3 ms·

Landing page for my potential startup, Minute Favors. Is there potential here?

10 points by mcrittenden 15y ago

tebeka 15y ago
How does it differ from Amazon's Mechanical Turk?
- mcrittenden 15y ago
  For one, it's simpler. One quick task = $1, and the turnaround time should be pretty quick assuming there are a few people browsing the open requests list at any given time. Also, it's meant for small, short (one or two minutes if done by someone who knows what they're doing) one-off tasks, which isn't the kind of thing someone would be likely to use MT for.
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I like it, couple of potential problems though: 1) If I'm on the provider end, am I in a race with the entire planet to get the job done first? Is $0.75 worth that? 2) Since the task can go beyond information, an exchange between buyer/provider is needed, how will this happen? File transfer might be easy, what if I'm request something requiring physical access (put air in my tires)? Will you monitor it somehow for tasks than can be completed by people over the internet, will you host files, etc? 3) If you are transferring files, how do you provide privacy?
- mcrittenden 15y ago
  Thanks for the comments. 1) I'm still wresting with myself on the best way to handle this. My thought so far is that you "reserve" a request, so you mark it as spoken for and no one else is allowed to touch it. This gives you some preset amount of time (5 min? 10 min?) to finish the task and send it back to the requester for approval. Thoughts on that process? 2) Yeah, the plan is for it to be a hard rule that all tasks must be able to be accomplished using only a computer. Hopefully that + the $1 fee + a "Report" button on each task would be enough to deter people from posting invalid stuff too often, and the rest can be handled case by case. As for hosting files, for the MVP I'd probably just ask people to link to the files elsewhere (public Dropbox folder, etc.) and see what the response to that is like. 3) See #2. I'd love to avoid hosting files if at all possible because of 1) privacy issues and 2) hosting costs but it might not be feasible to just ignore this feature altogether.
mutagen 15y ago
I'd be concerned it will turn into the "Link my page for a dollar" and "retweet this to your 10k spambot followers for a dollar" that detracts from the usefulness of these kind of services. The gamification suggestions going on in your G+ discussion [1] are intriguing. I could imagine trading in a virtual currency for fixed or variable priced favors and looking to trade that back in for some help in areas where my skills are lacking. https://plus.google.com/111020520676817671277/posts/VhBuNXfv4TD https://plus.google.com/111020520676817671277/posts/VhBuNXfv...

10 points by mcrittenden 15y ago

tebeka 15y ago

How does it differ from Amazon's Mechanical Turk?

mcrittenden 15y ago
For one, it's simpler. One quick task = $1, and the turnaround time should be pretty quick assuming there are a few people browsing the open requests list at any given time. Also, it's meant for small, short (one or two minutes if done by someone who knows what they're doing) one-off tasks, which isn't the kind of thing someone would be likely to use MT for.

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

I like it, couple of potential problems though: 1) If I'm on the provider end, am I in a race with the entire planet to get the job done first? Is $0.75 worth that? 2) Since the task can go beyond information, an exchange between buyer/provider is needed, how will this happen? File transfer might be easy, what if I'm request something requiring physical access (put air in my tires)? Will you monitor it somehow for tasks than can be completed by people over the internet, will you host files, etc? 3) If you are transferring files, how do you provide privacy?

mcrittenden 15y ago
Thanks for the comments. 1) I'm still wresting with myself on the best way to handle this. My thought so far is that you "reserve" a request, so you mark it as spoken for and no one else is allowed to touch it. This gives you some preset amount of time (5 min? 10 min?) to finish the task and send it back to the requester for approval. Thoughts on that process? 2) Yeah, the plan is for it to be a hard rule that all tasks must be able to be accomplished using only a computer. Hopefully that + the $1 fee + a "Report" button on each task would be enough to deter people from posting invalid stuff too often, and the rest can be handled case by case. As for hosting files, for the MVP I'd probably just ask people to link to the files elsewhere (public Dropbox folder, etc.) and see what the response to that is like. 3) See #2. I'd love to avoid hosting files if at all possible because of 1) privacy issues and 2) hosting costs but it might not be feasible to just ignore this feature altogether.

mutagen 15y ago

I'd be concerned it will turn into the "Link my page for a dollar" and "retweet this to your 10k spambot followers for a dollar" that detracts from the usefulness of these kind of services. The gamification suggestions going on in your G+ discussion [1] are intriguing. I could imagine trading in a virtual currency for fixed or variable priced favors and looking to trade that back in for some help in areas where my skills are lacking. https://plus.google.com/111020520676817671277/posts/VhBuNXfv4TD https://plus.google.com/111020520676817671277/posts/VhBuNXfv...