Much like an Amazon Prime subscription, this pricing option seems to be designed to entice people away from other competitors.

It raises a question we’ve asked her many times before – is there some way you could profitably offer your product or service Taon subscription, and both secure a guaranteed regular income AND lock in customers? Uber’s experiment shows it may apply to more businesses than you might think.

This was one of those where I had to check the date when I read about it, and no, it wasn’t April 1st A  Dutch architectural firm has created a modular house that can physically separate when a couple does.

Studio OBA‘s design is called the prenuptial house. The components are made from wood and carbon fibre, prefabricated independently of each other and slotted together in a Tetris-like formation to form one unit.  In keeping with its Amsterdam origins, the house will also float to cater for those divorcees that want to try canal living.

I’m not sure what kind of couple get married and then buy a house which prepares them for their divorce, but it’s an interesting idea. Two other thoughts spring from it:

1. Might there be other uses for a ‘seperateable’ house…to enable friends to buy a house together and then separate when they are more financially stable,  for example?

2. Divorce is on the increase. What other products or services might help to smooth the path?

Website: www.studio-oba.nl

Last year, I recall a story circulating  about Amazon trialling delivery by drone. I think  it was some kind of hoax because it seemed so impractical, but maybe there is potential for it after all.

Chinese company, JD, are trialling a drone delivery service outside Suqian City in East China’s Jiangsu province.  The service currently runs between central depots and those in more rural areas. The reason it becomes realistic is that the final leg of the journey is still run by actual people. According to the company, this final human leg is necessary to mitigate the potential danger of multiple, individual flight paths.

The drones can carry up to 33 pounds in weight and travel up to 12 miles at speeds of up to 34 mph. The machines can also function in moderate rain and wind. A drone can make the journey significantly faster than a delivery van, trundling through winding roads.

So could drone deliveries actually work in the UK? Well in rural areas, and if you exclude the possibility of delivering direct to the door from a drone, I see no reason why not. Perhaps something to watch.

Treepress is an online platform designed for users to upload, search and license scripts for plays.

There are 700,000 amateur theatre performances in the UK alone. Users can upload their scripts to the site and search the database to discover new work to perform. The platform  aims to solve key problems of theatre publishing – publishers find it hard to distribute their work, self-publishing is time consuming, and content is impossible to find.

iTunes has revolutionised the way music is licensed and distributed. Perhaps theatre is the next frontier. If you’re looking to publicise your script or looking for a script to perform, this seems the ideal vehicle.

Website: www.treepress.org