
18 Project Ideas from Seth Godin - bprater
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/07/let-me-see.html
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jnovek
This sort of leads me to an epiphany -- a large part of what makes new
startups interesting (and possibly palatable for acquisition) is how they
choose to sort data. I think a good recipe for a startup (in the current
climate on the 'net, anyway) is:

Offer a service that happens to build a collection of data.

Find ways to organize that data for your users that are useful, but haven't
occurred to anyone before.

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henning
To be more precise, these seem more like feature ideas than product/project
ideas. He's totally silent on how this stuff would be presented, consumed, or
experienced, and how it would fit into the rest of a product.

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aggieben
Sounds like mostly good ideas, with a couple that have already been done, I
think:

 _3) # Give me a listing of all the houses in my city sorted by (value of
house/taxes paid). That would go a long way to bringing equity to the
assessment system._

txcountydata.com. Let me also add that I don't know that there's a lot of
inequity in the system. In my town, the only inequity is that some properties
haven't been assessed as recently as others, and that has everything to do
with a lack of manpower and the amount of energy a property owner is willing
to expend in his defense (i.e., you're not being treated unfairly if you don't
even bother to fill out the protest form).

 _11) Sort car models by crash and repair data._

Consumer Reports has a limited form of this, doesn't it?

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pchristensen
"I don't know that there's a lot of inequity in the system."

CA has capped property increasesat a couple percent (3%?), much lower than
price appreciation historically. Taxes are only reassessed when sold. So if
you move into a house, your neighbor in an identical house next door might be
paying half, a quarter, a tenth, or less of the property tax as you. People
love the tax cap but it makes moving expensive (b/c of reassessment),
encourages only large, expensive housing to be approved, which drives up
prices, which exacerbates the tax imbalance, etc.

I'm sure a lot of people would be horrified to know how different the taxation
on similar property is. Imagine if you had to pay 30% sales tax when you moved
to a new town while old timers were paying 3%.

~~~
aggieben
It's not dissimilar in Texas. I guess I just don't see the inequity here. I
suppose one important difference is that there are some municipalities (like
mine) that recognize the lost revenue and are trying to get caught up (i.e.,
assessments change in the absence of a transaction), but even without that, I
just don't see it as inequitable.

 _encourages only large, expensive housing to be approved_

Huh? Haven't you heard of D. R. Horton? Maybe the CA real estate market is
different because it's freaking insane.

 _I'm sure a lot of people would be horrified to know how different the
taxation on similar property is. Imagine if you had to pay 30% sales tax when
you moved to a new town while old timers were paying 3%._

I'm equally sure that a lot of those horrified people would be far less
horrified if they understood why things are the way they are (maybe not
Californicators, though. If you live in CA, you're probably just horrified all
the time).

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edw519
_12\. Let me see my salesforce ranked by closing rate or cold call rate or
customer satisfaction.

13\. Let me see my inbound call data by hour, sorted by number of rings before
answer, or by percentage of calls unanswered.

14\. Let me sort my customer service requests by customer value. (Including
loyalty, purchases and referrals)._

These 3 should all be a standard part of _any_ good small business system
already. The fact that Seth even brings them up makes me wonder...

\- Is he using crappy business software?

\- Do most people he encounters use crappy business software?

\- Do most people (in general) use crappy business software?

In any case, these are just 3 tiny parts of the problem I'm addressing. The
opportunity is enormous.

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jkent
I've seen large companies not do these either. What you've highlighted are
great ideas, and I'm not sure they've been widely implemented (other than as
bespoke services).

Traditional rankings of salespeople by turnover could be subject to short-
termism, and these type of metrics might give a more balanced view.

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dqphoto
Several CRM software companies can easily compile this type of data into nice
reports for managers. They usually offer their apps as one huge suite, or you
can purchase an "inexpensive" core engine with separate customizable modules
(customer, sales, billing, finance, reports, etc.).

I have seen executives balk at the cost of the entire suite, so they decide to
purchase the engine and a few modules (customer, sales, and billing) with the
intent of purchasing the customized report module "next quarter". Months
later, after the funds have disappeared due to lackluster sales, a forest
fire, CEO fraud, etc., the lower-level managers hate the software because they
think it doesn't provide the functionality they need.

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coglethorpe
The big trick always seems to be getting the data. Once we've got it, the
tools to build an application to analyze it are at the ready. At least they
are at the ready for Hacker News readers. :-)

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zach
I could totally do the property tax one for LA county (as in, I already have
the assessor data in another form on a website).

It's a solid idea. Of course, I don't have the time to...

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iamelgringo

       #3  Give me a listing of all the houses in my city sorted
       by (value of house/taxes paid). That would go a long way
       to bringing equity to the assessment system.
    

I think that Zillow.com already does something this, don't they? At least they
show what houses in the area have been sold for, and what current listing are.

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aggieben
Lots of local governments already do this.

<http://www.txcountydata.com/>

This one in particular also makes historical valuations and tax bill records
available.

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danohuiginn
_When I watch TV online, recognize the pundit and flash historical accuracy
rates on the screen while she talks_

Is subtitle data available in a usable form? If so, that would include pundit
names. Pulling them out and cross-referencing against sourcewatch or wikipedia
doesn't sound impossible.

But I know nothing about TV (yet). Anyone know if this is plausible?

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shinynew
not really 'project' ideas, more I want data requests.

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hooande
This might create a hacking frenzy. If I was a college kid looking to jump
into startups, I would strongly consider doing one of these...

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stillmotion
A lot of these would require a lot of money or are impossible because they tap
into proprietary software or data services. More things need an API...

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jamiequint
Doesn't Xobni do something similar to #7?

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Tichy
Lots of privacy issues, unfortunately.

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sabat
These really aren't startups. Just features.

