What's New

• Digital shutterbugs are snapping pictures of "every structure in the United States that has a street address" to add to Zaio.com's online data-base, according to Cecil Johnson, Zaio's regional vice president of franchise development. Zaio plans to sell the pictures to real estate professionals, place businesses on their Zaio Pages, and offer clients custom photography and Internet-based images for everything from classified ads items to wedding pictures.

• If you thought "auras" were just new-age mumbo-jumbo, think again. With its Biofeedback Imaging Systems, Aura Shop offers customers colorful aura photos and print-outs that reveal personality types, emotional states, energy levels and problem areas. Customers can buy products to help restore balance to those problem areas.

"The whole energetic/emotional health/wellness field is totally mainstream now," says 37-year-old founder Johannes R. Fisslinger, "and nobody out there does what we do."

• According to its Web site, franchisees of WorkSafe by Regulatory Solutions Inc. are providing small and midsized businesses with "safety programs that protect employees and help employers comply with OSHA, EPA and Department of Transportation regulations" as well as human resources compliance.

This article was originally published in the February 2001 print edition of Entrepreneur with the headline: What's New.