ASK STEVE #4 - Idea Brainstorm for MusicExplained.net
July 31, 2007 | 10 Comments
Hi Steve,
Have you ever stayed up late at nite pondering what the deeper meaning of 50 Cents smash hit “in the club” was?
Is it a metaphor for life? Well maybe not, but this is the premise of www.musicexplained.net, developed and co/founded by myself and by my founding partner.
musicexplained is -
-a reference point for song lyrics, meanings and interpretations
-a social network with all the usual network features
-a resource like urban dictionary where users vote for the most interesting, plausible or humorous explanations
Right now, content is king and we are at a loss how to obtain this without having to input a zillion lyrics ourselves, which kinda defeats the purpose.
So what ideas do you have to promote, generating content and any other suggested thoughts?
As a side-note, enjoy your blog immensely and glad to see new posting being made.
All the best
Andrew
I like the idea — I’m an obsessive music fan, but not so much with lyrics. I’m more about beats and rhythms — unless I’m going through a break-up, then I’m listening to every single lyric in every single song. But I think there’s a market for people that love to discuss lyrics (and poetry).
I think there are Rights issues with lyrics — there are tons of lyrics websites out there that republish lyrics, but I don’t think they have the rights to do so. Yahoo recently launched Read more
IDEA #62 - Reincarnate Yub.com, but on Facebook
July 30, 2007 | 4 Comments
You may not remember Yub, but Yub could have taken off like MySpace — it was an early Friendster competitor as well. They focused on shopping, MySpace focused on Music — and the Music focus won the battle. Yub is owned by Buy.com [get it, “buy” spelled backwards].
Anyhow, I still like the idea. It’s a social network around shopping — and they reward you with cashback for shopping through them. Basically, Yub is tied into Linkshare, which is an affiliate network aggregator/provider — they have relationships with top online merchants and manage the affiliate marketing back-end (payments, tracking) for those merchants. Yub gets paid a commission on every sale that a user makes through their links, but Yub splits up that commission back to themselves and with the user (so that both make money).
So Yub is dead — I mean, it exists, but there hasn’t been activity in forever now. What did they lack? The people for the social network. What does Facebook have? The people.
I say recreate this site as a Facebook app. Get an account with Linkshare (spend the $250 for the account with product data feeds via FTP — I don’t think they publicly promote this account on their website, but Read more
ASK STEVE #3 - Content & Community Makes Money for Resource/Hobby Sites
July 30, 2007 | 1 Comment
Hey Steve,
We run a popular World of Warcraft Google Maps mashup at .... Although traffic has been growing, we’re looking for ways to take the site to the next level. Two major ideas are to:
1) enable users to embed portions of the map on their own sites and
2) translate the site in to non-English languages supported by Warcraft, such as Chinese and Korean.
Do you think allowing users to embed the map on their own site would cut in to our traffic, or virally increase it? Do you think there is much value in translating the site in to other languages?
Thanks for the advice,
Drew
Drew — First off, I’m not a WoW’r, so pardon any bad lingo here. Your website is a resource. Currently, it’s a map — seems like a useful map if I played WoW. Seems like I might come back on occasion to check it out. But are people doing that? Maybe you need to expand the site to have a larger focus as a resource — informing people how to “up” their characters? Any way to create community — possibly message boards?
Is there any way to make the map more interactive, such as plotting people/characters on the map as to where they currently are? Are there any specific WoW social networking sites that exist (you could grab your own Ning network and wrap that into your website)?
As for other languages — what language visitors are you seeing visit your site? If lots of foreigns, then maybe look to do that. Maybe they (any of the languages you speak of) are lacking a social networking or forums site too?
Letting users embed the map — I don’t think so. They’d have no reason to ever come back to you. You need to create community on your site if you want to make any money — or you need to be publishing new posts/articles every day that help WoW users. Content and/or Community will make you money — otherwise, just let the site sit out there as a resource to WoW’rs on occasion and focus your time/energy on something else.
Also, check out ..., sign up for an account, and grab some links for WoW stuff — you might be able to make more money from these than from AdSense.
Hey! Want my advice?
ASK STEVE #2 - Invest Your Time to Make Millions, Not Dollars
July 29, 2007 | 6 Comments
Steve,
I’m in the process of developing a Facebook application that helps students save on textbooks. The idea is that almost every teacher requires that you buy a textbook for the class, but many of them never use the textbook. I’m going to collect information on which teachers don’t use their textbooks so students don’t buy them in the first place. With the cost of textbooks exceeding $100 in most cases, not buying simply one book is a huge savings. The value creation is clear.
My idea for monetization is for students to be able to click and buy the books they do need from Amazon and for me to collect the affiliate fee. However, I fear that most students will get the information about which books not to buy and then simply buy the remainder of their books from their college bookstore, thus depriving me of any revenue. How do I increase the conversion rate so I’m maximizing the revenue I receive from these students? Do you have any other ideas for monetization?
Thanks.
Tyler
Tyler — walk away 
If you’re going to spend time on something, why not spend time on something that’ll make millions of dollars, as opposed to hundreds? [That goes for anyone.] I don’t think there’s much of a business here — is your expectation that Read more
ASK STEVE #1 - Copycat Apps When Leader Exists: Not a Good Idea
July 27, 2007 | 6 Comments
This post includes a new idea by me that’s a digg/del.icio.us hybrid clone for porn. Waleed’s email below in italics. My comments in email as blue text.
Steve,
What do you think of my new Web site, Ziizo?
Unlike del.icio.us, Ziizo is:
- A productivity tool (or a memory support tool), not a news sharing tool. del.icio.us is not a “news sharing tool”, it’s a bookmarking tool. digg is a “news sharing tool”.
- Allows you to save text notes as well as bookmarks. I can add notes to each of my bookmarks. But I understand that your tool lets me add generic notes — like sticky notes in Outlook, or notes in Netvibes (which I use for my notes). I also see you allow me to create To-do’s by tagging things as ‘todo’ — del.icio.us can do that for me as well; in fact, I currently tag everything ‘l8r’ if I want to go back to it sometime. As for to-do’s, I either use Basecamp or Backpack or Netvibe’s little to-do list.
- Focus is on speed and fast access to information. del.icio.us is fast; yes, having your search as ajax might be a millisecond faster.
- Everything is private by default, unless you Read more
Warning: I will rip your idea/business apart
July 27, 2007 | Leave a Comment
Honestly, 19 out of 20 ideas or web apps, I will rip apart. Why? Not because I hate you, but because if you’re asking for my advice, I’m going to point out faults in your idea/web app, which are simply my opinions. This is so that you can correct them and hopefully have an app I (and masses) might actually use.
Note: I’m not god and I’m not the last word. Follow your own gut and passion. And if you don’t agree with one of my points, you should probably get a few other opinions (and not from your mom or best friend). Hopefully others will comment on my posts to either agree with me or give me an earful — and hopefully give more insight/advice to you.
Regardless of everything, it’s not personal — it’s business. Don’t hate me if you ask for my honest advice and I (likely) rip your business/idea to shreds.
Don’t be shy, send your ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘who’, ‘where’ questions to: advice@techquilashots.com for some free consulting.
Need Some Expert Advice? Ask Steve (me!)
July 27, 2007 | 4 Comments
Marketing or PR ideas? Overall assessment of your website, business, or app?
That’s a bit loaded to say I’m an expert, but I’m a pretty smart guy that can give some honest opinions and ideas. I have 10+ years now in the web field, I know a hell of a lot on web startups and established web businesses, I know people, I’ve started a hell of a lot of startups (many failures under this belt), I’m an idea guy, and I’m very creative when it comes to marketing (I love viralness).
I pretty much guarantee that you can show me any web app/site and I’ll have ideas for it — you’ll get some out-of-the-box thinking, which will likely get you thinking.
So I’m here to answer any question you may have to — improve user experience of your website/app, sign ups, ease of use, marketing ideas, viralness, ability/how to monetize, market size, competition, PR/exposure, how you should focus your time, etc.
There’s one catch — if you send me a question, expect the question and answer to be published on this blog. If you wish to remain anonymous, please specify that — otherwise include your name/alias and site URL. Also, please include your competition if you know of some — I’m not going to spend tons of time on these, so the more info I have up-front, the better an answer/ideas you’ll get from me.
Don’t be shy, send your ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘when’, ‘who’, ‘where’ questions to: advice@techquilashots.com for some free consulting.
Example Questions:
- Steve, what do you think of this website of mine __________. The purpose is ____________.
- Steve, I need a partner. My idea is ______ and I’m a _________, needing a ___________ (developer).
- Steve, we’re seeking a PHP programmer to work on this ____________. Help.
- Steve, I’ve been doing Google AdWords, but not getting clicks. Here is my ad copy __________ and keywords _________. Any thoughts? Recommendations of elsewhere to promote?
- Steve, I’m burning through my PPC budget and getting clicks/visitors, but no one is buying (or registering) — why???
- Steve, can you try out the beta of my web app and let me know your thoughts?
- Steve, should I be raising capital?
- Steve, this is my pitch to investors, is it any good?
- Steve, this is my pitch to bloggers to use my web app — your thoughts?
- Steve, where can I find someone to help me develop ____________?
- Steve, this is my app to the next TechStars / Y Combinator — what do you think?
- Steve, I have these 3 ideas — I love them all — which one should I run with (if any)?
- Steve, TechCrunch just covered this company __________ — I think it’s crap, what do you think?
- Steve, I need a job — here’s what I love to do and have done, thoughts?
- Steve, do you think there’s room for another job website? I’m thinking along the lines of ____________.
- Steve, what is affiliate marketing?
- Steve, what is PPC arbitrage
- Steve, I want to share this story with you that you may want to share with other entrepreneurs — it’ll lift some spirits.
- Steve, recommend any good books?
Lastly, I can’t promise your question will get answered.
Twitter - Become the (Facebook) Platform, For Mobile
July 25, 2007 | 2 Comments
I had an idea last week while chatting with Alex Payne, one of the Twitter developers.
In the past, I wrote about how Twitter opened up their API for direct messages — which I thought was going to be huge and allow apps/services to be built-off Twitter (I even posted on how to create these Twitter apps). I thought this was the move that would turn Twitter into a platform for mobile (as Facebook has now done for the web).
Well, it wasn’t huge. Why? Because the syntax still sucks for direct messaging in Twitter. In order for any SMS service to really take off, it requires advertising/promotion — and/or a simple way of someone using it that can be communicated to a dummy.
If you had a weather Twitter app — right now you’d have to tell people, send a text of “d weather 14202″ to 40404. You should be able to tell people, send a text to “join weather” or “join weather 14202″ and then the user would get a reply text telling them how to get their weather in the future. [If the user was already joined to the service, it’d tell the user that and remind them how to use that app in the future]
Twitter has the ‘join’ username reserved and has used it in the past (for SXSW, as an example). Users that did ‘join sxsw’ were added to that SXSW “friend” and were basically apart of a group; they were notified whenever some of the other friends in that group were posting twitters.
My recommendation to Twitter is to allow application developers to start writing apps and make use of your ‘join’ username. Maybe you approve apps before they can use ‘join’. But if you make this happen, then I think you’ll see a lot more promotion of your service in offline print (app developers will put money behind their apps using your shortcode/platform), as well as word-of-mouth — because people will be recommending cool apps (that ultimately use your platform).
I could see Twitter becoming the platform for SMS applications, as Facebook is quickly becoming the platform for web applications.
Of course, somehow these apps need to be able to monetize themselves. As do you. So you likely need to start opening up some advertising opportunities within the SMS’ themselves when there are characters still available. Or you could charge app developers usage rates.
Obsessed with Music, but Can’t Be a Rockstar?
July 25, 2007 | Leave a Comment
I should have listened to Fred Wilson a year ago — Guitar Hero for the XBOX/Playstation is AMAZING. I thought it would be corny, but it instantly turns anyone into a rockstar! If you love music and haven’t played yet — find a friend that has it and make a night of it. It’s also a great game for parties, weddings, etc — because even if you’re not playing, you’re watching and listening to some great tunes.
IDEA #61 - Music Affiliate JavaScript Blog Include
July 24, 2007 | 3 Comments
A simple script that anyone could grab and put in the HEAD of their blog/website (or install via a plugin for blogger/wordpress/typepad). Anytime there is an MP3 linked to on the page (and/or a band or song), a little ‘buy now’ icon appears next to the MP3 link (or the artist/band/song name turns into a link, if it isn’t already) and links to where you could buy that song via iTunes or eMusic or Amazon.com. Or maybe a little iTunes/eMusic/or Amazon.com icon (their favicon.ico).
You could extend this in the future so that if there is mention of a band/artist name on a webpage, a link appears next to it, which might open up a layer (like how snap.com gives a site preview) to display tour dates, bio/wiki info, ebay/Stubhub items for sale (using your affil link of course), and links to the band’s official website and myspace page.
Monetization occurs by being an affiliate of iTunes (via LinkShare I believe), eMusic, and Amazon.com.
Would avid music bloggers install it? Sure — just to provide all this extra available info to people. But Definitely, if they were getting a cut of the action. I don’t think there’s much action involved (isn’t it like $0.05 per song via iTunes that affiliates receive? Although eBay affil earnings are good) — and with affil programs from many vendors, tracking would be a bitch.
