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Here's a simple idea I've been kicking around. I might just build it for fun.

I call it notifyme.when. Users put in things they want to be notified about e.g., new book by Steven King released, Sequel to District 9 announced, Mortgage rates fall below 3.5%, etc.

Then other users log in and review the requests and post updates to any of the event they know have happened. You get points (like Stack Overflow) if you legitimacy update someone else's request.

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I like this except for the crowdsourcing part. I'd rather have it done as a paid-for service somehow. I realize that it's hard because you'd have to constantly check, but still.

I've been thinking about something similar to this - particularly for me in relation to when bands bring out new albums or new TV series come out. I was thinking I'd probably tackle it a vertical at a time and find a source for the information (e.g. last.fm for albums, IMDB for movies/TV series) that can be put to use automatically. I reckon the simplest way to monetize this would be affiliate links in the alerts - the click through is obviously going to be pretty high (people have actively said they're interested in something) but I've never seen affiliates as a great source of revenue.

I thought of something similar for game releases, particularly indie games. Didn't want to have to trawl through a bunch of sites to find updates for the.

Also, there was something posted a while back that did music albums, but I think the guy was shutting it down/open sourcing it.

Either way, glad to see I'm not alone.

Sort of like If This Then That but with a wider range of uses, right? Sounds interesting. Also, I don't get the last bit - How would you know if a user is honestly updating the request or not?

I guess it would be a lot like stack overflow. The user who requested the notification would have to confirm the answer is correct.

https://ifttt.com/

I think his idea would need to be more flexible than what ifttt allows you to be.

This is actually a compelling idea—I've been kicking around a similar idea for a while, where you'd like to buy something (e.g. a 2TB SATA drive) but only when it goes on sale below a certain price threshold. The problem is: what's the business model (i.e. where does the money come from)?

Have you checked out Priceonomics? They're a YC startup that gives you analytics on the market price of a product and send you notifications when the item is available for a good price.

I have not, but I am so not surprised that someone else had the idea, probably made it better, and is in business.

I would say the whole thing is a monetizable business. To have good data, you'd need a mix of human and tech input. So why not charge $x for y number of updates? or charge for specific searches that requires more human work? or charge for a premium account that shows price fluctuations of certain items for the last 6 months?

You may be interested in http://camelcamelcamel.com/ for this sort of thing. Uses Amazon to track historical high and low price points so you can get a good idea of when to expect sales. You can set up a trigger to notify you when it reaches a certain price, too.

You may be looking for decide.com

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