One of these days, JS regex will support look behinds.. All my dodgy regexes that this would be useful for use them :(
Why I am building a product with a tiny market
101–110 of 120 posts
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Contextual alone would completely eliminate their need for panhandling, and would also enable drastic improvements to their infrastructure. Better for users, better for everyone.
>Contextual alone would completely eliminate their need for panhandling, and would also enable drastic improvements to their infrastructure. Better for users, better for everyone. maybe? but compare wikipedia's uptime to, say, twitter or reddit. Advertising dollars do not always make for reasonable Engineering decisions. (I'm not saying that advertising causes twitter or reddit to go down often; but they both get dra…
I don't know about that, Wikipedia was down for a whole day last year.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
If the constraints must allow for traction to start with 'a single web developer anywhere in the world', then I agree that significantly reduces the markets available. Energy, computer hardware, medical, pharmaceutical, telcom, these are big markets with big stakes, and these are difficult to enter, even for well funded endeavors. That being said, the internet is still relatively young and acts as a force multiplier…
"In 2011, the US GNP was 15,097,083 million USD." That should be 15 trillion (definitely not ~15,000,000,000,000 :p )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_national_product
I can't tell if you are being sarcastic.
15 trillion, in it's secret double life, looks suspiciously like 15,000,000,000,000.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#104> "Why isn't my regex doing what I intend it to?" I've found that question to be by far the most frustrating and time-consuming issue with developers I've talked to
While I would totally use this tool, this statement indicates to me that he talked to a specific subset of developers.
I know that's kind of what the article is about, but still, this sentence makes it sound like he has solved the biggest time-sink for software developers.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#105Wow, this really is the best regex checker I've seen. Great work dude, you must be Russian or Romanian.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your intuition is not entirely correct. Competition and the size of the market are not always correlated. The superior strategy is to maximize returns against efforts, not minimize potential for competition. The essential argument is that a small market provides small returns therefore go after small markets is not the same as proving that the returns are better in proportion to the cost, in time, resources or opport…
I won't argue that a superior strategy is to maximize returns against efforts - not minimize potential for competition. I wasn't making the argument that small markets offer the best returns for effort. Clearly that can't be true either - just by its definition. The notion that there are an abundance of large markets, many of which are underserved is quite a simplistic argument. There must be a reason that they are b…
Resource intensity in itself is unlikely to deter entry. A key factor determining industry concentration is the potential for economic profits (rents). You seem to be referring to electric utilities - while regulation is a more plausible entry barrier, the proximate cause is more likely the dearth of rents.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#107Regarding business model and monetizing, here are some ideas: 1. You could sell tutorials and ebooks on regexes. People who use your tool might want to understand why their regexes are not working. 2. You could license your debugging code/technology. 3. You could sell a corporate license to use your site. Corps’s regexes won't be shared publicly. Others might be. Corps paranoid about people stealing their regexes mig…
To pile on with business ideas - consider creating a "regex academy" to give out certificates to people who complete your regex course and pass your exam. Your website will draw users, and graduates will flaunt their credentials, drawing more users. This will give people a sense of accomplishment for having invested the time. Also, add some sort of Q&A thing, a-la stack exchange, so regex masters can earn karma by helping others.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#108[deleted]
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#109Regarding business model and monetizing, here are some ideas: 1. You could sell tutorials and ebooks on regexes. People who use your tool might want to understand why their regexes are not working. 2. You could license your debugging code/technology. 3. You could sell a corporate license to use your site. Corps’s regexes won't be shared publicly. Others might be. Corps paranoid about people stealing their regexes mig…
Another idea - an interviewing tool. If someone comes to me and says he knows regex, I sit him in front of your website and have him complete a test you will have created for that purpose. Your tool would grade the applicant, so as a hiring manager I won't have to know regex to understand if the applicant knows regex. $20-$50 per test sounds reasonable to me.
Re: Why I am building a product with a tiny market
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
One concern I saw mentioned was that after receiving advertising revenue, Wikipedia might become reliant on it, which would allow an advertiser to exert influence over the organization, such as demanding for articles to be removed that are negative to the advertiser's interests, with a threat to pull advertising funding. But yes, I agree, it seems possible for WP to accept advertisement without compromising on its co…
They could set up a separate non-profit organisation (that donates its proceeds to the wikimedia foundation) to sell and manage the ads. Place the organisation in a city far from any wikimedia presence to counter casual contact. Put in the charter than there can be zero personnel overlap between the businesses at any level and that nobody at the ads company is allowed to edit any article on wikipedia or any reason, m…
... if they can get by with donations, that seems a tad simpler.
Also, I don't have to watch any ads! Hurray for Wikipedia!