Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself. • Hacker News Board

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#231

Post by bmelton » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 4:38 PM UTC

anthony_barker wrote: post #144

Service compare engine Service check - a cost comparison engine for various services with a mobile front end - average cost in your area. So when the mechanic says - it'll be $2000 for the break job - you know how many hours it should take and how much it should be

That's a good idea, and one I've actually kind of piddled around with, however, I have the nagging feeling that it isn't the costs themselves that are egregious, but the diagnosis.

Example: I take my car in for a squealing noise it makes. Obviously, I'm not going to pay $3000 for a belt replacement, but I have no assurance that the "Miscalibrated Magnetostat" isn't the correct diagnosis. I'm willing to pay $3000 for a magnetostat recalibration, and the going rate may well be $3k, but all the mechanic really does is replace a belt.

Though, saying it out loud, perhaps I should just implement some kind of rating system for mechanics as well.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#232

Post by bmelton » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 4:47 PM UTC

inglorian wrote: post #217

zupatol wrote: post #190

I would like a shopping list on my mobile phone. The main inconvenience I have with my shopping list on paper is that the things I forget to buy are not automatically on next week's shopping list. And I might forget less things if I could easily delete the items I buy while I'm in the supermarket. This sounds like a small easy-to-write application. The application should also have the advantages of my paper shopping…

Whoops, sorry. Meant to upvote and downvoted accidentally instead. Am upvoting two of your other comments to make up for it.

I upvoted to offset your downvote.

That said, I think there's an android app I saw recently on the market that does this. I'll install it later and see how closely it compares to the features mentioned.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#233

Post by HeyLaughingBoy » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 4:56 PM UTC

zupatol wrote: post #190

I would like a shopping list on my mobile phone. The main inconvenience I have with my shopping list on paper is that the things I forget to buy are not automatically on next week's shopping list. And I might forget less things if I could easily delete the items I buy while I'm in the supermarket. This sounds like a small easy-to-write application. The application should also have the advantages of my paper shopping…

Isn't this as simple as a mobile-enabled webapp? I like the idea, but how would you monetize it?

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#234

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 5:49 PM UTC

cmos wrote: post #140

stcredzero wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would make it more compatible to the American metabolism.

Or make it so we sweat sunscreen when we eat the mayonnaise (on fries?).

Mayonnaise on fries is British. It's probably related but we'd have to market it differently.

(I've noted that the covers on the Harry Potter books in Britain seem to be drawn for intelligent people, whereas the books in the US are far more cartoony.)

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#235

Post by zupatol » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 6:27 PM UTC

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #233

zupatol wrote: post #190

I would like a shopping list on my mobile phone. The main inconvenience I have with my shopping list on paper is that the things I forget to buy are not automatically on next week's shopping list. And I might forget less things if I could easily delete the items I buy while I'm in the supermarket. This sounds like a small easy-to-write application. The application should also have the advantages of my paper shopping…

Isn't this as simple as a mobile-enabled webapp? I like the idea, but how would you monetize it?

It's an idea for an application I would like to have, not for a startup.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if there is money to be made with an application that helps users their spend money. You could try to sell it to a phone company, or a supermarket. You could let supermarkets advertise discounted products. You could make people pay for the application, or for 100 updates to the list. If users update the list per sms, maybe you can share the revenue with the phone company.

I suppose the biggest problem is not the monetization but the distribution. This is solved for the iphone, and for android phones, but for other phones it looks like a nightmare.

Another problem is to make easy enough to use that it actually makes life more simple. I find typing on a phone cumbersome. Maybe using a dictionary of the items you have bought previously would make it easy enough. It could be nice to be able to take a picture of a product's barcode to add the item in the list. On the other hand every added functionality diminishes the ease of use.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#236

Post by zupatol » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 6:28 PM UTC

bmelton wrote: post #232

inglorian wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoops, sorry. Meant to upvote and downvoted accidentally instead. Am upvoting two of your other comments to make up for it.

I upvoted to offset your downvote. That said, I think there's an android app I saw recently on the market that does this. I'll install it later and see how closely it compares to the features mentioned.

I upvoted you both for being so nice.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#237

Post by almost » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 6:52 PM UTC

TweedHeads wrote: post #196

A magnifying glass with bluetooth to project the images on your pc, with a shutter to take snapshots of what you're looking at, with different zoom levels and as powerful as a microscope. Imagine the kids running around the house taking shots of worms, spiders, ants, etc. and sharing them online.

You can buy a USB microscope at my local Maplins store.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#238

Post by almost » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 6:56 PM UTC

strlen wrote: post #74

A SLIME* for Python, Perl or Ruby ( http://common-lisp.net/project/slime/ ). All of these languages have a powerful reflection/meta programming facility (yes, Perl included). So technically, something like could be implemented: 1) The server (using Twisted in Python or POE in Perl) listens for requests. Requests are for objects. 2) The server looks at the request, serializes it into a s-exp describing the state of th…

You might want to look into ropemacs (and pymacs which it uses) for some slimeish stuff with python in Emacs. I way to go from there to slime but it's a start.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#239

Post by ddemchuk » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 7:19 PM UTC

I want to do this one day, but have no plans of doing it any time soon: a playlist generator for different sized mp3 players. An app I install locally that will scan my music library and then I select a song and the app mashes up with last.fm and generates a playlist of the best similar songs that I currently have that is a maximum total size in MB so all I have to do is put that playlist into whatever I transfer my music to mp3 player with and everythings done. Easy way to fill up my mp3 player with fresh music every day.

Re: Post a possibly good app idea that you have no intention of doing yourself.

#240

Post by d0mine » Sat, Jan 10, 2009, 9:19 PM UTC

old-gregg wrote: post #230

A botnet that 100% autonomously opens a bunch of honeypot email accounts, publishes them somewhere, reads every single spam message and organizes DOS-attacks on pharmacy sites that pay for spam advertising.

If it were legal it could be implemented as a collaboration system such as

http://fold.it/portal/

http://galaxyzoo.org/

http://noisetube.net/

http://qcn.stanford.edu/

http://stardustathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/