Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#91

Post by sylvinus » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 4:36 PM UTC

tomasien wrote: post #66

This is the coolest fucking thread ever! I'm learning so much! Is there anything more useful than taking all the bragging out of Hacker News and seeing what didn't quite work, or works but isn't blowing up? These are the great lessons

totally agree ;-)

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#92

Post by Lorin » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 4:36 PM UTC

xpose2000 wrote: post #56

I created a site based off of the idea of Facebook Timeline, except for a professional player's career. It's called Player Career Timeline. It works for just about any NBA, NFL, MLB, or NHL player and the data goes back 5 years. For example, LeBron James' career timeline: http://careers.fantasysp.com/player/nba/lebron-james/ It works by aggregating thousands of stories over the years and assigns them to a specific pl…

Is most of the system automated? How much hand holding is actually required while creating the timeline?

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#93

Post by davidlains » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:00 PM UTC

I wrote an iPhone app for rare book collectors called Titlz. http://davidlains.com/titlz The market for this kind of app is tiny but I still had fun building it and learned a lot. It has made about $20 in two months.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#94

Post by clarky07 » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:03 PM UTC

okal wrote: post #58

clarky07 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That looks pretty useful, though I'm confused as to how you could possibly make money on it? I was hoping, and expected, that their would be amazon affiliate links. If I'm going to buy one, it's going to be on Amazon. It makes the site more useful to me, and you could make a little bit of pocket change anyways.

I thought about that, but aside from bug fixes, I can't really give it much time at the moment because of my classes (final year). I did play with some affiliate links from http://udemy.com for a while but it didn't work out so I dropped them and added Flattr instead. Definitely something to explore again when I have more time. Thanks for the pointers.

Yeah I don't know how much traffic you get, but I have just a small page (read blog post) that does something similar (popular books for a certain niche) that I wrote a couple years ago that makes several hundred dollars a year. Traffic to it isn't huge either. The CPM for me is like $40 on that page.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#95

Post by omarkj_ » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

josscrowcroft wrote: post #65

I launched Open Exchange Rates ( http://openexchangerates.org ) - the Robin Hood of exchange rate (FX) data - which collects exchange rates every hour and distributes them for free via a GitHub repository, in a nice, clean, simple JSON API - with values going back to 1999. It's currently running at 160,000 requests a day, from 45,000 unique IPs. Lots of those are mobile apps, lots of shopping carts, economics researc…

Are you crawling for this data? Also, since currency is a tricky thing to price (almost any bank/broker can trade currencies) how do you select the "most correct" price?

Great project btw!

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#96

Post by ScottBurson » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

I launched https://bountyoss.com/ two weeks ago. It's a crowdfunding site designed specifically for Open Source Software projects. It's more like Cofundos than Kickstarter, but it differs from both in emphasizing continued development of existing projects rather than new projects. I'm also trying very hard to attract contributions from businesses, which I think is a huge untapped market.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#97

Post by marquis » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:10 PM UTC

josscrowcroft wrote: post #65

I launched Open Exchange Rates ( http://openexchangerates.org ) - the Robin Hood of exchange rate (FX) data - which collects exchange rates every hour and distributes them for free via a GitHub repository, in a nice, clean, simple JSON API - with values going back to 1999. It's currently running at 160,000 requests a day, from 45,000 unique IPs. Lots of those are mobile apps, lots of shopping carts, economics researc…

This is great, I currently grab a CSV feed from Yahoo so this is hugely easier to implement. Good luck on the monetization.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#98

Post by josscrowcroft » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:13 PM UTC

omarkj_ wrote: post #95

josscrowcroft wrote: post #65

I launched Open Exchange Rates ( http://openexchangerates.org ) - the Robin Hood of exchange rate (FX) data - which collects exchange rates every hour and distributes them for free via a GitHub repository, in a nice, clean, simple JSON API - with values going back to 1999. It's currently running at 160,000 requests a day, from 45,000 unique IPs. Lots of those are mobile apps, lots of shopping carts, economics researc…

Are you crawling for this data? Also, since currency is a tricky thing to price (almost any bank/broker can trade currencies) how do you select the "most correct" price? Great project btw!

Yeah, currently collecting from Yahoo! Finance, which has a fairly accurate but hard-to-use API. Advantage that OXR offers is that it's super easy, and responses are about 10x faster and 350x smaller.

Pretty soon it'll be collecting from other services too and taking averages, with a few slightly more complex moving parts, as well as calculations and statistics - that's where we need to beef up the server and start making some dough though.

Also very soon we're starting to collect other types of 'freely available' trade and economics data, and adding value to it in other ways!

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#99

Post by josscrowcroft » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:14 PM UTC

marquis wrote: post #97

josscrowcroft wrote: post #65

I launched Open Exchange Rates ( http://openexchangerates.org ) - the Robin Hood of exchange rate (FX) data - which collects exchange rates every hour and distributes them for free via a GitHub repository, in a nice, clean, simple JSON API - with values going back to 1999. It's currently running at 160,000 requests a day, from 45,000 unique IPs. Lots of those are mobile apps, lots of shopping carts, economics researc…

This is great, I currently grab a CSV feed from Yahoo so this is hugely easier to implement. Good luck on the monetization.

Thanks! Ease of implementation was the main concern - as well as the historical data (EOD values) going back to 1999.

Re: Ask HN: who started something in 2012 that didn't or won't become profitable?

#100

Post by genwin » Sun, Jun 10, 2012, 5:17 PM UTC

sparknlaunch wrote: post #22

Started writing a blog to document our startup experiences but no one visits it. Those that visit don't stay. Tried promotion through social media without success. Everyone said it will be easy to interact with those with similar interests. While not the aim to make a profit, currently no chance of making any traction, let alone profit from the blog. http://sparknlaunch.wordpress.com/

I found lots of great stuff there. Added to my favorites and will be back.