

More Startup Ideas - benbinary
http://benbloch.posterous.com/five-more-startup-ideas

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callmeed
5 is the best one IMO. 3 seems to describe what GetSatisfaction is doing and 4
seems to describe Last.fm.

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tptacek
Your favorite idea has literally _hundreds_ of possible customers!

#5 mystified me.

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ojbyrne
I had a vague wish for XCode on my ipad.

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benbinary
haha scary....

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DanBlake
Heres 2 random ones I had the last few days:

Roll your own self serve ad system. Much like how reddit lets you bid for ads
on their site, let me install a system like that, complete with keyword
bidding and the like. Im well aware of things like buy/sell ads, but those are
for banner ads across the span of a time frame- not targeted really.

Also, A new analytics system which instead of focusing on already done things,
it makes sense of ups and downs. For instance, it could tell me: Traffic is
slightly up today- Keywords X Y and Z are sending increased traffic

Traffic is slightly down today - Abandonment on page X is up 150%

etc..

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nreece

      Re: new analytics system
    

Google Analytics already does this. Have a look at their 'Intelligence'
feature.

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Fedons
Some random comments:

1) I don't get the idea. Do you mean something like an automatic check-in
based on your current location?

2) This is already partially covered by Twitter: just twit "Who wants to meet
in 5 minutes in..."? I don't see the need of an added service. Sure, you could
add all the features you can think of, like maps. But now twits can be
geolocalized too.

3) I like this idea. The only problem is that a system like Aardvark could
work mainly for big companies with a large customer support department. Such
companies could be difficult to convince to try the new system for their
support.

4) Last.fm already does that. Edit: I've seen only now your comment. Well, I
prefer the Last.fm model...what is the logic behind an invite only service? If
we have in common many favorite artists, it's probable that I will like also
some other artists from its collection.

5) I don't own an iPad and I can't judge the usability of its keyboard...but I
don't see many people programming on that thing. It's more a consumer, rather
than producer type of product. However, I believe there will be hundreds of
geeks ready to install it on their iPad, even if they won't use it much.

Thank you very much for your ideas! I'm currently looking for one and posts
like yours are really useful for my brainstorming.

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benbinary
1) "Do you mean something like an automatic check-in based on your current
location?" - gowall doesn't like this, see: , more of a reminder service
maybe? It's open to interpretation what you'd do with the information once you
could predict someones intent to check in.

2) Twitter leaves a lot to be desired for spontaneous event organization. What
if all of your friends aren't on twitter, or you need a minimum number of
people to confirm before, say making reservations? Twitter is still a tool
that can get you part of the way there most of the time.

3) Thanks, maybe it'd start as targeting startups.

4) Clarification on this idea coming.

5) It's a huge interface challenge for sure, I hope someone figures it out.

Thanks for your feedback!

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joe6pack
Agree with Ben on #2 - Twitter is far from a being a satisfactory solution for
spontaneous group organization. As it has evolved to be increasing about
sharing news, tweets are quick to slip below the fold unless you've limited
your following to only your closest friends (and they aren't heavy users). The
feed simply isn't conducive to organizing events that are tied to a specific
time and only involve a subset of your social network.

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CoryMathews
#4 I couldn't agree more. Its easy to find all the well known artists for a
particular style, but after you find the 10 or 15 main ones it gets much
harder to find new GOOD songs.

I would consider myself as one of the ones who have spent a ton of time
creating my 1 playlist. Its really hard to find new artists. It works almost
like highschool. There are little groups of artists who sound similar and know
each other. Once you find 1 its easy to find the rest of the group, however
finding that first 1 can be extremely hard.

I easily go through 200+ new songs every week by artists that are supposed to
be similar but are not.

It doesn't help when I like a somewhat different genre then mainstream.

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metamemetics
What type of music are you looking for? Tag-based radio on last.fm doesn't
work? Allmusic.com doesn't work?

If you happen to like electronic it couldn't be easier, just listen to
Internet radio like www.di.fm where there are like 30 radio stations for every
subgenre of electronic imaginable with all good tracks cycling selected by a
director or actual DJs who almost always give a list of every song and artist
used in their set.

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codebaobab
Re #4: For me, music discovery is still a painful and unsolved problem. Its
hard to put my finger on precisely what the problem is, but I suspect that
part of the problem is that there is _so_ much music out there that new
releases drown everything else out.

To put it bluntly, how am I supposed to find the next Suba or Orchestra
Baobab?

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joe6pack
I get a sneaking sense that there are a lot of #2's on the not-so-distant
horizon. Makes sense that social, mobile & location would converge in this
manner.

I'll add my alpha to the list: <http://poig.com> \- I love this space and am
curious to hear what people think.

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PhrosTT
"Spontaneous event organization" was something somebody submitted on HN a
little while ago. It had facebook connect as the login and everybody hated on
it; but it basically threw "Anybody want to see a movie on wednesday" or
whatever on your status and organized responses.

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benbinary
Do you have a link? I'd love to check it out.

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what
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1588553> I think.

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mmmmax
#2 (spontaneous events) is something the startup I'm with is building. If you
are interested in being added to a private beta test, here's the link:
<http://vol.ly/?s=HN>

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aymeric
#5 Allow me to edit the code of my Heroku hosted Ruby on Rails app with your
iPad IDE using smart shortcuts and finger gestures and I will buy an iPad and
your IDE.

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djb_hackernews
I'll be releasing something in the next week that will definitely scratch #2
off that list. Stay tuned.

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robertg
#4 exists - <http://grooveshark.com>

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CoryMathews
I love grooveshark, I am a VIP and spend clean over 60 hours listening to it
every week. However its not good at finding new music.

Its awesome at having/playing/sharing but no good at recommending. Especially
small "local" bands, and off genre artists.

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metamemetics
I lolled at 4. Professional Human Music Reccomenders are called DJs.

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imp
#4 already exists: [http://www.theonion.com/articles/desperate-pandora-
employees...](http://www.theonion.com/articles/desperate-pandora-employees-
scrambling-to-find-son,17905/)

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Ardit20
There are ideas and then there are great ideas and then there are knowing how
to implement the great ideas.

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sabat
I like this list, but:

 _Human-powered Pandora_

Isn't that last.fm?

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benbinary
I probably should have been more clear. The concept I was thinking of is more
like a premium, maybe invite-only last.fm. This is really about empowering the
people who really work hard to find good music and servicing the people who
really love good music.

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ben1040
I could definitely see a use for this. While digital distribution is rapidly
making record stores obsolete, there still certainly is a need for the guys
behind the counter who knows way, way more about music than you ever will
(think Jack Black and John Cusack in _High Fidelity_ ).

