4 ms·

I love this. Some of the ideas are, frankly, junk. But there are a few gems (and a few which I'm stealing and putting on my own todo list), but more importantly

by user24 16y ago

I love this. Some of the ideas are, frankly, junk. But there are a few gems (and a few which I'm stealing and putting on my own todo list), but more importantly I love the openness of just sharing ideas instead of doing what I do and keeping them tight close to my chest. And what I think is junk, someone else might see gold, or have just the right connections to create a decent product. This is what being a hacker is all about - open sharing of ideas. And this blog post is just that, in its rawest form. Awesome. Here's another page which I like for the same reason: http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html http://www.sixmonthmba.com/2009/02/999ideas.html

jacquesm 16y ago
At least someone got it :) The other day there was a thread about someone asking what their idea should be valued at, without any background on the idea or their own capacity to execute (or even their skills). I really strongly believe that an idea has no value at all, simply a big fat '0'. And chances are that if you have a particular idea that 10 other guys have it too. By throwing these out there (the good with the bad and the ugly) I'm hoping for two things: That people will not 'hoard' their ideas and feel free to discuss them and that you get an idea of how bad the ratio between 'good' and 'bad' is. Take in to account the 900 or so that didn't even make the cut of being listed here and you have an idea how bad most of the others are ;) The worst possible idea is one that you hoard and spend a ton of time on when someone could shoot it down in 30 seconds by pointing out a fatal flaw, those ideas can actually develop a negative valuation because you'll keep sinking more time in to the zombie. Usually a week or so after having an idea I go 'what on earth was I thinking that that would be a good idea', some last a little longer, even fewer actually get implemented and a small fraction of those develop traction. It's like a distillation column. Thanks. And please do share your own list(s) of ideas!
- user24 16y ago
  A quick review of my thoughts on some of the ideas which stood out to me: ajaxbricks - nice, kinda like the way you program the lego NXT (labview). Anyone with enough patience and desire to learn this, might as well just learn JS and PHP though. Potential though. ArticleBody - good. I'm stealing this one. AutoTagger - ditto. Care to share your code? Dead Mans Knob.... just sounds wrong. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=knob http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=knob Also I'm pretty sure it's been done, just can't find the site. E404 - http://archive.org/ http://archive.org/ fwitter - http://tweetbeep.com/ http://tweetbeep.com/ HackerContests - Great, want to start it? My resume: http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/ http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/ OptInSpam - Clever, you should be able to get some press coverage on that concept. Not sure if anyone would sign up, but it's innovative. vm4rent - nice idea! legal? wwspeech - chatroulette could have been this. Good idea, potentially huge. edit: ProofItWasThere - I had this idea too! Was thinking along the lines of 'verified screenshot', eg for people wanting to prove things about their server stats, ad revenue etc, or for when sites screw things up, etc.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    re. autotagger code, yes, I might, mail me and I'll explain one of the potential hangups there re. dead mans knob: that's a literal translation of a dutch word, not sure what the english translation is, it stems from a button that train drivers have to keep pressed or the train will coast to a stop (in case they have a heart attack). nice you like hackercontests :) Yes, I'd like to see that one happening very much. HackerBacker too, but that one is much more involved. re. proofitwasthere: I was expecting such a response for pretty much all of them :)
    - arghnoname 16y ago
      In American English it is referred to colloquially as a dead man's switch.
    - ErrantX 16y ago
      "dead mans lever" is probably what I would call it. :) Amusing transliteration though.. I'd keep it. HackerBacker is probably fraught with legal problems, which absolutely sucks because it would be a great thing to do. Registrate has promise though.. you could add the ability to upload photos of your stuff to it. Then work on ways to convince insurance companies to work with you. So subscribers could simply select their insurance company, enter a policy #, choose what they are claiming for and enter a claim etc.
    - levesque 16y ago
      I would participate in a hacker's contest !!! I love this kind of stuff, just like google code jam, but maybe I would be good at it ;)
  - chip 16y ago
    ArticleBody - Instapaper and Readability do this, but definitely can be improved. AutoTagger - OpenCalais does this, again opportunities for improvement of course. Still a nice list of ideas.
  - prawn 16y ago
    Dead Man's Switch-type sites are around in some capacity but I can't remember URLs either. Quite similar, one of the lame ones on my list (working title: LockBox) was a vault where you could record a few (electronic) things that friends/family might need after you passed (funeral wishes, how to distribute your things, basic passwords, where you hid jewellery, etc). Someone could hit the site and enter two email addresses - the vault owner's, and their own. An email would be sent to the vault owner (identifying the person attempting to unlock the box) and if a link in said email was not clicked within 24-48 hours (or whatever it was set at), the vault key would be sent to the requesting person. Target moody teens that obsess over what music might be played at their funeral, who gets their collection of whatever, what happens to their dog, etc.
- astartupaday1 16y ago
  I totally agree. The value of ideas is zero, but by making a list like this, you start to build your own internal filter for ideas. That filter, in my opinion, is actually quite valuable. For reference, I've posted about 200 ideas over the past three years at http://astartupaday.com http://astartupaday.com . And yes, the majority are crap, but there was one idea that got some traction and now I'm executing on it full-time as part of TechStars.
- Xurinos 16y ago
  I really strongly believe that an idea has no value at all, simply a big fat '0'. And chances are that if you have a particular idea that 10 other guys have it too. And if 10 guys implement the same idea, everyone gets the benefits of competition, too, including additional innovations on the idea.

by user24 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

At least someone got it :) The other day there was a thread about someone asking what their idea should be valued at, without any background on the idea or their own capacity to execute (or even their skills). I really strongly believe that an idea has no value at all, simply a big fat '0'. And chances are that if you have a particular idea that 10 other guys have it too. By throwing these out there (the good with the bad and the ugly) I'm hoping for two things: That people will not 'hoard' their ideas and feel free to discuss them and that you get an idea of how bad the ratio between 'good' and 'bad' is. Take in to account the 900 or so that didn't even make the cut of being listed here and you have an idea how bad most of the others are ;) The worst possible idea is one that you hoard and spend a ton of time on when someone could shoot it down in 30 seconds by pointing out a fatal flaw, those ideas can actually develop a negative valuation because you'll keep sinking more time in to the zombie. Usually a week or so after having an idea I go 'what on earth was I thinking that that would be a good idea', some last a little longer, even fewer actually get implemented and a small fraction of those develop traction. It's like a distillation column. Thanks. And please do share your own list(s) of ideas!

user24 16y ago
A quick review of my thoughts on some of the ideas which stood out to me: ajaxbricks - nice, kinda like the way you program the lego NXT (labview). Anyone with enough patience and desire to learn this, might as well just learn JS and PHP though. Potential though. ArticleBody - good. I'm stealing this one. AutoTagger - ditto. Care to share your code? Dead Mans Knob.... just sounds wrong. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=knob http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=knob Also I'm pretty sure it's been done, just can't find the site. E404 - http://archive.org/ http://archive.org/ fwitter - http://tweetbeep.com/ http://tweetbeep.com/ HackerContests - Great, want to start it? My resume: http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/ http://www.puremango.co.uk/2009/08/php-cv/ OptInSpam - Clever, you should be able to get some press coverage on that concept. Not sure if anyone would sign up, but it's innovative. vm4rent - nice idea! legal? wwspeech - chatroulette could have been this. Good idea, potentially huge. edit: ProofItWasThere - I had this idea too! Was thinking along the lines of 'verified screenshot', eg for people wanting to prove things about their server stats, ad revenue etc, or for when sites screw things up, etc.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  re. autotagger code, yes, I might, mail me and I'll explain one of the potential hangups there re. dead mans knob: that's a literal translation of a dutch word, not sure what the english translation is, it stems from a button that train drivers have to keep pressed or the train will coast to a stop (in case they have a heart attack). nice you like hackercontests :) Yes, I'd like to see that one happening very much. HackerBacker too, but that one is much more involved. re. proofitwasthere: I was expecting such a response for pretty much all of them :)
  - arghnoname 16y ago
    In American English it is referred to colloquially as a dead man's switch.
  - ErrantX 16y ago
    "dead mans lever" is probably what I would call it. :) Amusing transliteration though.. I'd keep it. HackerBacker is probably fraught with legal problems, which absolutely sucks because it would be a great thing to do. Registrate has promise though.. you could add the ability to upload photos of your stuff to it. Then work on ways to convince insurance companies to work with you. So subscribers could simply select their insurance company, enter a policy #, choose what they are claiming for and enter a claim etc.
  - levesque 16y ago
    I would participate in a hacker's contest !!! I love this kind of stuff, just like google code jam, but maybe I would be good at it ;)
- chip 16y ago
  ArticleBody - Instapaper and Readability do this, but definitely can be improved. AutoTagger - OpenCalais does this, again opportunities for improvement of course. Still a nice list of ideas.
- prawn 16y ago
  Dead Man's Switch-type sites are around in some capacity but I can't remember URLs either. Quite similar, one of the lame ones on my list (working title: LockBox) was a vault where you could record a few (electronic) things that friends/family might need after you passed (funeral wishes, how to distribute your things, basic passwords, where you hid jewellery, etc). Someone could hit the site and enter two email addresses - the vault owner's, and their own. An email would be sent to the vault owner (identifying the person attempting to unlock the box) and if a link in said email was not clicked within 24-48 hours (or whatever it was set at), the vault key would be sent to the requesting person. Target moody teens that obsess over what music might be played at their funeral, who gets their collection of whatever, what happens to their dog, etc.
astartupaday1 16y ago
I totally agree. The value of ideas is zero, but by making a list like this, you start to build your own internal filter for ideas. That filter, in my opinion, is actually quite valuable. For reference, I've posted about 200 ideas over the past three years at http://astartupaday.com http://astartupaday.com . And yes, the majority are crap, but there was one idea that got some traction and now I'm executing on it full-time as part of TechStars.
Xurinos 16y ago
I really strongly believe that an idea has no value at all, simply a big fat '0'. And chances are that if you have a particular idea that 10 other guys have it too. And if 10 guys implement the same idea, everyone gets the benefits of competition, too, including additional innovations on the idea.