Though I started with a rough idea several months ago, I did most of my work coding http://www.sparkmuse.com during November. I'm not gonna make it by the end of the month, but I'll be opening the alpha in around 2 weeks. Right now most of the coding is done, I'm just on the lookout for more content to add to the site.
That's really cool and super fast (my god is it fast!).
If you are going to launch this, can I suggest that, rather than IP detection, you build out a series of pages for each location, e.g. New York City, London etc.
That way you can get SEO traffic (London has a non-ajax, SE crawlable page), and also provide people a better experience when they plan to go somewhere (e.g. London from NYC).
Lastly - revenue model? I assume affiliates for hotels etc? If so, you need traffic, so see my first point :)
I put up two sites this month, but I'm not sure they qualify. They don't have any chance at growing into a startup, but I'm going to list them anyway.
The first is a little game that lets you try to unscramble words [1]. It's hardest word list is from a post about the 1000 most useful words that came up here a while ago. My favourite thing about the site is that it fetches definitions and the like from wordnik so you can learn as you play. If you want to try playing let me know and I'll fix the last known bug. The focus is stolen from the input box when I check to see if the top word has changed, but I didn't fix it because I got distracted by more interesting projects.
The second is a personal website with links to my blog and a portfolio of past projects [2]. I figured starting to put together a portfolio would help to get me a job at some point and that it would be a nice way to start learning Clojure, which I've been wanting to try for a while. Still haven't decided on a domain name though.
Right now I'm working on a third project that people on Hacker News might be more interested in. I'm hoping it will bear some resemblance to Stack Overflow when it gets a little more fleshed out, but that won't be done this month. God willing it will be done some time in December so I can share it with all of you. I'm really excited about it.
I enjoyed playing anagramscramble for a bit, and I think it's great timing as I'm prepping for the GRE in a couple weeks - playing your game might help my verbal score. A couple comments:
1. You mentioned this, but it would be great if focus stayed on the input box. That would make it easy to play with just the keyboard, without having to tab.
2. Sometimes there are more than one legitimate solution (for example: scalp, clasp) - you could try checking if the submitted word is real or not instead of matching it to the word you originally scrambled.
I fixed the bug that was stealing focus. In case your curious the problem was that the code would always think the word had changed due to trying to select the current anagram with the wrong jquery selector (div instead of span).
As to allowing multiple words for the same anagram. Umm.. that not a bug that is a feature! It uhh.. it helps you to be more.. creative.. year that is what it does. More seriously though, I'm busy right now and don't think it really ruins the experience like the focus bug does, so I'm going to hold off on implementing that till I'm finished with my previously mentioned 'interesting project.
it's my way of sharing back to the community what i learned from it. a set of tutorials. hoping this will help some of my people here in the Philippines but sad to know that most people browsing it are from India and US. but still im hoping they'll learn from my site..
I launched a cool iPad game: http://chopperdefense.com/. Already have a few "paying customers" and even more Cydia freeloaders :) Now working on getting the word out and on a major update that would also bring it to iPhone, hopefully.
Haven't launched yet, but I've got half an app for planning camping trips using the new Active.com API. I decided to do it in Rails, so I was learning something brand new. It's close though. I've got a cool map mashup going at least.
It lets hackers meet up with each other for lunch (and hopefully an interesting chat). You basically make a post stating when and where you are free to have lunch and others can join in.
Launched it a few days ago but unfortunately haven't received much interest or feedback. I will probably release another polished version in a month and see if it gets more traction.
Make it more social. Once a lunch slot is posted, give it an unique url, encourage users to publish it to facebook/twtter, etc. Store user's location, advice if the new lunch slot can invite any existing users in the same region, etc.
Keep on working on it. Nice to have, can't see how it could be acquired, or make enough for ramien, or anything like that.
Thanks for the feedback. I noticed that you did not use the site to post a lunch-meetup, is it because you aren't interested in meeting up with others at the moment, or is it because the site lacks features?
I am working to make the interface a bit more appealing (new design: http://i.imgur.com/KOaA8.jpg). Then I will move on to add integration with facebook and twitter and let users do more with their posts (invites, privacy, comments, geo-tagging, etc.).
As for the future, I plan to extend this beyond hackernews and beyond lunches. Eventually you should be able to post any event you plan on doing and invite anyone. Kind of like a social network focused around events.
Good to hear that you have a plan to develop it further. One problem I have with my site is to give too much features which are not required, or I dun use myself. Do guard against that too. Less is more.
Launched this month: http://tradesalerts.com
Revised it recently to include AGM Calendar, Downloadable Inc's Dividend records, etc. Low traffic, added quite a few enhancements to work in the pipline to automate things. Great to see it developed quite nicely over time.
Here's my app for the month launched today. http://www.previouslook.com. Makes it easy to look back at the snapshots of popular web pages over time. So far it's a proof of concept with couple sites. Will expand to include more web pages.
Submitted a simple card game to the App Store and put http://www.myspaceappstats.com/ online. If I could somehow let app developers know about it, I'm pretty sure many would visit it daily to see how their app is doing, but I'm not sure how to contact them. Tried just going through each dev and figure out their contact info from their homepage / app but that turned out to take a loong time.
Failed miserably trying to write an app for my personal use within November. I have my back end done and ready and i need to put together a front end still. Was not possible to spend much hours due to work and also to be honest, time spent was not exactly productive i would say. Need to proceed and wrap this up soon.
I took it up...but never finished :( Unfortunately this was the worst possibly month I could have picked to join. I had 2 major code releases and a bunch of late nights. Sigh...I'm so pissed!
Launched a Windows Phone 7 App that is now in the Windows Phone Marketplace. http://bit.ly/ezZv2t
I already know C# so making apps for Windows Phone 7 comes naturally.
I took it up and brainstormed a product and wrote a few blog posts up at http://WeddingBudgetBuddy.com but I haven't launched a product yet. To me building audience is key, and I've been making slow progress getting relevant traffic. I'm going to try to launch soon.
I learned loads about starting a product (as opposed to a simple project) this month and it was incredibly valuable.
There's talk of it becoming a monthly thing, which I'd love to be a part of.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadLaunched this last month: http://www.textmyoffice.com
Some other things still in the pipe.
If you are going to launch this, can I suggest that, rather than IP detection, you build out a series of pages for each location, e.g. New York City, London etc.
That way you can get SEO traffic (London has a non-ajax, SE crawlable page), and also provide people a better experience when they plan to go somewhere (e.g. London from NYC).
Lastly - revenue model? I assume affiliates for hotels etc? If so, you need traffic, so see my first point :)
http://caniafforditnow.com
Get a Financial health checkup anonymously Get a second opinion before your Purchase
Members option is possible.
Forward planning option to help users build things is also a possibility.
Integrate with other finance/expense tracking app will help too.
Do keep working on it. Love it to see it developed over time.
I launched a CSS sprite generator at http://instantsprite.com.
The first is a little game that lets you try to unscramble words [1]. It's hardest word list is from a post about the 1000 most useful words that came up here a while ago. My favourite thing about the site is that it fetches definitions and the like from wordnik so you can learn as you play. If you want to try playing let me know and I'll fix the last known bug. The focus is stolen from the input box when I check to see if the top word has changed, but I didn't fix it because I got distracted by more interesting projects.
The second is a personal website with links to my blog and a portfolio of past projects [2]. I figured starting to put together a portfolio would help to get me a job at some point and that it would be a nice way to start learning Clojure, which I've been wanting to try for a while. Still haven't decided on a domain name though.
Right now I'm working on a third project that people on Hacker News might be more interested in. I'm hoping it will bear some resemblance to Stack Overflow when it gets a little more fleshed out, but that won't be done this month. God willing it will be done some time in December so I can share it with all of you. I'm really excited about it.
1: http://anagramscramble.appspot.com/
2: http://jcolessite.appspot.com/
1. You mentioned this, but it would be great if focus stayed on the input box. That would make it easy to play with just the keyboard, without having to tab.
2. Sometimes there are more than one legitimate solution (for example: scalp, clasp) - you could try checking if the submitted word is real or not instead of matching it to the word you originally scrambled.
Thanks for an amusing 10 minutes or so.
As to allowing multiple words for the same anagram. Umm.. that not a bug that is a feature! It uhh.. it helps you to be more.. creative.. year that is what it does. More seriously though, I'm busy right now and don't think it really ruins the experience like the focus bug does, so I'm going to hold off on implementing that till I'm finished with my previously mentioned 'interesting project.
Oh and one more thing, thanks for playing!
Hacker news launchpost here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1950632
http://www.wulfpak.net
(The original post is here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1891808)
It's a fun way to "log" every activity that you do (eating, drinking, working, playing, ...).
You can also see the "history" of all of your activities (Past, Present and Future)
it's my way of sharing back to the community what i learned from it. a set of tutorials. hoping this will help some of my people here in the Philippines but sad to know that most people browsing it are from India and US. but still im hoping they'll learn from my site..
How are you doing it to control the chopper? Left finger move + Right finger rotate ship?
Looks pretty addictive :)
It lets hackers meet up with each other for lunch (and hopefully an interesting chat). You basically make a post stating when and where you are free to have lunch and others can join in.
Launched it a few days ago but unfortunately haven't received much interest or feedback. I will probably release another polished version in a month and see if it gets more traction.
Keep on working on it. Nice to have, can't see how it could be acquired, or make enough for ramien, or anything like that.
I am working to make the interface a bit more appealing (new design: http://i.imgur.com/KOaA8.jpg). Then I will move on to add integration with facebook and twitter and let users do more with their posts (invites, privacy, comments, geo-tagging, etc.).
As for the future, I plan to extend this beyond hackernews and beyond lunches. Eventually you should be able to post any event you plan on doing and invite anyone. Kind of like a social network focused around events.
Good to hear that you have a plan to develop it further. One problem I have with my site is to give too much features which are not required, or I dun use myself. Do guard against that too. Less is more.
Drag-and-drop gallerys for designers to show mockups and comps.
Feedback appreciated! Was just about to post an RMS, but maybe I'll wait until the Nov rush has died down a bit. :)
(Idea from @glenmurphy's Dropmocks project from a couple months back + PSD support + big files + revisions + ipad viewer + ...)
Here's my other HN post about it, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1953087
My Show HN post: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1954329
http://www.schedulehq.com/
The goal is to grow organically as I build it out.
I learned loads about starting a product (as opposed to a simple project) this month and it was incredibly valuable.
There's talk of it becoming a monthly thing, which I'd love to be a part of.
Well done to all who launched!