Not really helpful on validating, but here's a source for quotes... http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Main_Page has an API as all the wikimedia projects. http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page
Thanks. Indeed a great source to extract info from!
Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
21–30 of 31 posts
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#22There is only one way to find out and that is to try it out.
It's not a complex app so shouldn't take you more than a few weekends.
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#23I'd recommend running this as a simple twitter account to test the concept. Reach out to people who follow the shows you are interested in. Tweet at a scheduled interval. If they don't follow it is unlikely the app would get traction. If the followers didn't grow organically once you had a core group of followers I would see that as a bad sign.
One more thought: if there was demonstrated growth and interest, you could use the twitter account to promote the app once it was released.
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#24fortune has a large db of quotes, using it to render quotes on my wallpaper every minute
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#25> I enjoy reading quotes.
As someone who is not into reading and quotes I’d like to ask what you find fascinating about it. Can you maybe give an example what kind of quotes you find interesting? Dialogs, aphorisms? Is more about entertainment or worldly wisdom? Or is it more an intellectual fascination, for example thinking through how the author came up with it and considering different interaction possibilities of the actors?
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#26> I enjoy reading quotes. As someone who is not into reading and quotes I’d like to ask what you find fascinating about it. Can you maybe give an example what kind of quotes you find interesting? Dialogs, aphorisms? Is more about entertainment or worldly wisdom? Or is it more an intellectual fascination, for example thinking through how the author came up with it and considering different interaction possibilities of…
I enjoy reading quotes.
I like that I get insight into a (sometimes) brilliant mind and I can do so in a few seconds by reading a few lines.
Some are inspiring, some make me smarter, some are worthless.
Unlike OP, I think that tv series' quotes are likely to be much less worthwhile, for me, than those I'm used to.
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#27This is interesting. By "quotes", do you mean quotes that are short (often funny)? Or do you mean longer, monologue-type quotes?
IMDB has a quotes page for many movies[0] and there is a quotes.list file in their text file dumps[1].
I love movie quotes and I've had the idea of a Twitter account that tweets quotes 2x a day and the first person to reply with the correct movie title would win a prize (monetization strategy undetermined).
[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109686/quotes [1] ftp://ftp.fu-berlin.de/pub/misc/movies/database/
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#28Not very helpful, but just in case you pitch this to people in the future..
"I am avid reader" and "I haven't read too many novels so I am not much interested in quotes from there." conflict in my mind. Like, you love reading... just not novels? I equate being an avid reader to reading books/novels. Otherwise, you're just literate.
Not trying to be a douche, just giving you a take on those first two lines.
I think an app like that would be pretty cool though. A lot of times when I'm out with friends someone will say a quote and there will be a debate on what it's from. Or, someone will quote a book and they'll get called out on it for misquoting it. Regardless, arguments ensue, and I could definitely see someone pulling up your app to settle the debate.
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#29Sometimes I enjoy reading quotes from the quote section of IMDB. Is there a way for all of those to automatically go to an app? Maybe with something like kimonify?
Re: Ask HN: Help me validate my idea
#30I see a lot of "don't do this unless..." or "why would you...". Ignore those. Start by researching books (good, old, paper-based pbooks) that offer exactly this: There are plenty of them out there, usually one or two quotes per page, usually taken from public sources. Some of them are work related, some have a spiritual bent, etc. Do this research just to satisfy yourself that yes, there are people who buy this sort…
I always appreciate people who forego the "why" and advise "how." Everyone has something they want to do - and for some it's something that wouldn't necessarily provide value for anyone else - but that doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.