Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#61

Post by gills » Tue, Feb 10, 2009, 11:22 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #20

Government. Now hear me out on this one. I think with new technology, and the push for open access to information (that's digestible) will disrupt the political system as we've known it. Doubt it will happen once things get 'back on track' financially in this country.

Don't mistake this comment as me trying to make this thread a political flamewar.

I agree with you that technologies used by government are ripe for disruption -- and in my opinion the Senate and Geithner today pretty much guaranteed that 'back on track' will be years, if not decades, away. So this really is a good, maybe vital, area to create tools that improve efficiency.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#62

Post by anamax » Tue, Feb 10, 2009, 11:33 PM UTC

CFS wrote: post #32

The largest industry that is 'over ripe' is the energy industry. In particular, electricity distribution. Creating devices that perform 'demand management' are nearly trivial. In Australia, the normal price for large scale wholesale electricity from the national grid is Aust $48 per Mw/hr. But several times a year the 'spot price' is over Aust $10,000 per Mw/hr. This is the reason companies have 'peaking' plants that…

> The primary requirement is a 'smarter grid'

The grid doesn't have to be all that smart. It just needs to tell folks when the peakers are being turned on and off.

And, folks need to be compensated for reacting to said on/off.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#63

Post by conover » Tue, Feb 10, 2009, 11:40 PM UTC

nazgulnarsil wrote: post #54

Blackboard and other proprietary software that colleges use. Blackboard sucks and could be easily replaced by hacking together open source solutions and presenting it in a slick package (like 37 signals) but tailored for college instead of business.

I couldn't agree with this more. I work with Blackboard's software on a daily basis and it is a aweful, unstable mess. The only problem is that Blackboard seems intent on sueing any competitors out of business using patents (see desire2learn)

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#64

Post by jasonlbaptiste » Tue, Feb 10, 2009, 11:43 PM UTC

robfitz wrote: post #49

visas / immigration. you're looking at $400-900 an hour for lawyers to point you to the right webpage and tell you whether or not your particular situation fits through a loophole. corporate setup & startup paperwork of all sorts. also housing rental contracts, contractor... contracts. etc. patent applications. it's so hard to find good examples and templates. i'd pay to have something that said "type your overview h…

hey,were actually working on this at Ramamia.com for keeping up with your family . The goal is to take care of that and be a simple communication utility. Some of the ideas above will be incorporated. Email me if you want to chat: j@ramamia.com

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#65

Post by _b8r0 » Tue, Feb 10, 2009, 11:48 PM UTC

katz wrote: post #16

mojombo wrote: post #6

Classifieds. CraigsList is not the be-all end-all of buying/selling things locally online. It may be a tough nut to crack, but it won't be hard to radically improve upon their horrible user experience. I would love to see some competition in this space.

Or different countries. There are quite a few countries in which CraigsList never really "caught on" and where there isn't really something similar.

Agreed. Gumtree.com is much bigger in the UK than Craigslist, bizarrely due to the foreign community initially - lots of south africans, antipodeans got on gumtree when it first took off.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#66

Post by andyjdavis » Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 12:11 AM UTC

Banking.

Let me store multiple currencies. dont convert currencies but actually let me hold whatever currencies I regularly deal with ie Euros, US dollars, Australian dollars and Thai baht but it would vary customer to customer.

Let me make and receive payments over the net similar to PayPal (act as a payment processor).

Also give me a bank account number for people who want to pay via what they think is an old fashioned bank transfer. If you could provide me with whatever numbers I need so I can receive bank transfers in every country I do business that would be ideal.

I dont need any physical shop fronts. less real estate and staff should keep costs down.

Provide a net based interface and a card that works over the visa network and Im happy.

Do NOT send me paper statements and ads for your latest attempt to take my money under the guise of being my best friend.

The world could use a net-centric bank that assumes you are not limited to whatever country you happen to be physically located in right now. With its lack of physical storefronts this bank wouldnt be for everyone but thats fine. It would be a a bank for tech savy, international business people.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#67

Post by tontoa4 » Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 12:20 AM UTC

jakestein wrote: post #8

Title Insurance. See this article from Forbes magazine: http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2006/1113/148.html Summary: Fancy this: racetracks that keep 93% of your money and return only 5% in winning tickets. They wouldn't last long, not unless they could somehow rig the rules to both forbid price competition and make the purchase of race bets mandatory. That's more or less what the title insurance industry has done to Ame…

Required for a mortgage, government protected, and 93%+ of the premium for profit/overhead. Wow.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#68

Post by kapitti » Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 12:22 AM UTC

yalurker wrote: post #57

chris11 wrote: post #40

Real estate listings. Only limited information on a MLS is viewable without a broker. And getting your house information on one can cost 200 to 500, or up to 6% of the price. There are already free internet listings, but those can lack listings and information on houses.

Seconded on all things real estate. This is more of a legal/social problem than a technical one at this point. Websites like zillow.com make a real estate agents role largely obsolete, yet they still try to command a huge commission on every sale. Another poster above mentioned Title Insurance as well. I suspect over the next 5-10 years we will see major changes in this industry. Huge savings to home buyers & sellers…

Zillow hardly makes the role of a real estate agent obsolete - first off, their Zestimates are no where near correct in a lot of markets especially Today with all of the foreclosures and short sales. Second, the process of purchasing or selling your home isn't any easier because of zillow - only marketing a home is easier.

A consumer friendly solution is needed - when we purchased our home last year, the amount of times I needed to initial and sign documents and then sign again after changes and again when the conditions were met, and again when we removed the contingencies, etc - and each time Scan & Email or Fax it back to the sellers or a third party; it was just annoying. With all of the e-sign technologies and document collaboration, there has got to be a way to make this process easier, smoother and less archaic.

We got our home for a great price, and used a real estate agent, I could care less whether or not the realtor was removed from the process. What I want removed from the process is the pain.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#69

Post by tontoa4 » Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 12:24 AM UTC

sachinag wrote: post #33

noodle wrote: post #3

online auctions. ebay sucks, for both the buyers and sellers. and ebay doesn't even like auctions anymore, they're moving towards the amazon-style marketplace model.

Man, if only someone was going after them, one step at a time. Oh wait. http://www.dawdle.com The self-pimping done, you're being too narrow in terming it "online auctions". Auctions don't make a ton of sense for the vast majority of items sold online - they're only really useful for unique stuff. That's why they're moving towards Amazon's fixed price model. The problem with fixed price is that it's a "take it or lea…

Check your layout in FireFox... it's not happy. Good design though.

Re: Ask HN: Industries Ripe For Disruption?

#70

Post by tontoa4 » Wed, Feb 11, 2009, 12:25 AM UTC

coglethorpe wrote: post #42

josefresco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not going to happen. Craigslist is at that early Google period where everyone who uses it for the first time never looks back and is uber-loyal to the brand. A slick competitor with a great interface and new tools still has to climb that huge Ebay/Facebook-style mountain (no users no stuff, no reason)

I've used Craigslist for a car sale and wasn't impressed. I ended up paying a fee to AutoTrader and sold it fairly fast.

I'm working on the motorcycle equivalent at MotoListr.com.