4 ms·

What does it do? Put up a tag line or a quick explanation on the home page.

alttab 16y ago
This. When I went there it looked like a search engine. Embedding search for sites? Google does that. Using Bing's advertising platform? Who uses Bing? Twitter / Facebook results? People are already using tools for this. Search Portals? Yahoo, iGoogle, Bing... etc. You seem convinced you have a great idea for a product but you were unable to convince me. In fact, I'm still not sure what it does or how today's tools don't do what you're trying to do already. It may have been because you are doing this part time, you were beat to the punch. You need to make people badly want something you are selling. I can't want something if I don't know what it does. And since your product is related to search and trends, you have a very very very steep uphill battle ahead of you. The main issue is your marketing. I noticed on your blog that you said, "Really, if I need to spend a lot of time writing about what the product is for people to understand it, then I’ve failed." This is so far from the truth. I know the technology is great. I know its interesting, but that's the how. Most, no -- all consumers don't give a damn about how, they care about what. Ask any marketing person worth their salt and they will tell you it takes 9 to 18 months for a story to catch on and echo within a community/industry. Unless you go viral, it will take longer in the search sector. The how becomes interesting if your primary market is technical. But even then you are throwing away non-technical leads that could make the same decision. My overall impression is that you've been cave-coding for too long without iterative feedback from other professionals, market analysts, or consultants. There may be situational factors that explain all of this but from a "give me money" perspective no one will care. From a pivot perspective, it seems like integrating this functionality into a platform or library for other hackers to use and integrate into their own platforms could be a possible avenue. You've used and created some cool technology - repackage it and evangelize your approach. Even if it doesn't make any money, it can help garner a reputation that may help you move out onto other opportunities that pay more.
- jrussbowman 16y ago
  Ok, does sound like I do need get more information up about what it does. The product I'll be selling is the hosted search solution. The idea is that while you can get an embedded site search via Google or other search providers, I'll be offering my customers more than just a way to provide search results for their viewers. The concept is that these days businesses are publishing content not only to their websites, but also to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites. My solution allows them a way to unscatter all that content, putting it one place for their viewers. Combined with the RSS feed display, it also gives them an out of the box portal with all their content in one place. It also allows people to create topic based search solutions as well. I'll create and post links to examples of those when I make them later this week. One idea I'll be publishing is a Conservation Search, where search results will be provided from The Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and WWF, while also showing their most recent content from Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. In the future I'll be adding more providers for customers to add to their portal, as well as eventually building my own crawler and search indexer, which for a fee will allow customers to really customize what gets indexed and how search results are displayed.
  - pedalpete 16y ago
    the unscattering of published content from multiple sources sounds like a great idea to start. I wouldn't get into the topic based searching right away as you are diluting your brand. Do one thing REALLY well to start, then move into other things. Since I suspect this is a product that would be used by businesses, rather than displaying an end-user type page where you have a search box, how about building a few examples of unscattered media. I'd suggest taking a few topics which will be in the news for a bit, such as the gulf oil spill (I wouldn't unscatter the BP stuff, but maybe the gov't action), maybe greenpeaces media, stuff like that, and show a demo of what the services can do for businesses. That's the best way to get people to get it. And if you build a demo for these publishers, maybe they'll install your widget on their page bringing you more customers. Don't talk about it if you can show it. Congrats on being a father, and best of luck with the new indeavor. Really an interesting and useful idea i think.
    - jrussbowman 16y ago

This. When I went there it looked like a search engine. Embedding search for sites? Google does that. Using Bing's advertising platform? Who uses Bing? Twitter / Facebook results? People are already using tools for this. Search Portals? Yahoo, iGoogle, Bing... etc. You seem convinced you have a great idea for a product but you were unable to convince me. In fact, I'm still not sure what it does or how today's tools don't do what you're trying to do already. It may have been because you are doing this part time, you were beat to the punch. You need to make people badly want something you are selling. I can't want something if I don't know what it does. And since your product is related to search and trends, you have a very very very steep uphill battle ahead of you. The main issue is your marketing. I noticed on your blog that you said, "Really, if I need to spend a lot of time writing about what the product is for people to understand it, then I’ve failed." This is so far from the truth. I know the technology is great. I know its interesting, but that's the how. Most, no -- all consumers don't give a damn about how, they care about what. Ask any marketing person worth their salt and they will tell you it takes 9 to 18 months for a story to catch on and echo within a community/industry. Unless you go viral, it will take longer in the search sector. The how becomes interesting if your primary market is technical. But even then you are throwing away non-technical leads that could make the same decision. My overall impression is that you've been cave-coding for too long without iterative feedback from other professionals, market analysts, or consultants. There may be situational factors that explain all of this but from a "give me money" perspective no one will care. From a pivot perspective, it seems like integrating this functionality into a platform or library for other hackers to use and integrate into their own platforms could be a possible avenue. You've used and created some cool technology - repackage it and evangelize your approach. Even if it doesn't make any money, it can help garner a reputation that may help you move out onto other opportunities that pay more.

jrussbowman 16y ago
Ok, does sound like I do need get more information up about what it does. The product I'll be selling is the hosted search solution. The idea is that while you can get an embedded site search via Google or other search providers, I'll be offering my customers more than just a way to provide search results for their viewers. The concept is that these days businesses are publishing content not only to their websites, but also to Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other sites. My solution allows them a way to unscatter all that content, putting it one place for their viewers. Combined with the RSS feed display, it also gives them an out of the box portal with all their content in one place. It also allows people to create topic based search solutions as well. I'll create and post links to examples of those when I make them later this week. One idea I'll be publishing is a Conservation Search, where search results will be provided from The Nature Conservancy, Greenpeace and WWF, while also showing their most recent content from Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. In the future I'll be adding more providers for customers to add to their portal, as well as eventually building my own crawler and search indexer, which for a fee will allow customers to really customize what gets indexed and how search results are displayed.
- pedalpete 16y ago
  the unscattering of published content from multiple sources sounds like a great idea to start. I wouldn't get into the topic based searching right away as you are diluting your brand. Do one thing REALLY well to start, then move into other things. Since I suspect this is a product that would be used by businesses, rather than displaying an end-user type page where you have a search box, how about building a few examples of unscattered media. I'd suggest taking a few topics which will be in the news for a bit, such as the gulf oil spill (I wouldn't unscatter the BP stuff, but maybe the gov't action), maybe greenpeaces media, stuff like that, and show a demo of what the services can do for businesses. That's the best way to get people to get it. And if you build a demo for these publishers, maybe they'll install your widget on their page bringing you more customers. Don't talk about it if you can show it. Congrats on being a father, and best of luck with the new indeavor. Really an interesting and useful idea i think.
  - jrussbowman 16y ago