4 ms·

Two start-up ideas which are feasible but I decided against: 1) Alumni software which lets universities/companies manage alumni communication and also lets alu

by ig1 18y ago

Two start-up ideas which are feasible but I decided against: 1) Alumni software which lets universities/companies manage alumni communication and also lets alumni network with each other. A few top-tier unis and companies have in-house stuff for this, but most don't. Facebook/Linked-In just don't work for alumni networking due to trying to be too many things at once. 2) Publisher driven ads service. Current ad systems suck for closed sites (i.e. non-public) or sites which know a lot about the user (dating sites, social networks). Most of the big sites in this category currently solve this by running their own networks but this obviously isn't feasible for many sites. You could probably build this as a CPA ad brokerage service and expand from there.

villageidiot 18y ago
There's a ton of alumni networks on Facebook that seem to be operating sort of successfully. Are you talking about reducing the feature set? As for the ads service, I'm not sure if you're talkinga about something like addiply, which is a UK-based attempt at hyperlocal advertising that avoids the Adsense model. http://www.twadservices.co.uk/cufc/taintro.php http://www.twadservices.co.uk/cufc/taintro.php The guy who started it was profiled in this piece in Britain's Guardian newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-advertising http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-adv... I would think you would need some kind of background in advertising and be the kind of person who doesn't mind knocking on a lot of doors to attempt this kind of venture. Here's their self-description. Sounds like what you're talking about (let me know if I misunderstood): "We empower both the local/niche publisher and the local/niche advertiser to source and place perfectly-targetted, digital advertising themselves without third party intervention." I don't see why this would not work even better in the US but it remains to be seen whether Addiply will have any success - it seems like an uphill battle to me.
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  http://www.paperg.com http://www.paperg.com
  - villageidiot 18y ago
    That seems more to the point, being that it's US-based. Thanks for the link. Here's Victor Wong, the Yale student who started paperg, talking about it in this article: http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23170 http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23170
- ig1 18y ago
  Facebook fails for business networking because it is facebook, people in general don't want to use their facebook profile as their professional profile. As for the ad thing I think we're not quite on the same page, I'm talking about a system which gives publisher a bunch of ads which the publisher can then run as they see fit (presumably using their inside knowledge of their users).

by ig1 18y ago

villageidiot 18y ago

There's a ton of alumni networks on Facebook that seem to be operating sort of successfully. Are you talking about reducing the feature set? As for the ads service, I'm not sure if you're talkinga about something like addiply, which is a UK-based attempt at hyperlocal advertising that avoids the Adsense model. http://www.twadservices.co.uk/cufc/taintro.php http://www.twadservices.co.uk/cufc/taintro.php The guy who started it was profiled in this piece in Britain's Guardian newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-advertising http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2008/dec/04/startups-adv... I would think you would need some kind of background in advertising and be the kind of person who doesn't mind knocking on a lot of doors to attempt this kind of venture. Here's their self-description. Sounds like what you're talking about (let me know if I misunderstood): "We empower both the local/niche publisher and the local/niche advertiser to source and place perfectly-targetted, digital advertising themselves without third party intervention." I don't see why this would not work even better in the US but it remains to be seen whether Addiply will have any success - it seems like an uphill battle to me.

brandnewlow 18y ago
http://www.paperg.com http://www.paperg.com
- villageidiot 18y ago
  That seems more to the point, being that it's US-based. Thanks for the link. Here's Victor Wong, the Yale student who started paperg, talking about it in this article: http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23170 http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/23170
ig1 18y ago
Facebook fails for business networking because it is facebook, people in general don't want to use their facebook profile as their professional profile. As for the ad thing I think we're not quite on the same page, I'm talking about a system which gives publisher a bunch of ads which the publisher can then run as they see fit (presumably using their inside knowledge of their users).