We did — we’re Blogic, and we’re what you need when you have a great website but no blog yet. We turn your website into a blog theme, in a minute. http://blogic.com/ (free until we throw Stripe at it!)
We applied with SurfScore. It's designed as a universal achievement-reward system for the Internet, similar to videogame achievement systems(GamerScore, etc.) People are able to perform tasks (simple things like uploading a photo to facebook) and earn SurfScore for it, which can be redeemed for prizes. It's designed as a new form of advertising...companies can institute achievements for their own websites(it can be anything, as long as it doesn't cost money--you don't pay to watch a commercial), and people will see a tangible reward for doing whatever task they specify.
This takes advantage of the interactivity of the Internet, while also revolutionizing advertising as something much more appealing than just beating you over the head with banner ads and commercials. Advertising wants you to do something, but does it in a way that usually just pisses you off. We hope to change that. http://www.SurfScore.com
Isn't this just a fancy derivative of "fill this form out and we'll send you a free iPod?". Because that's all it is..
If you tell me people want achievements, well.. Achievements in games feel good because there's actual skill involved, and it feels like you mastered something. You can't say the same for doing random tasks online. You can't just throw a word like 'achievement' or 'score' on top of what you're doing, and think the effect will be the same.
What's wrong with getting a free iPod for filling out a form? The problem with these types of companies is execution; they're usually really shady and have a lot "catches". If a company came along that could get rid of all that and do it right, wouldn't you be filling out forms too?
Nothing wrong, just that you're going to have difficulty finding advertisers that will agree to this type of advertising. You're not in any way solving the problem of finding relevant audiences for their ads. You're just throwing an incentive for random people to do things for prizes, and hope they will buy whatever the ad is about. But users just want the free goods.
The problem is not how to make users interested in an ad. The core problem is connecting an ad to a relevant audience. You can't fake interest in an ad that's not relevant to what you want at the point. People have tried that with FB ads, but the CTR are horrible, and people get pissed when they see the ad had nothing to do with the actual product.
I've been wandering around the internet for a few months now, unexpectedly surprised that there's no hate for YC. Inevitably, the very same internet proves me wrong.
Edit: A few months of being pleasantly surprised - not a few months of being on the internet. Gosh.
We applied with Glecto. Glecto (glecto.com) is a social news platform. We allow users to create stories and other users to come along and add their additions (what they know) to that story, therefore building up a full structured news story.
All stories are up/down voted to ensure that the the best and most important content are shown first (and of course the worst and inappropriate content is pushed off).
Users can also add video and photo to their stories or additions.
We aim to get our app fully accessible on both Mobile and Desktop (unlike others).
oh wow, are any of these supposed to be profitable business? I see very little real pain being solved by most of these ideas. Most seem to be social media things, productivity clones or "The AirBnB of [whatever]".
http://www.oyoglasses.com/ seems like the best of the bunch. At least there's an un-served need, a fashionable elite with money and an emerging technology (3D printers).
I hope it's just that all the good business haven't announced themselves.
I'm also intrigued by these web app + product combos - this would have been a perfect idea for Kickstarter as well, just because they could have sold some of their glasses upfront.
On the flip side, whenever you have physical production and products, you also have a lot more points to control in the customer experience to maintain a quality experience for your clients. I think this is a good idea, but could also go drastically wrong if they don't get the right resin, plastics durability, etc.
Liked this bit from the oyoglasses site: "Take two photos of yourself. In one photo, just smile. In the second photo hold a quarter to your forehead. It will look silly, but this will provide a sense of scale that will allow our software to accurately measure your face."
I saw at least two task manager/to-do list applications.
I don't get the attraction - firstly it seems to me to be a FNAC (feature not a company), secondly you are competing aginst big players (Google), larger startups (Evernote) and a thousand smaller players (RememberTheMilk etc). What is the attraction?
I think that the biggest positive of doing something like that is that execution is so crucial to success. Yeah, there are big players in the game, but nothing is stopping some hotshot engineer from coming up with a new, amazing way to keep track of your stuff. Yeah, its really hard, especially with everyone thinking the same thing, but it puts you on a more level playing field than other things might.
Are you going to take over the world with RememberTheMilk? probably not, but you can carve out a pretty nice niche for yourself, and if you're good enough be acquired by one of those big names.
Trello got a lot of attention when it launched. Would you put it in that same category?
Are there any to-do list apps that handle dependencies well? e.g., I want to plant a vegetable patch or espalier some fruit trees at the end of my property, but I can't do that until I've arranged for a new fence.
I didn't submit an application for this round, but I filled one out just to try it out and I found the process very useful. It made it clear to me what needed to be done to make my idea appealing to an outsider and it made me realize one or two big potential problems. In sum: killer app, man.
I applied too! for a powerful local media player with html5/js, inside browser or any html5 platform. http://projects.achshar.com/?id=6 - Achshar Player
