Remember Twitter, WordPress, and Other Centers of The Universe? We talked a bit about having a profitable wee business as an extension of some other larger, well-established business (whether that other business is profitable or not).

Well, @risingstarideas rang me today to point out two very different (and way nifty) examples of how this can roll with Twitter:

BakerTweet.com

They describe their product better than I can:

“BakerTweet is a way for busy bakers to tell the world that something hot and fresh has just come out of the oven. It’s as simple as turning the dial and hitting the button. All of the baker’s followers get a Twitter alert to tell them that it’s bun-time. Or bread time. Or whatever.”

Seriously, yes. They have created a device robust enough to withstand bakery abuse (flour in the air, liquids on the splash, waves of high heat) and wily enough to send messages to Twitter—wirelessly, no less—about what’s coming out of the oven.

They’ve created an offline device to supplement an online service. That tickles me no end.

The Albion in Shoreditch, London already has this running at @albionsoven, and they had the delicious good sense to include links to photos of their fresh croissants and other yummies.

Did you see their tiny zoomable Google map on the photo page? Such a smart thing. I wish it accepted addresses for driving directions but, then again, I’m 3,667 miles away…it’s not like I can get there while the apple turnovers are still hot

TweetLister.com

Here’s what they have to say for and about themselves:

• Post and re-use as many listings as you want for residential, commercial, vacation and any other type of property.
• Schedule each listing to post as often as you’d like for a set period of time – until it sells, rents or leases!
• View and download a list of all prospects on each listing. Never miss a qualified lead!
• TweetLister is the easy, sensible way to use the power of Twitter for your real estate listings.

And the interface is dead simple, right? I mean, look at it:

So you (or your real estate agent) clicks through to describe the property you have for sale, rent, or trade (!). All along the way, a tweet is composed below using standard abbreviations. They even allowed a handful of characters to add a few words of your own.

One particularly handy bit is the “Schedule Listing” feature, which enables reposting of the tweet every 1, 2, 3, or 5 days, weekly, and monthly. Also, an email address is required to facilitate contact, but (blessedly) the link goes to a contact form so your addy is never exposed to the world.

More clevernesses: You can include photos and links to create a TweetLister-hosted listing page. Their #tl hashtag conserves precious letters but makes all their tweets easy to find with a TweetLister Twitter search. And they have a listings search page, too.

The service is free, actually, but it doesn’t have to be. I suspect agents and other folks would happily pay a moderate monthly fee (TweetLater offers general Twitter-related services for $30/mth). In the meantime, I hope the indirect earnings are flowing nicely for these web developers/programmers who specialize in tools for real estate folks.

Summing Up

Two things to underline in your mind about these:

1. They serve one specific market…specific, but not too small
   Like, rather than just “small business”, they drilled down to “bakers” and “real estate agents”. Though with the requisite Twitter, it’s more like “Web-savvy bakers” and “Social-media-conscious bakers”
2. The workings may be complex, but the service is simple
   They do ONE thing. One. Uno. 1.

More on keeping it simple in the next post…

In the meantime, I’d love to hear your thoughts on these two. Are they missing some features? Did they spark any new ideas?

P.S. So sorry I’ve been shorting you a post the last two weeks…my world’s a little out of balance right now, but I’ll do better!