(Credit:
Zazzle)
On-demand retail site Zazzle launched on Wednesday its Custom Skate Shop, selling both pre-designed and custom skateboards.
It's the most "niche" product that the company has offered so far--Zazzle got its start selling t-shirts, posters, mouse pads, and the like.
It's the latest move that Zazzle has made to draw in the action sports community, which has strong ties to underground art and design as well as customization--and the need for gear. The company recently launched a division called Artsprojekt in collaboration with artist and former pro skateboarder Andy Howell. It's an outlet for edgy new artists and brands to put up a presence and sell their art through Zazzle.
The manufacturing process used to make Zazzle skateboards has a patent pending; the boards' decks are made of seven-ply North American maple, and pricing starts around $60.
Video cameras acting as an express lane to YouTube are gaining in popularity. First there was the Flip, now comes the VHoldr.
(Credit:
Twenty20 Corp.)
The VHoldr is smaller and pricier than the nifty Flip Video camera, but it sets itself apart by enabling hands-free operation. The VHoldr is a ruggedized, weatherproof video camera that is palm-size, but intended to be worn and not held. It's meant to capture video on the go, say, while you're speeding down a snow-covered mountain, bouncing over mountain bike trails or engaging in any other extreme sport of which you'd like to see the video footage. There's no live element to it, but the video is easily uploadable to the Web (hopefully) after editing.
There's a single button that turns the camera on and begins recording, a lens that rotates 180 degrees, and a variety of mounts for the unit. Once video has been recorded, a USB cable sends the video to a PC, where VHoldr software will allow users to edit and upload footage directly to VHoldr.com, the video-hosting site for users, or YouTube.
Founder Marc Barros created the company in a schoolwide business-plan competition he entered with two others while undergraduate students at the University of Washington. After winning third place, their company, dubbed Twenty20 , made helmet camera attachments for camcorders out of their Seattle garage, which they sold to their fellow extreme sports enthusiasts.
The latest incarnation isn't available until December, but Barros was showing it off to investors and journalists at this week's TechCrunch 40 conference, a showcase for start-ups. The new version will sell for $350 and be available through 400 retailers.
Don't you love when innocent playground activities meld with extreme sports?
(Credit:
Hammacher Schlemmer)
The same crazy folks at Hammacher Schlemmer that brought us the Mountain Scooter, Gravity-Defying Boots and Push-Free Skateboard, are now pushing The Pneumatic Drive Highest-Jumping Pogo Stick.
This is not the pogo stick of our childhoods. No, no, this one's inner compression spring generates more than 1,500 pounds of thrust capable of hurtling you seven feet in the air, which incidentally is the world record for pogoing set by--you guessed it--The Pneumatic Drive Highest-Jumping Pogo Stick. Air can be added by bike pump or air compressor to the pneumatic cylinder to make pogoing as dangerous, and expensive, as possible. This toy will set you back $350, and may require that you wear a helmet.
But really, who cares that one false move could mean eating through a straw for the rest of your life? It's FUN.
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