
What awesome idea did you have that never went anywhere? - zacmartin
What was your great idea that no one else liked or never took off?
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fbnt
Back in 2004/2005 (pre-youtube era) I created a site with a voting system
similar to Digg/Reddit where instead of links or text people could upload
video files. My servers were able re-encode any video format into flash, and
queue the videos into the voting system. I would grab the videos at the top of
the stack (the ones with the most votes) and broadcast it on a streaming video
channel shown in the front page. The streaming would've been non-stop granted
that I had at least 24 hours of material uploaded each day, and guaranteed to
only show the best videos voted by people.

It never took off because I was a scrappy student in the middle of nowhere
(Italy) and 180$+/month for a dedicated server somewhere in PA was hurting my
savings. I ran the prototype for a few months and then I decided to go back to
my engineering classes. Sometimes I have the feeling that if I were born in SV
I could've built something serious out of it.

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krapp
I wanted to build a public database of mechanics and motion. Using some web-
based 3d modelling script like Copperlicht and (unknwown magic) I would set up
a wiki like site with some standard human and machine models and people could
add animations for those models, like martial arts moves, or dance moves,
or... whatever.

It's either a stupid idea or a brilliant multimillion dollar idea for someone
who isn't working off of their mother's old Dell.

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rk0567
I built a site : [https://bootstrapthemes.me](https://bootstrapthemes.me)
(offline) it was a marketplace for buying and selling twitter bootstrap
themes, but I couldn't get get quality designers in the network, so it failed,
probably due to lack of quality themes.

The other one is : [http://domainexchanger.net](http://domainexchanger.net) \-
a site for exchanging unused domain names.

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chewxy
I created edgeyo, which was a kickstarter before kickstarter. It didn't take
off because the model was kickstarter + stock exchange made it extremely
complicated to use. Then we found out there were laws everywhere about running
a stock exchange, and there are laws about company funding... it ended up
being too much to handle

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fbuilesv
I built a site called makeitpersonal
([http://makeitpersonal.co](http://makeitpersonal.co)) where you can
highlight, annotate and maybe share song lyrics. Although I use it a lot, I'm
probably the only active user (which by the way is OK, I built a tool for
myself).

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alockj
Thought my mate and I had a winner with
[http://www.ultimategiftlists.com](http://www.ultimategiftlists.com) \-
basically create your own wishlist (by adding any item you stumble on across
the web) and then share a link so people can buy it. But it never really
flew..

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rywalker
I built an internet advertising network like Doubleclick back in the 90s —
when they launched, they did it so well that I became discouraged and stopped
working on it.

In retrospect, if I had kept it going for the past 15 years, I'm sure it'd be
a big business now.

~~~
true_religion
Or you could have been Adbrite.... or AdEngage.

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robszumski
I spent a lot of time on [http://buildafund.com/](http://buildafund.com/)
which is a tool to create and track custom mutual funds. The end goal is to
allow other users to invest in funds they can see are doing well.

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codegeek
I own ekfolio.com domain. The idea was to be able to create a single page
professional bio/profile. i know many others are doing it even though I have
always wanted to do it just for me. Never took off though.

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Jeremy1026
Mine would be daymealdeal.com. It was going to be a Groupon of lunch specials.
I had it about 75% completed, but then I got a new job so it got backburnered,
and now it is in the abyss.

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stevoo
i have build [http://cygamerentals.com/](http://cygamerentals.com/) Although i
have a few customers it is nowhere near a successful as i would want it to be.
I blame my partner as he did absolutely nothing. I designed, redesigned,
advertised (ads,social), told people about, personally delivered games while
he did nothing.

This is where a good partner would have helped a lot !

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sperm-donor
But seriously, how about a site that manages agreements between
people/companies etc.. we could do away with a lot of lawyers... :-)

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sperm-donor
How about we had PKI to GPS signals..? That way we could trust they are
correct..

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sperm-donor
What about that idea involving harvesting energy from people shagging?

