

Ask HN: "my" project has been implemented in 2005 - should I continue? - perlgeek

I do programming for fun, after my $dayjob. I've had this great idea for a website that shows you which book form a logical series (for example the seven "Harry Potter"), so that you can look up the sequels to a book.&#60;p&#62;A while back a found a site which has been doing that for a while [1], but that was OK - I didn't like that site's layout and search function, and their license allowed it for me to just import their data.&#60;p&#62;But this week I found another site which does the same thing [2], and they do
it really well. Moreover they have been doing that since 2006, have 8
employees and 1 mio signed-up users. But most importantly they already have a
huge data set. Quite a head start. They have also implemented some ideas I've had for getting some revenue (organizing your own library online, freemium model).&#60;p&#62;Compare that with what I currently have [3], I've worked on that for about
half a year now in my not-so-copious free time.&#60;p&#62;So I'm pretty demotivated right now. I wouldn't mind competing with another
site if I thought I did it better than they do, but currently I don't think
so. The only thing I do better is presenting translations (though I don't have
too much data for that yet), but I don't think that'll be a major selling
point.&#60;p&#62;So, what should I do? Should I just chuck out what I have now and turn to a
differnt project? Or compete nonetheless? Or maybe focus on the German market
(I live in Germany)?&#60;p&#62;I want to build something that people are happy to use and find useful, if it
turns out profitable in the end that would be nice, but that's not my main
priority.&#60;p&#62;[1] http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?7167 
[2] http://www.librarything.com/series/Harry+Potter
[3] http://quelology.org/t/9684&#60;p&#62;P.S. yes, I know, I should have searched for other sites more carefully when I
started. Classical market research fail.
======
Harkins
LibraryThing is intended to be useful for cataloging one's own collection,
less so for finding new books. It's been around since 2006, yes, but it hasn't
had big changes since the first year or so. I became a lifetime member not
long after the site started and I've seen a few bugs for over a year.

You're starting from a very different point, to make it easy for people who
know one book to learn of the series and translations. Watch Patrick
McKenzie's talks on SEO and scalable content generation. Even with LT and
Delicious Monster (the other big personal library software), you can get a
significant amount of traffic. Make an attractive page and get the SEO right
and you could have a great steady income in affiliate fees for a low time
investment.

(Hell, if you get totally discouraged and decided to drop it, email me. Maybe
I'll build it in my Copious Free Time. :)

------
pragmatic
There is always room for a competiter. Just b/c there was Rhapsoday, et al,
didnt' stop Pandora (and the flood of other online music sites).

People dislike a site (or company) for many reasons - poor search, navigation,
layout, bugs, etc.

Again, just because there is Honda, doesn't mean there isn't room for Toyota
and Hyundai, etc.

I'm constantly looking for alternatives to existing software/sites. Unless you
have a competitor like Amazon, I think you should go ahead and do what you
_want_ to do.

If you have a great interest in this idea, follow it through. At worst you
make it open source. If you are interested anymore, dump it.

~~~
perlgeek
Thank you and everybody else for your opinions and encouragement.

I've decided to continue working on the site for now, and see how it goes.
Maybe if I do a bit of advertising and my visitor numbers start to increase,
my motivation also increases.

~~~
Harkins
Cool. You don't have an email address in your profile, but I do in mine -
please drop me a line when you have any news, I'm curious about the idea. :)

------
deckardt
If it's something that you're spending your free time on, make sure it's
something that you want to do. If you think you can make your product better,
or even just simpler, I would keep ploddign along. If the other one is the one
that you would rather use, then find something new.

------
ya3r
Not related, but could you reformat you text so reading it would be easier.

~~~
Luyt
_I reformatted it_

I do programming for fun, after my $dayjob. I've had this great idea for a
website that shows you which book form a logical series (for example the seven
"Harry Potter"), so that you can look up the sequels to a book.

A while back a found a site which has been doing that for a while [1], but
that was OK - I didn't like that site's layout and search function, and their
license allowed it for me to just import their data.

But this week I found another site which does the same thing [2], and they do
it really well. Moreover they have been doing that since 2006, have 8
employees and 1 mio signed-up users. But most importantly they already have a
huge data set. Quite a head start. They have also implemented some ideas I've
had for getting some revenue (organizing your own library online, freemium
model).

Compare that with what I currently have [3], I've worked on that for about
half a year now in my not-so-copious free time.

So I'm pretty demotivated right now. I wouldn't mind competing with another
site if I thought I did it better than they do, but currently I don't think
so. The only thing I do better is presenting translations (though I don't have
too much data for that yet), but I don't think that'll be a major selling
point.

So, what should I do? Should I just chuck out what I have now and turn to a
differnt project? Or compete nonetheless? Or maybe focus on the German market
(I live in Germany)?

I want to build something that people are happy to use and find useful, if it
turns out profitable in the end that would be nice, but that's not my main
priority.

[1] <http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pe.cgi?7167>

[2] <http://www.librarything.com/series/Harry+Potter>

[3] <http://quelology.org/t/9684>

P.S. yes, I know, I should have searched for other sites more carefully when I
started. Classical market research fail.

~~~
Stwerner
You shouldn't look at this as a negative. For worthwhile spaces there's always
room for more competitors. Finding other people doing similar things should
validate your idea.

------
trevelyan
I'll break from the crowd and tell you not to do it. First because I wouldn't
personally find it useful. Second because this space is very crowded with
people vying for affiliate revenue and you will have a long and slow crawl to
any organic visibility, and third because the lack of progress/activity among
the sites that you list suggests there is very little in the way of revenue
anyway.

Do something you really care about and that solves a problem for someone.
Finding sequels to books is not a problem I think anyone has.

------
softmodeling
Many of the most successful apps were not the first ones in their category.
They didn't invent a new market but improved existing ideas and somehow became
more popular than the original ones

------
slater
I would pivot, use the existing codebase to form something slightly different
(or completely different, depending on the state of the code).

I'd say you can't compete directly with librarything.

------
mihn
Do it better. ;D

