I like the idea. Did you try advertising this on iPhone Dev Sdk forums?
To be quite frank - I won't put any of my sources there until there is anything there already (not enough time to take chances with unknown sites).
Another thing - I think what prevents most of the developers from sharing their sources is insecurity about the quality of their source code. They think: "cool, but I'd have to do SO MUCh work to make the source readable.."
If you could somehow make the site more friendly for less than perfect sources (for example - allow the developers to mark their sources quality, so someone with poorer quality code will just upload it and mark as poor quality, instead of waiting god-knows-how-long to clean up the code).
I personally wouldn't mind buying poor quality code, but - as I said - plenty of developers will be ashamed to sell it.
Finally, a little bit of business advice - I suggest you focus on just one platform (iOS!:). The thing is - you NEED the critical mass for this site to work. If you focus all your strength on just one platform, you'll get to the point where you have a critical mass so much sooner. Handling PR/community building for just one platform is a full time job.
Also: read up about usability, because your site is lacking. The "buy" button is barely visible for example. Also - one of the main traffic sources for a site like yours will be (as much as I hate to admit it) SEO. Your site is so unoptimized - you could at least have more friendly URLs.
Plus - avoid a syndrom of "empty links". You should minimize the amount of times user clicks a link and gets an empty page.
Right now for example, you have a hundred categories on the right bar. Almost each one of them leads to an empty page - drop the categories until they are really necessary for navigation.
The site design is ugly as hell, but I think that's actually a good thing - don't bring in the designer before you have the business up and running... It's much harder to make serious changes to the site once the pro design is there.
Having said all that, I think there is a need for a site like this. Good luck!
Oh, one more thing - if I'm going to buy anything on this site, I'll need to know who is behind it (to figure out if this is not a scam), and also - what rights do I buy. Can I change the sources a little bit and put them back into the app store?
totally agree. copyright ownership is often overlooked, yet is incredibly important. buying a copy does not mean you buy the underlying rights. moreover, even if you buy some type of implied rights, what rights exactly have you bought? presumably (but not necessarily), you can modify, compile, and publish. can you buy the source code, then turn around and put the source code in the same store for half price? what about confidentiality? can you give the code to your employee? to your third party independent contractor developer? can you give it to your friend? can you put the code on your website for all to see? it's not clear to me what rights the site is selling.
I don't think you're going to get anywhere with this, sorry.
I don't believe there's an enormous market for selling re-usable components (relative to, say, contracting, or selling apps), but there might be value in selling code from a purely marketing point of view. If I sell some, I have lots of other developers I can point to who trust me for component X, bolstering the contracting side of the business, and even if I don't sell any, there's the perception that I'm offering a product to other developers, gaining credibility. This is the road that e.g. Cocoanetics went down, and it seems to be doing well for them.
But if I ever went this route, I would absolutely want to host the store on my own site. And I would want the storefront to look good. If you can fix those two things, there might be a market here, but I'm a little skeptical that it's the actual sale of the code that will be of benefit.
I think the logical existence of a market for those new to programming [much easier to study cocoa set himself the task to improve an application], the existence of a logical place where you can find the source code of the old programs, the site can link to your blog with your Paypal account. In contrast to github - a space for soft that sooner or pity to let in the open access [copy protection is provided by the lack of anonymity]. I think my design advantage over http://codecanyon.net/category/mobile - facebook & google have very simple design [http://metrika.yandex.ru - way better for my taste].
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 28.3 ms ] threadTo be quite frank - I won't put any of my sources there until there is anything there already (not enough time to take chances with unknown sites).
Another thing - I think what prevents most of the developers from sharing their sources is insecurity about the quality of their source code. They think: "cool, but I'd have to do SO MUCh work to make the source readable.." If you could somehow make the site more friendly for less than perfect sources (for example - allow the developers to mark their sources quality, so someone with poorer quality code will just upload it and mark as poor quality, instead of waiting god-knows-how-long to clean up the code). I personally wouldn't mind buying poor quality code, but - as I said - plenty of developers will be ashamed to sell it.
Finally, a little bit of business advice - I suggest you focus on just one platform (iOS!:). The thing is - you NEED the critical mass for this site to work. If you focus all your strength on just one platform, you'll get to the point where you have a critical mass so much sooner. Handling PR/community building for just one platform is a full time job.
Also: read up about usability, because your site is lacking. The "buy" button is barely visible for example. Also - one of the main traffic sources for a site like yours will be (as much as I hate to admit it) SEO. Your site is so unoptimized - you could at least have more friendly URLs. Plus - avoid a syndrom of "empty links". You should minimize the amount of times user clicks a link and gets an empty page. Right now for example, you have a hundred categories on the right bar. Almost each one of them leads to an empty page - drop the categories until they are really necessary for navigation.
The site design is ugly as hell, but I think that's actually a good thing - don't bring in the designer before you have the business up and running... It's much harder to make serious changes to the site once the pro design is there.
Having said all that, I think there is a need for a site like this. Good luck!
For your site, I think a professional looking design, good copy, and some apps to start with are highly needed.
I don't believe there's an enormous market for selling re-usable components (relative to, say, contracting, or selling apps), but there might be value in selling code from a purely marketing point of view. If I sell some, I have lots of other developers I can point to who trust me for component X, bolstering the contracting side of the business, and even if I don't sell any, there's the perception that I'm offering a product to other developers, gaining credibility. This is the road that e.g. Cocoanetics went down, and it seems to be doing well for them.
But if I ever went this route, I would absolutely want to host the store on my own site. And I would want the storefront to look good. If you can fix those two things, there might be a market here, but I'm a little skeptical that it's the actual sale of the code that will be of benefit.
about english i know