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I started a paper website business

daily.tinyprojects.dev

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Re: I started a paper website business

#61

Post by Philip-J-Fry »

It feels less like a paper website business and more just like a traditional website builder except with some OCR to turn notebook pages into web pages.

Like, you've still got to edit the page to add links, images, colours, etc. In fact, that seems like the most complicated part.

It's a fun gimmick and a nice selling point. But someone will be able to use this idea for Wordpress/Wix/Squarespace plugin. Would be surprised if they didn't produce their own feature to do the same thing eventually.

It'd be way cooler if you could draw links on the page and it would figure that out. Or draw a box with some links in it and generate a header. Draw a box for a place holder image and generate that. The next iteration would obviously be using paper to design the actual site and then using CV to generate the markup/styling.

Re: I started a paper website business

#62

Post by tester756 »

thepete2 wrote: post #54
chinathrow wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this business scales easily, what am I missing?

I think the point is that him sending out notebooks (he only has 100 of) doesn't scale.

just wait 2 decades and maybe he'll be top1 online shop

Re: I started a paper website business

#64

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

gambiting wrote: post #24
abadger9 wrote: post #6

I've done some OCR side projects during hackathon weeks over the years (with google tesseract). This is a neat idea, I can only imagine the difficulty with which transcribing the variety of terrible handwriting will cause frustration and an eventual flood of refunds.

Yeaaaah, his handwriting is actual certified art compared to mine . I can't get anything to recognize my handwriting reliably, including the text recognition built into iOS with Pencil - it's just useless.

I can't even recognize my handwriting reliably.

Re: I started a paper website business

#65

Post by MMS21 »

pkdpic wrote: post #40
dash2 wrote: post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

This makes me remember that my primary way of finding new things on the web back in middle school was just typing educated guess urls in until I found something. Makes me wonder how interesting the web might be if I just started doing that again, and how boring it might have been if I'd just had a working search engine back then. Then again I also seem to remember getting bored enough with the web to only spend an ho…

If you did that now you'll run into sites with no content but a banner at the top with contact details so you can buy the domain.

Re: I started a paper website business

#67

Post by horsawlarway »

jaypeg25 wrote: post #45
dash2 wrote: post #9

Three above this story on the front page is an article called "The Web Is Fucked", complaining about how there's no character on the web any more, and lamenting the 90s, Geocities etc. etc. I'd say this story refutes that one.

I wish Stumble Upon still existed just so I could find the weird corners of the web again. This site and Reddit sort of fill that but also don't quite fit it at all.

So much this!

I don't really think it's that the niche stuff has moved away from the web - it's that nearly every functional discovery mechanism (that my now 30ish year old self knows about) has been captured by advertising or killed.

When all you ever get served up is links to the same drivel promoted by folks who have no honest interest or curiosity, but are essentially mercenary marketing/sales (sorry - influencers blegh...), then the web starts to feel like a bland wasteland.

Some of this is entirely related to being older - but I do genuinely think the current tech powerhouses on the web are trying their damn hardest to kill off any & all organic discovery mechanisms they can. Often through completely disingenuous means. If that fails, they buy them and shutter them, or roll them into the brand where it becomes the same drivel again.

Re: I started a paper website business

#68

Post by reginold »

throwawaycities wrote: post #60

All his projects are fun…one of his prior projects (mentioned in the article) is Mailoji. I registered a few and messaged him suggesting it would be cool if I could transfer the Mailoji email addresses with a code so I could hide them in NFTs only the owner could see…I think by the very next day he added the transfer code feature (and didn’t fail to give it the attention of his own style complete with an emoji gift b…

Mailoji looks neat! Do you have a link to the gift box feature?

You and the author might also check out the new ENS (Ethereum Name Service), it support emojis for use as crypto identity/wallets. "Triple pures" (three base-level emoji) are popular as a wallet address.

Re: I started a paper website business

#69

Post by bckr »

MMS21 wrote: post #65
pkdpic wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me remember that my primary way of finding new things on the web back in middle school was just typing educated guess urls in until I found something. Makes me wonder how interesting the web might be if I just started doing that again, and how boring it might have been if I'd just had a working search engine back then. Then again I also seem to remember getting bored enough with the web to only spend an ho…

If you did that now you'll run into sites with no content but a banner at the top with contact details so you can buy the domain.

Yep, I got it on the first try. personalrobotics dot com. Not a neat robot hacker website, not even a company selling robots. Just a $300k domain squat.

Re: I started a paper website business

#70

Post by noodle »

Philip-J-Fry wrote: post #61

It feels less like a paper website business and more just like a traditional website builder except with some OCR to turn notebook pages into web pages. Like, you've still got to edit the page to add links, images, colours, etc. In fact, that seems like the most complicated part. It's a fun gimmick and a nice selling point. But someone will be able to use this idea for Wordpress/Wix/Squarespace plugin. Would be surpr…

Wouldn't be HN without the "you can build this trivially" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224] response.
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