

Show HN: RichestOnTheWeb - my submission to Hacka2thon - rjvir
http://richestontheweb.com

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prodigal_erik
It's very disturbing that a dollar auction on _absolutely nothing_ isn't even
the most unethical tactic I've seen … this week.

~~~
rjvir
We are transparent about the fact that there is no tangible benefit to
bidding.

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prodigal_erik
If only the winner pays, it's just a silly game. But when the losers also pay,
it becomes a genuinely abusive exploit of human irrationality which most
people are not aware of. Please take it down.

<http://www.mediate.com/articles/noll1.cfm>

<http://www.heretical.com/pound/dollarl.html>

<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mind-over-money.html>

~~~
drivebyacct2
Lots of huge businesses are based on irrationality. Cigarettes, gambling, etc.
A fool and their money are easily parted.

~~~
scrod
And those businesses are accordingly regulated by society. But good luck
trying to foster that winner-takes-all free-market world of yours. I'm sure
it'll be a real blast.

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LVB
To those of you who are just dying to type your credit card information into a
website right now, I'd like to suggest <http://www.kiva.org> instead.

~~~
run4yourlives
pfft... Kiva doesn't tell me I'm rich! For only a buck and a quarter, I can
get my name on the site!

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inuhj
Similar to the "I am rich." app released on the app store so long ago.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich> was art. I'm not sure if I think your
site is imitation or art as well.

~~~
artursapek
I remember that as the best news story when the app store launched.

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Arro
All these negative comments are a good thing. You've made something that
polarizes people. I'd take that any day over something that makes people say
"meh".

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latch
If I understand it, it's a pretty horrible idea. For a lot of reasons. But,
the most obvious, is how easy it'll be for you to game it. When someone makes
a bid, you can simply outbid them but not actually pay any money.

~~~
rjvir
I see your concern, but we haven't done this yet - we have no reason to. There
is no actual reward for being the "richest", we could care less as to who
claims the title.

If we ever auto-outbid people, they would find out right away, and wouldn't
return to the site.

~~~
latch

      we could care less as to who claims the title
    

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction#Chandelier_bidding>

Also, how would people find out? You just need to "be smart" about it. Don't
always use the same username, change how long you wait.

~~~
alsocasey
Anonymous submissions are allowed... so it could be you hit the nail on the
head and they are doing this right now (and simply publicly denying for
obvious reasons).

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treelovinhippie
Oh gawd, please remove yourself from the Internet. You're disqualified.

~~~
rjvir
Ok, I'll try!

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Urgo
The real richest on the web is you from this. Reminds me of Million Dollar
Homepage. Great idea :)

~~~
Finbarr
First thing that came to my mind. Really gimmicky idea that could see the
creator make a pretty penny if it catches on.

~~~
Urgo
Exactly. I mean I'm not bidding on it. But I wasn't one of the people who
helped milliondollarhomepage.com reach its goal and then some either :) I'm
just calling it like it is, a really good idea worth trying :)

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chintan100
First of all, congrats for polarizing crowds. :)

This can be a good way to increase your Twitter account visibility and hope to
gain some followers through this site.

Right now, the bids are low but if this idea sustainable or not needs to be
seen. You can hope to make it big if businesses find it a good way to
advertise and promote products and product launches.

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Tichy
Some time ago I registered 100EuroTweets which I guess was kind of a similar
idea: you would be able to send messages to that account by paying 100€.
Presumably people would follow the account to see who would be crazy enough to
pay, and in turn the tweets would actually get some exposure for their money.

I never got round to implementing it, because I wanted it to be fully
automated (checking a bank account), which is slightly complicated in Germany.

Anyway, it was just a silly idea in the spirit of the Million Dollar Page, for
fun - just like yours, I guess. I actually like your variant better, I
wouldn't be surprised if it turns out to be quite successful.

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simonbrown
You're asking people to enter their credit card details on a non-SSL page?

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jacobwg
Care to elaborate on how this works? I couldn't find any about page (and the
site's down now).

From what I could gather, this looked like "person-who-just-spent-their-
fortune on the web". :)

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hendzen
If the money went to charity, this could actually have some potential.

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nxn
Why did the price go up when vowelnoun and netspencer were retweeted?
<https://twitter.com/richestontheweb>

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jasonostrander
Very similar to <http://www.thebigballer.com/>

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Kenan
On Firefox 7.0.1 on Windows 7, the bid overlay automatically comes up and
blocks the leaderboard with no way of dimissing it. Works on Chrome
15.0.874.120, though ;)

~~~
rjvir
We used Twitter Bootstrap for the overlay, with the understanding that it may
be unreliable. I'll look into a fix as soon as I can.

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Tichy
If people have been paying in 1 cent increments, that site already made 80$ -
not too shabby for a Hackathon project :-) (126*127/2 was my calculation).

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itsnotvalid
The "RichestOnTheWeb" would then always be the hosting one as they always get
the sum of all bids.

Of course who actually cares to bid?

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desireco42
I love the idea :) some of the comments from 'haterz' kind of make sense, let
richest person leave a message

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artursapek
The background is funky in the top 20 pixels or so. Also, this is a really
unattractive idea.

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MrFacepalm
Rename it to 'richestFOOLontheweb'!

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dylangs1030
I don't mean to be critical, but your idea doesn't have any real point. It
isn't selling a service or a product, which is a requirement of a startup
company, especially in technology sectors. So I'm not saying it has _no_
point, but what do you intend to do with the website? Where is it going?

~~~
hendzen
I didn't make this site, but this is something whipped up for a hackathon, not
a real attempt at a company.

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d3x
You should rename it to dumbestontheweb

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suivix
Maybe you should make it the newest bidder can leave a message?

~~~
rjvir
Yup, thats coming soon! We will show the newest bidder's most recent tweet.

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thigbee
I think it's a fun idea. I do think there should be a FAQ or About page or
something.

