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"Website like Amazon"

elance.com

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Re: "Website like Amazon"

#71

Post by philh »

minimaxir wrote: post #22
grecy wrote: post #5

I think this highlights the interesting lack of fundamental understanding by the general public about software and how complex and expensive it is. Intuitively people understand things like cars and laptops are expensive, time consuming and difficult to build requiring complex tools and machinery. This is not the case with software, where we see time and time again requests like "same as Facebook..." or "Same as Amaz…

Relevant quotes from clients who've commissioned web developers/designers (previously posted on Clients From Hell): --- “I want to create a rival to Twitter. So I want it exactly the same except where it says What’s Happening? I want it to say How are you feeling? ” "There’s one thing that our social media site will have that Facebook hasn’t even thought of… People can rate each other! Out of a possible five stars, d…

> “I want to create a rival to Twitter. So I want it exactly the same except where it says What’s Happening? I want it to say How are you feeling?”

Well... if "exactly the same" includes stuff like "data is stored on Twitter's servers", you could probably write a greasemonkey script for this in about ten minutes.

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#73

Post by jacquesm »

itsprofitbaron wrote: post #65

You can actually do what he wants for $200 and all you have to do is purchase a couple of scripts and install them. - eCommerce - Magento - Free[1] - Auction Module For Magento - $149[2] - Forum Module For Magento - $49[3] - Classifieds - Free[4][5] - Install Wordpress (Integrate it with Magento (free plugin[4] and then add Classifieds plugin[5]) - Jobs (Fiverr) - Free/Paid If you're feeling lazy, and want to maximis…

Your time is free? I have a few jobs for you!

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#74

Post by eddieroger »

grecy wrote: post #5

I think this highlights the interesting lack of fundamental understanding by the general public about software and how complex and expensive it is. Intuitively people understand things like cars and laptops are expensive, time consuming and difficult to build requiring complex tools and machinery. This is not the case with software, where we see time and time again requests like "same as Facebook..." or "Same as Amaz…

I think the thing with cars and laptops is that people understand that they don't know how to make them. Cars are big, and when I open the hood of an older car (before the nice, clean plastic emblazoned with the manufacturer's logo to keep me away from the engine), I knew I couldn't do what someone else had done. Likewise, laptops are small - I can't possible build that. But them someone looks at the output of Word or PowerPoint, and can't tell what makes a web page so different. They can make their screen look like a website, so how hard could it be?

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#75

Post by amorphid »

noonespecial wrote: post #61

The really sad part? Even if you used lesser-god-like powers to actually deliver, they'd find a way not to pay you the $1000 anyway.

I'm a recruiter who charges by the hour. A new client asked to find a Senior Rails Developer. I called a friend who does Rails work and filled the job in 30 minutes. I sent the client an invoice for 0.50 hours. The client did not pay and I learned to fish for higher caliber clients.

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#76

Post by DigitalSea »

This guy isn't really asking for much is he? He not only wants someone to build a "better" clone of Amazon but also; auctions, classifieds, forums and a freelance jobs section on-top of what would be an extremely complicated project not-to-mention expensive. I bet the winner of this project will just skin a copy of Magento and install a couple of plugins in unison with a bot script that would scrape all of Amazon's categories and add them. Good luck to the guy, I hope his pockets are deep.

Wouldn't surprise me if the project ends in a skinned copy of Wordpress with WP-Ecommerce installed for the store functionality, haha.

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#78

Post by tieTYT »

niggler wrote: post #16
grecy wrote: post #5

I think this highlights the interesting lack of fundamental understanding by the general public about software and how complex and expensive it is. Intuitively people understand things like cars and laptops are expensive, time consuming and difficult to build requiring complex tools and machinery. This is not the case with software, where we see time and time again requests like "same as Facebook..." or "Same as Amaz…

"the interesting lack of fundamental understanding by the general public about software and how complex and expensive it is." The reason why many people have a good understanding of other complex stuff, like a car, is because they are able to tinker and service it. You can't tinker with the internals of Amazon.com. Without a frame of reference, there's no way to know how complex a system is.

I don't think that's the reason. I have no idea how to tinker with my car but when my mechanic says it'll take $500 to fix it often seems reasonable.

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#79

Post by waps »

rodw wrote: post #55
fizx wrote: post #11

I'll throw out another idea--maybe this is a honeypot for bots making automated responses to every proposal.

Good point. It seems like there is a variation on Poe's Law here, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It works as a honeypot either way. On a more practical note, Derek Siver's advice at [1] to ask bidders to post a "magic phrase" of some sort has worked really well for me. I literally just select a couple of random words from /usr/share/dict/words and add something like: To prove that you have actually read this…

This is a very popular tactic, easy to game. Enjoy it while it lasts, because it won't be much longer ...

https://www.elance.com/r/jobs/q-please%20include%20the%20wor...

Re: "Website like Amazon"

#80

Post by stan_rogers »

jere wrote: post #21

I was sure this was a joke, but I didn't catch a punchline. Why would you want to jam all of that functionality together anyway?

So you can be richer than Jeff Beezo, Mark Zapperberg, Pierre Omigosh and Craig Newman combined, of course. It's a big-picture idea, real entrepreneurial stuff; you're probably too mundane to "get it", which is why you're only worth $750 to the project.
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