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Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

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Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#1

Post by ab_initio »

Hey all-

I'm not sure if this type of post is allowed, but feel free to downvote if not. Basically, I was hoping to run an idea I have for a startup by the community at large and maybe find a cofounder in the process.

About me: CS nerd/bad idea generator

So heres the gist:

Create a site that would be a reputation repository (pardon the alliteration). This repository would be similar to gravatars but deal specifically with establishing "universal" rep as opposed to avatars. Rep could be used for any type of crowdsourced site, news sites like HN or DIGG, blog stuff and I think much more. Obviously these interactions would have to be fleshed out a little bit, but I think it could certainly be a nice little addition to some sites.

Thats the basic plan. What do you all think? Worth a shot? Feel free to email me if you'd like to talk about it. daftdg at gmail dot com.

Thanks!

edited to add contact info.

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#2

Post by TallGuyShort »

>> Obviously these interactions would have to be fleshed out a little bit

When I first read your idea I thought "Hmm... This is to reputation what OpenID is to usernames and passwords". And just then a little light bulb appeared above my head: If you tracked this by OpenID, than any site using OpenID could easily switch over to your system - without having to confirm that a certain username was a certain account on YOUR system, yada yada yada.

I think it's a good idea - the only problem is getting this to catch on with at least a couple of well known sites. That's a hard thing to do, but I think it's a good idea. I like universality (though admittedly, I'm not the biggest fan of OpenID itself)

edit: If you're really serious about doing this - I'd be happy to work with you on it - email me at SHP4HN [at] gmail [dot] com

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#3

Post by grandalf »

I think this is a good idea. I've actually thought of something similar myself. Why not have each person's reputation be based on a variety of attributes -- discussion forum insight, financial reliability, technical expertise, etc.

This could eventually replace the credit ratings infrastructure of experian, equifax, etc.

Ideally lots of sites would participate -- e-commmerce sites could rate you as a customer (headache free, not trying to cheat on promotions, etc.), kiva could rate you, etc.

It would also be great if reputation could be tied to biometric data to prevent transfer and fraud.

Such a system would ideally be open, cryptographically sound, and free.

I think that a properly designed system would end up removing lots of the transaction costs associated with more mainstream reputation systems.

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#4

Post by menloparkbum »

It's too meta.

It's also impossible. HN and Digg and Reddit are not going to implement your universal reputation system.

This has been tried before by at least a half dozen companies and you've never heard of them because they all failed.

Lastly, Twitter and Facebook already solve enough of this problem with twitter auth and facebook connect and have hundreds of millions of users so you would have stiff competition.

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#5

Post by ab_initio »

menloparkbum wrote: post #4

It's too meta. It's also impossible. HN and Digg and Reddit are not going to implement your universal reputation system. This has been tried before by at least a half dozen companies and you've never heard of them because they all failed. Lastly, Twitter and Facebook already solve enough of this problem with twitter auth and facebook connect and have hundreds of millions of users so you would have stiff competition.

Thanks for your comment. As for your arguments, I am somewhat unconvinced.

1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting Digg and Reddit to adopt it? Maybe, but there are a variety of uses that I can think of that have nothing to do with digg reddit or HN.

2) This has been tried before. So what?

3) Twitter and Facebook do this already or something similar. So what? First of all, both facebook and twitter have totally different business models and really have no incentive to include reputation. Further, the mere fact that there exists a large competitor in the market doesn't mean a small venture that may be more simple, targeted, and agile cannot succeed.

Maybe I am being naive, and if so, I fully expect to hear about it. However, I find your arguments unconvincing, and I would be greatful to hear other people's thoughts on them.

Thanks again for the comment.

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#6

Post by menloparkbum »

ab_initio wrote: post #5
menloparkbum wrote: post #4

It's too meta. It's also impossible. HN and Digg and Reddit are not going to implement your universal reputation system. This has been tried before by at least a half dozen companies and you've never heard of them because they all failed. Lastly, Twitter and Facebook already solve enough of this problem with twitter auth and facebook connect and have hundreds of millions of users so you would have stiff competition.

Thanks for your comment. As for your arguments, I am somewhat unconvinced. 1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting Digg and Reddit to adopt it? Maybe, but there are a variety of uses that I can think of that have nothing to do with digg reddit or HN. 2) This has been tried before. So what? 3) Twitter and Facebook do this already or something similar. So what? First of all, both facebook and twitter…

1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible?

Getting anyone to use it. How will you get users?

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#8

Post by ab_initio »

menloparkbum wrote: post #6
ab_initio wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your comment. As for your arguments, I am somewhat unconvinced. 1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting Digg and Reddit to adopt it? Maybe, but there are a variety of uses that I can think of that have nothing to do with digg reddit or HN. 2) This has been tried before. So what? 3) Twitter and Facebook do this already or something similar. So what? First of all, both facebook and twitter…

1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting anyone to use it. How will you get users?

I think thats certainly an issue. Right off the top of my head I see two distinct paths by which one might drive adoption:

1) There are a variety of smaller sites that utilize reputation type systems. For examples, take a look at all those tech help sites (one called it exchange comes to mind). These all fit into the Question/Answer model. I think there is some merit to exploring blogging as a second option. Specifically blogs can use reputation threshholds for posting, filtering, and comment prioritizing (putting the good ones at the top). Basically those are the primary areas where I'd like to look to start building a user base, but I think there are many more out there.

2) As one commenter recommended, the service could be expanded to include more than just simple +/- karma type scores and move to more complex stuff like Kiva loanability etc. This is pretty self explanatory, add a service that makes life easier for these sites, and they'll ask their users to adopt it.

Finally, I realize openid is a different beast but it boils down to similar idea, universalize your identity. Login and passwords are, of course, prevalent everywhere, so there is a huge market for this type of service and it seems to be picking up some steam. Our target market is smaller, but if it proves nearly as useful to users within that space, it has a chance of being adopted as well.

Re: Ask HN: Review my Startup (Idea)

#10

Post by pedalpete »

menloparkbum wrote: post #6
ab_initio wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your comment. As for your arguments, I am somewhat unconvinced. 1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting Digg and Reddit to adopt it? Maybe, but there are a variety of uses that I can think of that have nothing to do with digg reddit or HN. 2) This has been tried before. So what? 3) Twitter and Facebook do this already or something similar. So what? First of all, both facebook and twitter…

1) This is impossible. What exactly is impossible? Getting anyone to use it. How will you get users?

Getting people to use it is FAR from impossible.

Let's look at it a bit of a different way. If I understand it correctly, this could be used to identify trolls and such. Makes me think about the NIN rant of last week.

So, let's say you built your first go of this on top of something like the Disqus API, and convince a few sites to use it.

Maybe create a few simple plug-ins for forum services, etc.

All far from impossible. Don't go the 'boil the ocean' route where you try to grab everything at once. Piggybacking on OpenID is a decent idea (as mentioned already), but personally, i believe that OpenID is far from a success (it isn't mainstream yet). You could potentially create a system that piggybacks on Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, etc. and as long as you have a simple enough way for to hook into the service, I think you could get some traction.

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