colinwinter

^^^Nice way to seize the moment. Interesting website concept. Just a suggestion for the homepage: since the top header is so tall, how about moving the play song links from the bottom of each song-artwork to be a universal play symbol (arrow) overtop the artwork, maybe increasing from translucent to full opacity upon hovering, noting contrast issues with relevant artwork. NOTE: at my 1080p pc monitor and font size settings I dont even see the song title 'above the screen's fold', so you may even want to think about that as well, maybe the same solution as the playbutton using overlay and opacity settings. It is a cool header bg though so dont mess with that, except maybe moving the search box onto it since having it below eats vertical space from the song listings as well.

Last point/question: I'm assuming the $1600 headphone giveaway is for the musicians, not listeners. Good growth tactic but maybe make it more clear OR offer something to listeners as well. I don't know much about the song development process market but maybe implement or communicate something about whats expected/gained from listeners for improving the music (assuming you actually want to help musicians rather than eat their souls lol)

EDIT: minor ui change to song pages: move everything on the separate login page as an embedded form on song pages (above the comments). No need to ask me to click and hope you've integrated with my favorite 3rd party.

EDIT2; Startup based advice: you might want to look into the business model of that site that advertised on thepiratebay using popups autoplaying (fairly decent) music videos of indie artists competing for a prize. Cant remember the name or find it on google, maybe it shutdown? Had a one wordish name derivied from video, definitely started with a V

THANKS for sharing this. Wouldn't have discovered it otherwise and definitely a positive refresher with new points beyond his TED talk.

For anyone still sitting-on/queuing/water-latering Lessig's main TED talk on money in politics, as a vidder I created a remix of it to help improve engagement and intensity, using soundtracks by Zack Hemsey and a few video clips from other sources for support:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB-vGYR8S58 I never really shared it beyond the organizers behind Lessig so I hope someone more useful than the avg youtuber can benefit from it here...

I don't think its so much about adding interests as it is offering random but related articles to what someone views. Not everyone always checks the related articles section- and that section is not always very comprehensive. It'd be a good start to use that section though, and compensate by eliminating pages you've already visited.

I really like your idea, although the implementation still needs the actual recommendation engine. Wikipedia could really benefit from more related articles being listed/organized.

Good point. Also everyone in this thread, even the OP, failed to realize the main difference/point with the site: it's about LOCAL entrepreneurship and building your LOCAL community, something Brad has been writing about. http://www.startuprev.com/about

Although, they did do a crap job at emphasizing 'LOCAL' on the site besides using the once in the sidebar description.

This could be really powerful if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Once the company completes the feature satisfactorily they get the cash. Or perhaps even a situation where they can grab the cash to start the feature- but this is obviously higher risk- like kickstarter- but the risk could be managed and even help the feature development process.

PS- With this in mind, importing feature requests from other sites could help growth. IE: People see a GREAT feature THEY want and are willing to put in $5... as compared to coming to the site to submit their ideas. Another idea: Use ad revenue from site to 'seed' a user's initial ability to donate $$$. Perhaps require CC input in order to contribute this 'free money', thereby making it easier to give real money. I know the free money would have to be incredibly small, but sometimes little acts of giving something for free can really change a system. Just some thoughts...

Must have a huge margin! It will sell if they promote it right, which it looks like they are doing. I can see buying this for a friend as a gift. I can also see it becoming a nice bathroom light at night, as I hate waking myself up with bright lights.

Very interesting, sounds similar to Amy Cuddy talking about body language affecting our mind/behavior. http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes...

Will you post more (the thesis) when it becomes available?

Exactly, it looks great as it is right now. Where's waldo like. But I'm a video guy and motion would make this world epic.

This reminds me of something... As someone who LOVED rollercoaster tycoon, please please please consider object/character movement, such as NPC's that move and do stuff. Like puke on the ground after roller coasters =) Also other players who are in control of a character (like Sims game) would be fun to highlight and watch interact with NPC's.

It'd be REALLY cool if someone could turn this into a screensaver, where it progressively pans and zooms in/out. Then when you're mind is just about to be blown at full-zoom-in, it should rotate like a boss and slap a new perspective of life into your life.

The pain with finding user pains is organizing. Everybody will talk/search things differently. Pains can also be slightly different but on the same topic. Then theres the marketing problem, finding enough users in a certain topic/pain to justify the pain. Consider how biased the content on quora is (relative to availability of content, not the content quality itself).

Bostinno also recently reported another project that simply failed to deliver: http://bostinno.com/2012/04/25/kickstarters-dark-side/

Could this create a market for 'verified' kickstarter projects? Kickstarter as an organization states they dont verify, but as they grow the need will also grow. I'm thinking this could be an optional feature that everyone would be aware of (IE: grayed out badge when not invoked). For a small fee a typically background check will be performed, either by kickstarter or an independent.

I like how they link to the gizmodo article to reference the benefits, when in fact the article says its stupid to DIY.

Agreed. And thats where I can see the value. However I'd want something a lil more. For example, perhaps 'things' would keep coming back for say 30, 60, 90 days. You complete the thought and turn it into a habit and now you're good, so you can archive it. The more you turn into habits the better visual feedback you get. Another idea: Add video to this. Help ingrain the lesson learned by doing a full-blown reflection on what it means to you and why its important. Also, to see yourself to yourself to-do/NOT-to-do something every so often could be interesting. BTW: I have a folder in Evernote for things like this, I just dont check it that often, but a system that could automate this and push things to me could be interesting. One step further: sharing. Famous people could share short videos of their 'lessons learned' and you could subscribe to their lessons until you complete them as habits (remember not everything will turn into a habit though).

Just a few thoughts, hope it helps!

I didn't realize you could buy a hammock for under $20: http://www.amazon.com/Texsport-14258-La-Paz-Hammock/dp/B000P...

Now does anybody know how/where I can get something that rocks/pulls my hammock back and forth?

Very good point! Feedback from other entrepreneurs is usually arbitrary, and you usually have to qualify the advice based on each person's unique history/background. It's nice to see if entrepreneurs agree with your idea, but it all comes down to the market agreeing.

Okay, I'll bite. I've researched and critiqued dozens of ideas; I've also had my ideas ripped apart by others. So here's my feedback; playing devil's advocate here because there's no mention of these ideas being a true passion for your team.

Customer Service a la Zappos

I like the area that you are targeting, I think there's opportunity, but I don't see/understand what you're providing that's new. Are you managing/offering awesome people to provide the customer service or is it software that will help guide an existing company's support staff to be awesome? Perhaps a training program with some sort of systematic reminds of how to be awesome (could be interesting).

While You Were Out Notes

I know people use different hardware/software for communications but I don't see how there's any value here. Making voicemail accessible outside the office? If someone visits, do they need to know YOUR system for leaving a note or is someone in the office going to add it to this unnecessary system? There's a thing called email, and it works if you don't suck at it. Not convinced there's a pain/need here.

One Click Social Media Reports - My pick

Another area that is appealing to me, but I'd like to know more. List the kinds of things you'll be collecting. I do think there's data missing from other related services/tools.

Recurly for Dummies

Not to say there isn't a market/possibility to make money here, but doesn't Paypal offer subscriptions. Not everyone is accustomed to using/managing their subscriptions with Paypal but how will you make it any easier with your service?

Online Ticket Sales

Again, with limited information it's hard to see how you're going to approach this differently than Eventbrite. I think the opportunity here is the promotion aspect, but how you accomplish this is a mystery. I just feel a lot of people aren't aware of events in their area until it's too late. However, getting them to subscribe to your service to receive updates about events is going to be hard. You have to solve the relevancy/quality issue in addition to marketing to these people who don't search out for things on their own. Maybe some sort of partnering/incentive program can make this more possible. Make it fun and rewarding.

If you already got your design ready, I'd go with PSPrint. They are fast and a good price. Just make sure you review their checklist/psd template. IE: CMYK or you might regret it

Checkout http://www.kommonthread.com/ They're working on a new program to help promote startups using T-shirts