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Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

old.ycombinator.com

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Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#101

Post by smsm42 »

WikipediasBad wrote: post #99
abalone wrote: post #46

My take (just the first five): 1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom. Spotify & Apple Music. Pay $10/mo for unlimited access to most music. Took the wind out of music piracy. (TV & film are undergoing a similar transition to subscription models, more slowly.) 2. Simplified browsing...Grandparents and small children don't want the full web... Apps. Remember this list is from just one year after the…

I'm particularly interested in #23 since it is clear that Wikipedia is even more dominant now than it was in 2008: More open alternatives to Wikipedia. Deletionists rule Wikipedia. Ironically, they're constrained by print-era thinking. What harm does it do if an online reference has a long tail of articles that are only interesting to a few people, so long as everyone can still find whatever they're looking for? Ther…

wikia.com sites? There are non-wikipedia wikis for tons of stuff there, mostly entertainment-related, but nobody would also prevent one from making something like that for everything else. Also, Wikidata is much more permissive than Wikipedia I think, but this one is mostly for data, not narrative descriptions.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#102

Post by smsm42 »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #64
abalone wrote: post #46

My take (just the first five): 1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom. Spotify & Apple Music. Pay $10/mo for unlimited access to most music. Took the wind out of music piracy. (TV & film are undergoing a similar transition to subscription models, more slowly.) 2. Simplified browsing...Grandparents and small children don't want the full web... Apps. Remember this list is from just one year after the…

> 3. New news. For this one, I would definitely say Twitter. As an example, my first info about the recent school shooting in Florida was a tweet by a scared student. Anything that happens anywhere in the world will spread on Twitter literally in an instant, and the same goes for non-realtime content published elsewhere.

I am not sure Twitter is "new news". It's like saying "everybody screaming at once about everything they want is the new opera". Surely, among that screaming there would be opera singers, and among Twitter noise there would be news. But Twitter is not news. Maybe something that could be used as raw source for "new news". There are several projects aimed at that, but mostly very National-Enquirer-like kind of news (more looking to shock and entertain than to deliver information).

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#103

Post by icantdrive55 »

wuliwong wrote: post #54
CodeSheikh wrote: post #5

For #8. Dating, it has progressed pretty significantly with the likes of OkCupid, swipe-based apps (Tinder, Bubmle, Hinge), CMB to name a few. Heck it has done so well that IAC spun off its dating group as a separate business entity with its own IPO of The Match Group.

OkCupid was founded in 2004. But Tinder definitely changed the space.

I have a question for anyone in their twenties, and thirties.

What percentage of your friends use Tinder on a regular basis?

Just a rough estimate.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#105

Post by reggieband »

mrep wrote: post #42
seanalltogether wrote: post #19

I would love it if someone tackled the auctions market better. Ebay continues to focus more on being a marketplace, and promoting buy it nows. A real auction house should extend the time limit as long as people are putting in bids.

I'm amazed auctions have not taken over live show tickets. Scalpers skim off millions of dollars every year that events/middleman startup could capture themselves if only someone designed a proper live show ticket auction.

Stop being amazed and start building! I think that is a great idea.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#106

Post by smsm42 »

matte_black wrote: post #59
paganel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The DNA thing sounds dystopian. Maybe that’s where we’re heading, anyway, but it doesn’t feel right.

To me it sounds like the opposite, a utopia. All throughout history, genes have been passed down through natural selection based on short term traits. If we can select partners based on things like longevity, cancer resistance, disease risks, IQ, we can produce a better world filled with better humans, slowly but surely.

That's terrifying. Every project that aimed at "producing better humans" so far wasn't just terrible - it is ones that are brought up when somebody needs to bring up so terrible no discussion is possible after it, the ultimate peak of terribleness. And yet, there are people still dreaming of breeding "better humans". I hope at least this will be voluntary? Because the logical next step is if you choose "unsuitable" partner, your kid's healthcare will cost 10x (because it's your fault for loading the healthcare with unnecessary costs) and you face deep contempt from your social peers for not helping to improve the human race. At the best case, of course. We all know how worst cases look like.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#107

Post by pascalxus »

HugThem wrote: post #97
pascalxus wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't have the actual recipe, just the ingredients. With a link to their recipe. there are no instructions on our site, except their description which they publish through JSON+LD. Basically all the info we show is just stuff they publish through JSON+LD

You make it sound like somebody gives up their copyright by using a certain data encoding.

The whole point of JSON+LD is to make that information more accessible to the outside world (like to search engines), why else would they publish that?

is there any reason to think any site wouldn't want their recipe showing up in a search result?

the 2 sites I talked to were overjoyed to have their recipes shown in my search results.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#108

Post by parametrek »

ghaff wrote: post #94
parametrek wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi! To expand on #20 there is a lot of stuff going on but like you said most of it is SEO spam. It is further hampered by planned obsolescence and the increasingly fast pace that new products are released at. It is very difficult and expensive to maintain actual experience with everything in a product space. It can't be crowd sourced either because most people are overly attached to their purchases and can't give obj…

I think the closest thing to shopping guides is review sites like Wirecutter or magazines/blogs that run end of year Best of... issues. I do have to some go to sources for gear in particular categories. And for some specific electronics that I need, I find that Wirecutter won’t steer me far wrong.

Those are still pretty spammy and often full of misinformation. Wirecutter's flashlight recommendations have always been terrible and so I have no faith in them at all.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#109

Post by matte_black »

smsm42 wrote: post #106
matte_black wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it sounds like the opposite, a utopia. All throughout history, genes have been passed down through natural selection based on short term traits. If we can select partners based on things like longevity, cancer resistance, disease risks, IQ, we can produce a better world filled with better humans, slowly but surely.

That's terrifying. Every project that aimed at "producing better humans" so far wasn't just terrible - it is ones that are brought up when somebody needs to bring up so terrible no discussion is possible after it, the ultimate peak of terribleness. And yet, there are people still dreaming of breeding "better humans". I hope at least this will be voluntary? Because the logical next step is if you choose "unsuitable" p…

I don’t understand why it’s such a taboo. Sperm donors are already selected based on favorable traits. If you’re a loser with no job or have a family history of diseases and cancer they do not want your sperm. And there’s nothing stopping people with poor genetics from breeding promiscuously with multiple women anyway, leaving behind single mothers in their wake. The Darwin Awards are a dark celebration of people dying in stupid avoidable ways and thus “removing themselves from the gene pool”.

People with excellent genetic traits need some sort of advantage to meet each other. The movie Idiocracy may have been a satirical comedy, but its message is actually not far from the truth of where we’re heading if someone doesn’t do something about improving the gene pool. To me, that is way more terrifying than genetically conscious dating.

Re: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund (2008)

#110

Post by shafyy »

dwighttk wrote: post #52
shafyy wrote: post #22

#13: "One route would be to start with test prep services, for which there's already demand, and then expand into teaching kids more than just how to score high on tests." This is what we're trying :-) Especially the paragraph:

that was a good paragraph

The best ever. Copy and paste fail.
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