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Comment by jasonlbaptiste | Hacker News Reader

im sorry, i love you all, but this list is filled with some really bad stuff. After reading more thoroughly I'm assuming a lot of it is just people messing around Such as:

100% return lottery.

pandora for chatroulette.

Wordpress.com 20 years more advanced, for video blogging.

Public Takeover - Use capitalism to control the ills of capitalism, one share at a time. Use crowdsourcing and social network effects to take over public companies by linking all socially-responsible minority shareholders.

*Dog Walking 2.0 - potential acquirer 37 signals?

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"Wordpress.com 20 years more advanced, for video blogging" is one of mine. I'd love to hear critiques of it. I realize the "pitch" is bad, but did you read any of the other sections?; I'm trying to convey that it's not just a hosted platform for video blogging, but that there's some technological innovation involved as well.

you could build something very advanced (theme wise) and the back end coding on top of wordpress. If it worked well and I were a videoblogger, id pay for it.

That's not a bad WordPress theme idea. But that's not at all what I'm suggesting, because...

That doesn't improve the video player interface at all.

That doesn't make metadata for videos any better.

That doesn't provide any improvements in the ability to remix video.

That doesn't offer any advantages for having multiple video bloggers on the same platform.

That doesn't add any interactivity to video.

I feel like I'm saying, "There's a ton of room for innovation and additions to the paradigm of web-based video viewing", and you're saying: "sooo... a better theme, then?"

If you believe in the idea, just go ahead and build it.

I have seen a couple of times that the idea did not make any 'sense' to me during ideation stage, but when was presented with a working application - I just 'saw' it as needed!

For certain ideas, the way they are executed matters a lot.

The problem with video blogging is that it doesn't have the same mass appeal as text blogging. As uncomfortable as people are with their grammatical abilities, they still blog, constantly, no matter how much we hope they wouldn't. As for video blogging, the barrier to entry is a lot higher, and self-consciousness about "public" speaking and appearance severely stifle the potential "market".

Great points. Maybe video "blogging" isn't the right term. There's definitely a lot more video content being produced these days, but little innovation in the platforms supporting it.

Part of the problem I feel with home-produced video is just the poor quality. A good number of us use macbooks with that awful little camera in the absolute wrong place. It's probably hard to do, but a video camera in the center of the screen would do wonders. And lighting tends to be an issue. I've been thinking of building a multi-pointed light meter (profably in software) and using that to control 2-4 strings of adjustable LEDs that would be to either side, plus maybe the top and bottom of my macbook pro. The idea here is that software could do a good job of adjusting the lighting for better quality.

I generally agree with you but I wonder if this is a generational issue. I personally would never leave a video comment to somebody's YouTube video. But I see a lot of younger people (e.g., under 23) who are absolutely comfortable doing so.

I disagree. I could see a platform for hosting video blogs working, despite people feeling self-conscious. The barrier to entry is really only a webcam on a laptop, and I believe YouTube proves that people are in general comfortable with themselves. Having a wordpress-style CMS dedicated to video submissions shouldn't be too difficult.

I think videoblogging has been done and done, different concepts, different ideas, several iterations, none have truly taken off. The points made already about people not being as open to it are valid, and even if/when you get past that barrier, you then have to start turning the users/readers. The nice thing about ~reading~ blogs is that you can bookmark, switch to another tab, highlight portions, and even email complete entries, all from the relative silence of your office cubicle.

Pandora for chat roulette is a bad idea? How can a recommendation engine for people possibly be worse than random?

Its not worse, it's just a silly idea that isn't worth the time needed to make it

You'll live to be embarrassed by that; this is actually going to be built. I've heard from six people who've started working on something like it already.

It's not even that hard: Facebook for the platform, directed edge for the recommendation engine, something like camarades.com / ww.com for the webcam plugin.

Ive always wanted to try that public takeover idea. It actually sounds plausible right?

not at all.

Why not? What obstacles do you see?

Capitalism.

Don't you know that dog walking is a big business?

oh it actually is. go read the rest of the pitch. it's obviously a spoof.

Some years ago I had an office in an incubator, and me and a guy from another company had a competition on who could come up with the most ridiculous yet somewhat believable pitch. He won with this:

Dogwalking is big business - there are more rich people with dogs than you would dare dream of, and they all need to have their dogs walked. On the other end of the leash there are social welfare clients that want more money from the state - and if you have a dog you get a monthly allowance to buy dog-stuff and food. So the ingenious business proposition was to make money by walking rich people's dogs, and renting them out to welfare clients that only need a dog for half an hour to prove that they do indeed have a dog that they can claim dog-welfare money for.

Absolute genius I tell you!.

Wait, do social welfare "clients" really get money for dog stuff? Where is that?

They did around 8 years ago, I don't know whether they still do. It's Denmark.

I don't know about "big business" but I could imagine a startup that made it easier for dog owners to find a person to walk their dog. In Boston, most people charge $15-30 a walk depending on length and whether it's a group or individual, so money could be made by handling transactions and charging a small fee.

Would add value by providing customer reviews and rankings.

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