These are some hand-picked ideas from my Techquila Shots vault that I think are the best and most practical (given the anticipated budget) for Ringside Startup.
Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.
LikeLoveOrHate.com
Simply put, this idea revolves around connecting people online via similar interests. Right now, if you go to a user’s MySpace page or blog, you may see a list of music, movies, books that they like — but that doesn’t tell you much (plus it’s time consuming).
I’m proposing a simple website that asks you questions to gauge what you like/love/hate — in an easy interface where you just click to answer questions, while we compile all of that data into a back-end database. Then, users place a widget on their blog/MySpace/etc and when another user (that has a profile with us) visits that user’s webpage, the widget instantly compares the visitor with the user being viewed, and tells the visitor what shared interests they have and whether they have a high compatibility (similar to Last.fm — see image provided).- “Vyous” (views, you — “your views”)
Last I knew, YouTube was getting 40k video uploads a day — and millions of people watching. Right now, YouTube is a big cluster — there’s a handful of categories. Personally, I don’t publish videos, because I don’t even know what to create a video on. My idea is that the next step in UGC videos (user-generated content videos) is giving users a reason to create a video.Everyone has opinions — my favorite pizza shop in Buffalo NY is going to be different than other Buffalonians. Just as my opinion on the new movie “Borat” will be different than others — or the parts that I loved the most will differ from others. Give people a reason to create video and I believe you could double those uploads per day. Goal: To become the largest source of original “opinionated” video, photographic, and contextual content on the web (globally). - Event Media Aggregation (Concerts, Sporting Events, etc)
People are taking tons of videos and photos with their cell phones and digital cameras these days at concerts, sporting events, weddings, etc. Right now though, there isn’t a single central source to find all of the media from a concert or sports game.This idea would create that central source — and allow people to specify if they’re attending an upcoming event, or attended a past event. They can submit URLs to Flickr photos, YouTube videos, etc — and they can also meet people that are going to an upcoming event, or find that person that they met at a previous event (but didn’t get their contact info). - Your Syndicated Chronological Life
A website that allows you to input all of your online user accounts and creates a public/private timeline of your life — thus, it will displays your latest Twitter updates, Last.fm songs played, blog posts, blog comments, Yelp reviews, etc. - Classifieds by Cell
Ability to easily record a video, or take photos, via your cell phone of items you have for sale. Typically, it takes too long to list an item on eBay or input it on Craigs List. This idea would allow you to pull out your cell phone, record a video, send it via your cell to us, and we’d call the user back using automated VXML technology to ask the user how much they want for the item, further detailed description, and a simple category selection.The whole process could take anywhere from 1-3 minutes per item. I expect there are tons of items in people’s homes that just aren’t worth it to them currently to post on eBay or Craigs List — and I believe for the millions of items listed on eBay, there are at least that many equivalent (if not more) that would be posted online if only it were simpler and took less time.
Please contribute to Ringside Startup if you’d like to see the journey of one of these ideas turn into an actual business — and hear the guidance of seasoned start-up experts during the journey.
Which one of these ideas do you feel has the most potential for “success”?