I continue to keep this updated over time: https://github.com/samelawrence/ideas
Ask HN: Idea Sunday
61–70 of 209 posts
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#62A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…
This sounds a lot like what http://thumb.it/ does. It works pretty well actually and the responses are within a couple minutes
It does sound similar. Just from watching the video, it looks like thumb.it just has up/down votes on one image, with optional additional feedback.
The advantage of having two images is the voter doesn't even need to read a description or know what part of the image they're supposed to up/down vote. They should be able to easily see the difference between the two and just make a snap decision in less than a second. Not having to read text makes it more fun, I would think, and also provides a lot more results for the picture-taker.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#63A/B testing for physical products, making hardware more agile.
Market validation and iterative development for hardware can take a long time. Product developers are jealous of the fast iterations involved with software development. I've recently learned that despite being lower quality, people value the novelty of 3D printed goods. And we know that consumers value co-creation [1].
We know that early adopters tend to be early adopters of multiple kinds of technology. So if your user base for a new physical product also largely have 3D printers, you could bring your users into your prototyping process. Send out 2+ versions of your product without them knowing which version they received.
You can ask for feedback within 2 days of pushing out a design with real users. From the feedback you can start a new iteration, which you can then push out to your users as a tangible update within a week. You could even pay for the small cost of material used.
This platform could start with STL files, and then in the future use a common 3D printing API such as the one we're building called PrintToPeer. Early adopters would even be incentivized to get a 3D printer to be a part of the development cycle of new products.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#64A service that sits on top of/aggregates sports clips and learns from the clips that I watch/view/like/share to determine if a sports clip is relevant for me, irregardless of source (even if just providing links to third parties).
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#65A search engine for the legal system. I had sent this idea to YC 2013 and they asked me to submit a video, but I felt I don't have the creds to apply. Take each section of a country's law and convert it into prolog clauses. Queries can then be run on the legal engine. For defendants it gives you insights on how to build a case and for prosecution it identifies relevant sections and evidence that needs to be provided…
Take a look at Castext.com. Not only searchable, but also annotated so non-lawyers like myself have the benefit of someone explaining what it actually means.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#66A stackexchange like site for personal finance.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#67A site to discover content using an algorithm that ignores metrics we have begun to game (likes and viewings) and instead builds rankings based on pairwise comparisons. Would allow discovery of new good content that hasn't employed growth hacks and will also differentiate between equally rated content. https://aeolipyle.co (algorithm complete -- need to find good use for it.)
I'm curious: pairwise comparisons of what? It's not clear to me what your algorithm does.
If I understand correctly, this sounds like an idea that I've been thinking about for a little while.
Essentially, you do binary search-insertion into a list, where the comparison function is a prompt to the user asking "Is A better than B?" (If it's too difficult to judge "betterness" between two items, you could just as easily swap in a different comparison. "Is A funnier than B?")
One thing that people always ask when I mention this is: "What if A and B are equal?" Well, then you answer no, because A is not better than B. If your answers are consistent, then A and B will end up next to each other in the list.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#68A service that sits between my bank account and subscription services that only accepts charges that I've preapproved. This would let me keep track of the services that I have so I don't end up with subscriptions to sites or services that I've forgotten about. It would also let me revoke permission to charge the account at any time. No need to cancel a card if one won't cancel or changes the fees--you just revoke the…
A gym I was part of required me to send my plastic barcode / keyfab to a PO Box in order to cancel my subscription. Kind of ridiculous. I'm pretty sure they'd continually charge me and send me to collections if the charges just got denied. Something to think about - canceling contractual subscriptions may require more than just a failed credit card.
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#69A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…
There was a startup that followed your example called Fashism. (yes, really) It received venture capital, but died a painful death. http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/fashism
Disturbing naming ethos. Not even Demi Moore charming backing them up could stand that.
Suddenly... #HopeInHumanityRestored
Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday
#70A/B testing for the masses. Here's an example: Say a someone is deciding which shirt to wear. They whip out their smartphone, launch the A/B app, takes a picture of themselves wearing each of two shirts. Within 30 seconds, they have an answer of which shirt hundreds of people liked better. While they're waiting for the reply, they're prompted to rate other people's pictures. This is as simple as seeing two pictures a…
There is a strong assumption here that you could encourage hundreds of people to express their opinion on this someone's shirts. The value for the poster is clear; what is the value for the voter?
Every time someone uses the service, they spend 30 seconds rating other people's images. There can be a countdown (i.e. rate 10 more to see your results).
It would also be important to make it very fast. Cache all the images before the voter gets there, and send the results asynchronously so they don't need to wait. One could easily do a rating in less than a second. It's all snap judgements.