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Ask HN: My project IsItRails.com — what should I do?

23 points by rmoriz ↗ HN
Started two years ago IsItRails.com is a very small app that is able to identify if a site runs Ruby on Rails or not (at least to some 90%). It's the outcome of a lazy three days hack has an horrible ugly design (I know…) and currently over 4000 known Rails sites.

But it does the job and saves some "curl --head" and "view source" actions for curious persons like myself (when using the bookmarklet).

As not only the design sucks I'm considering a relaunch from scratch but I'm not sure about if and how much time and money (e.g. for design) I should invest et all? Can this be run as "a business"? Is there any commercial potential in this app or its data? I'm not currently sharing the database which might or might not be interesting for hosters/PaaS, add-on/monitoring providers and consultancies?

I'll continue running the service as it currently is, even if there's no revenue possibility… so please be honest in your opinion: What do you think? Thank you.

35 comments

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joshcrews
I use your site, I'm a fulltime Rails developer, and I would think all your traffic would be from Rails developers or at least the Rails-curious.

You might be able to get some money (I have no way of estimating how much) by just adding the same sponsors that railscasts.com has. That could be a short time investment up front for a passive income.

In that model, you don't need to redesign. The design is fine.

rmoriz
I've never done that "fund raising" thingy. I once had an offer to embed a pay per lead banner but considered the low traffic it seemed not be a good idea.

It's a very specific app and probably the database is more valueable than the visitor number…

hundredwatt
Roland,

This may be a completely useless suggestions as I'm not sure if it's even possible, but perhaps you could port IsItRails to other open-source projects (e.g., IsItDjango). The site could then be a useful way for recognizing open-source projects/devs.

As the database grows, I may start using it show non-technical people that these projects are not just fringe, non-scalable technologies.

Great work!

One last note, as far as fundraising, what's the worst thing that could happen if you sent an email to all the sponsors of RailsCasts asking if they'd be interested in promoting on your site?

dillydally
Or, rather, you just enter a URL and it tells you what frameworks the app is using.
bradleyland
Specificity is a blessing and a curse. For someone who is interested in specific things, like Rails developers and Rails hosting, your site is a perfect place to sponsor. Someone looking to determine if a site is running Rails is very likely to also need Rails hosting or Rails information. I'd look for a few select Rails related referral programs and integrate them. Avoid cluttering up the page. Developers understand the need to monetize traffic, so if done tastefully, advertising can be effective in this scenario.

Keeping your expectations realistic is important, however. I don't think this is the kind of site that you could support yourself on.

mike-cardwell
This is a genuine question, I'm not trying to be rude... What is the point of the website? It doesn't seem to do anything particularly useful... Perhaps your time would be better spent working on a website which would perform a useful task and maybe generate some money?
rmoriz
If the information that a site is Ruby on Rails based is not useful to you, you're completely right.
mike-cardwell
I would like a website where you enter the url of another website and it gives you a list of technologies which it uses. One which just tells you if it uses rails seems to be of very limited usefulness.
rmoriz
let me try a pitch:

"If you provide Ruby/Rails hosting like Heroku, Engine Yard, RightScale etc. do, the database could contain up to 4300 potential new customers"

jaxn
Add to your database which hosting provider the site is using (for those you can figure out). I think that really increases the value of your pitch and saves the sales people from having to cross reference to make sure they aren't pitching existing customers.
r7000
Try http://builtwith.com
jaxn
Interestingly, builtwith.com did not recognize a project I am working on is built with Rails, whereas IsItRails.com was very sure that it was built with Rails.
jacquesm
hey Roland,

That's a very tricky thing. I think that a 'service to the community' has its own kind of pay-offs but they won't be the kind that you can measure in direct dollar value. It would come back in goodwill, which is notoriously hard to put a sticker price on.

This particular one also doesn't seem to cost much to own & operate. If you want you can host it on on one of my machines in case you're worried about the costs (free of charge), I think that it's useful but I would expand it a bit to make it more useful, where you analyze not just if it is rails but also what it is if it isn't. That would also increase the usefulness of the site.

That way you can give something back to a visitor regardless of whether or not a site runs rails.

If you feel like taking me up on my offer let me know.

greetings, & good luck, whatever you decide to do with it.

Jacques

rmoriz
As you've mentioned hosting isn't a problem so that's not an issue.

My experience after running (resurrecting) the local ruby user group (http://ruby-muenchen.de/ all done/run by me) and http://IsItRails.com/ for two years are disillusioning: At least here in Germany nobody gives a sh*t if you do something to the community.

So having some flattrs/tweets per month is already a positive feedback that I appreciate much :)

jacquesm
Well, here is my compliment to you then, in spite of other parties here asking what the 'use' is, the URL was easy enough to remember that when I was wondering if a bunch of websites might have been written using rails (they weren't) that I used your service and it worked well enough.

So thank you for running isitrails.com :)

_b8r0
I would do the minimum work required and put some Amazon affiliate links up there as a starting point.

I imagine most of your traffic is going to come from Rails developers or those interested in getting to know Rails. If you can find out more about why your visitors use your site, then you can develop a more effective commercialisation strategy based on their interests.

rmoriz
Isn't there a possibility that keeps me from distracting the users? Don't you think the database might have a value on its own?
dmoney
It's possible that your users are using the site itself as a distraction. You could A/B test to see whether ads keep visitors from coming back.

Or are you thinking that ads or affiliate links would make the database less valuable?

rmoriz
I personally hate sites cluttered with affiliate banners or google adsense.
dmoney
Hard to argue with you there. But advertising is how most of the web makes money off of "free" services, and I believe it can be done tastefully.
jarnold
Sell the data to the sales staff of rails hosting companies. Seriously, the sales folks at these companies use this data all day long. Let me know if you want introductions.
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jarnold
I think there is a market for a lead generation product for niche hosting providers. Have a pay service that 'hunts' down high-traffic or newly-launched websites that fit the profile that they're looking for.

These types of apps are impossible to get done internally. But sales teams would gladly pay if t exists.

bullseye
Maybe you could create some additional research/marketing value by combining your current efforts with something similar to the information available in Netcraft's "What's that site running?" utility? (http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph)
symkat
You should talk to jarnold since he says that you should sell the database and he can provide you leads, and everything you've said in the comments seems more like, "Does anyone want to buy my database?" than "How can I monetize this". Down to posting your sales pitch. :p
clint
I think you probably need to ask yourself: "would I pay for this?" then ask your friends and people in a wider community: "would you or your business pay for this?"

I think you'll probably find that answer is, well, no. What's my ROI on knowing if a site runs Rails? I'm really trying hard and coming up with a blank.

What does your site do that I can't accomplish in a simple email to the site's owner? You're basically arguing a value proposition over my laziness to send an email and wait a day or so for the result, which isn't a lot.

ElbertF
I've doing pretty much the same thing with http://wappalyzer.com the last couple of years. It's a Firefox add-on that analyzes source code and headers to find out what software is being used on sites. The add-on is mildly popular and I'm collecting a ton of data but it isn't making me a lot of money. It's a fun side-project though, perhaps we can do something together?

Example stats page: http://wappalyzer.com/stats/app/WordPress|Drupal|Joomla/webs...

kapauldo
Congratson a great site. It's useful and interesting. No, don't invest much more into it and no, it can't be a business. It's a super niche site intended for a supernniche audience. You've proven that you can go from idea to production, and that's very rare in life (most people are talkers, you're a doer). Now, do the smart thing, and heed the advice here. Move on to your next big idea, this one only has hobby potential.