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So, not quite the answer to your question, but the idea came because I saw people create spreadsheets of supplement comparisons on Reddit with each other. and I

So, not quite the answer to your question, but the idea came because I saw people create spreadsheets of supplement comparisons on Reddit with each other. and I thought "wow, that's actually very useful, why isn't there an app for this"

solardev 2y ago
I think the value of such a thing is precisely because it's organic (or at least astroturfed, i.e. fake grassroots). If you try to make profit off it, you risk compromising that with ads, sponsored listings, etc... the spreadsheet equivalent of modern Google's SEO spam.
- lilouartz 2y ago
  Well, not quiet. At the end of the day, the value that it would provide is a comparison. The links would be to Amazon affiliate program, i.e. I am indifferent which product you end up buying. The end result would be a website that provides a comparison similar to how this spreadsheet does it for Omega 3 supplement https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQcLEAPk5lcg-4YR_dwDMO1HwrulBimjNfH4vra2e80/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQcLEAPk5lcg-4YR_dwD... This is to say that ads and sponsored listings would play little role in something that effectively allows to compare supplements based on their ingredients. I have no doubt that it would be useful to some people... My bigger concern is if there is a business here worth pursuing. Not exactly cheap to run (would require a lot of manual input and/or AI). Not a lot of defensibility (could be scraped by someone).
  - solardev 2y ago
    I mean, affiliate marketing is the basic business model behind sites like Wirecutter, AlternativeTo.net, RTINGS, right? It's not a new idea, but it's hard to build up enough user trust because there ARE so many of these sites and a lot of them are SEO spam. For the users it's hard to tell which ones are trustworthy and which ones just regurgitate, well, reddit, but add a bunch of ads and paid rankings. If you do this, I hope you can maintain a clear editorial separation and not be tempted to alter the listings if a manufacturer offers you $10k to move their product up the rankings, for example.
    - lilouartz 2y ago
      I am giving this a shot. I have been hacking together the initial prototype. I am going to start by just aggregating the data and at first distributing it as Google Sheets document. I figured, this will be good enough experiment to understand whether people even want this as a service.
      - solardev 2y ago
        Cool, good luck! I run a similar (in concept, not topic) "awesome list" that I'm also in the process of turning into searchable/filterable website... very slowly. In my case I'm not sure about monetization (it's important to me that it remain a good and fair community resource, but if it can buy a beer or two a month, that'd be cool). Anyway, if you're thinking of going the easy-to-make route for this initial pass, might I suggest giving Airtable a look? It creates better UIs than GSheets does, while being almost as easy (and in some cases easier) to use. Some examples: https://www.airtable.com/templates/restaurant-field-guide/expt4dCCpeInMwc4J https://www.airtable.com/templates/restaurant-field-guide/ex... https://www.airtable.com/templates/apartment-hunting/expPfTzGnfpwjgWlS https://www.airtable.com/templates/apartment-hunting/expPfTz... https://www.airtable.com/templates/hiking-trip-bucket-list/exppbdYWBVZyk2wA0 https://www.airtable.com/templates/hiking-trip-bucket-list/e...
        lilouartz 2y ago
        Thanks so much for the tip! Do you happen to know if Airtable documents rank on Google? One of the reasons for preferring Google Sheets is because I know from experience that I come across many public Google Sheets through Google. I don't recall coming across Airtable documents, but it might be just because there are fewer of them.
        solardev 2y ago
        I'm actually not sure about that (never thought about it, good question!). I suppose you could embed it on a page (https://support.airtable.com/docs/creating-airtable-base-share-links#embedding-bases https://support.airtable.com/docs/creating-airtable-base-sha...) or use a third-party "portal" builder like Pory, Noloco, Softr, Bubble, etc. (can't recommend any, never used any of those, sorry). Airtable also provides JSON outputs if you want to hook it up to a custom web app: https://airtable.com/developers/web/api/introduction https://airtable.com/developers/web/api/introduction (FYI, GSheets does this too https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cjn-google-sheets-as-json-endpoint/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cjn-google-sheets-as-json-...) If I were doing this myself, I'd probably just put the data in any spreadsheet or DB I like (including Airtable), get the JSON out, and then use something like MUI Datagrid to render it into a nice and simple frontend that I fully control: https://mui.com/x/react-data-grid/ https://mui.com/x/react-data-grid/ But yeah, gsheets might be simpler then if there's an SEO benefit :)

solardev 2y ago

I think the value of such a thing is precisely because it's organic (or at least astroturfed, i.e. fake grassroots). If you try to make profit off it, you risk compromising that with ads, sponsored listings, etc... the spreadsheet equivalent of modern Google's SEO spam.

lilouartz 2y ago
Well, not quiet. At the end of the day, the value that it would provide is a comparison. The links would be to Amazon affiliate program, i.e. I am indifferent which product you end up buying. The end result would be a website that provides a comparison similar to how this spreadsheet does it for Omega 3 supplement https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQcLEAPk5lcg-4YR_dwDMO1HwrulBimjNfH4vra2e80/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vQcLEAPk5lcg-4YR_dwD... This is to say that ads and sponsored listings would play little role in something that effectively allows to compare supplements based on their ingredients. I have no doubt that it would be useful to some people... My bigger concern is if there is a business here worth pursuing. Not exactly cheap to run (would require a lot of manual input and/or AI). Not a lot of defensibility (could be scraped by someone).
- solardev 2y ago
  I mean, affiliate marketing is the basic business model behind sites like Wirecutter, AlternativeTo.net, RTINGS, right? It's not a new idea, but it's hard to build up enough user trust because there ARE so many of these sites and a lot of them are SEO spam. For the users it's hard to tell which ones are trustworthy and which ones just regurgitate, well, reddit, but add a bunch of ads and paid rankings. If you do this, I hope you can maintain a clear editorial separation and not be tempted to alter the listings if a manufacturer offers you $10k to move their product up the rankings, for example.
  - lilouartz 2y ago
    I am giving this a shot. I have been hacking together the initial prototype. I am going to start by just aggregating the data and at first distributing it as Google Sheets document. I figured, this will be good enough experiment to understand whether people even want this as a service.
    - solardev 2y ago
      Cool, good luck! I run a similar (in concept, not topic) "awesome list" that I'm also in the process of turning into searchable/filterable website... very slowly. In my case I'm not sure about monetization (it's important to me that it remain a good and fair community resource, but if it can buy a beer or two a month, that'd be cool). Anyway, if you're thinking of going the easy-to-make route for this initial pass, might I suggest giving Airtable a look? It creates better UIs than GSheets does, while being almost as easy (and in some cases easier) to use. Some examples: https://www.airtable.com/templates/restaurant-field-guide/expt4dCCpeInMwc4J https://www.airtable.com/templates/restaurant-field-guide/ex... https://www.airtable.com/templates/apartment-hunting/expPfTzGnfpwjgWlS https://www.airtable.com/templates/apartment-hunting/expPfTz... https://www.airtable.com/templates/hiking-trip-bucket-list/exppbdYWBVZyk2wA0 https://www.airtable.com/templates/hiking-trip-bucket-list/e...
      - lilouartz 2y ago
        Thanks so much for the tip! Do you happen to know if Airtable documents rank on Google? One of the reasons for preferring Google Sheets is because I know from experience that I come across many public Google Sheets through Google. I don't recall coming across Airtable documents, but it might be just because there are fewer of them.
        solardev 2y ago
        I'm actually not sure about that (never thought about it, good question!). I suppose you could embed it on a page (https://support.airtable.com/docs/creating-airtable-base-share-links#embedding-bases https://support.airtable.com/docs/creating-airtable-base-sha...) or use a third-party "portal" builder like Pory, Noloco, Softr, Bubble, etc. (can't recommend any, never used any of those, sorry). Airtable also provides JSON outputs if you want to hook it up to a custom web app: https://airtable.com/developers/web/api/introduction https://airtable.com/developers/web/api/introduction (FYI, GSheets does this too https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cjn-google-sheets-as-json-endpoint/ https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/cjn-google-sheets-as-json-...) If I were doing this myself, I'd probably just put the data in any spreadsheet or DB I like (including Airtable), get the JSON out, and then use something like MUI Datagrid to render it into a nice and simple frontend that I fully control: https://mui.com/x/react-data-grid/ https://mui.com/x/react-data-grid/ But yeah, gsheets might be simpler then if there's an SEO benefit :)