Comment by colinwinter | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colinwinter | Hacker News Reader

This could be really powerful if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Once the company completes the feature satisfactorily they get the cash. Or perhaps even a situation where they can grab the cash to start the feature- but this is obviously higher risk- like kickstarter- but the risk could be managed and even help the feature development process.

PS- With this in mind, importing feature requests from other sites could help growth. IE: People see a GREAT feature THEY want and are willing to put in $5... as compared to coming to the site to submit their ideas. Another idea: Use ad revenue from site to 'seed' a user's initial ability to donate $$$. Perhaps require CC input in order to contribute this 'free money', thereby making it easier to give real money. I know the free money would have to be incredibly small, but sometimes little acts of giving something for free can really change a system. Just some thoughts...

> if users could put up actual $$$ for feature requests so the site actually performs more like kickstarter. This would also help the quality of requests.

Agreed, but I'd expect few people would put in money up front to fund something that no one's promising to make. It's hard to give it a hard date like Kickstarter since it's not the people doing who create the posts.

The best way I can think of going about it is having people say how much they're willing to pay (but no money changes hands), allowing someone to say they're going to implement and idea, and then it turns into a kickstarter project and emails all of the people who said they'd pay so they can enter their credit card details.

That way there's no risk for the backers (until they know someone wants to fulfill their dreams) or creator's (functions just like kickstarter for them -- except someone is giving them an initial list of interested parties). The websites whole purpose becomes facilitating new ideas.

To cut down on spam, you could charge people a dollar per vote (or microtransactions) and then promise creators a cut of that if they successfully "kickstart" a project (or convert a sufficient number of voting backers).

* To be clear: I'm not talking about using kickstarter -- then you'd lose all your revenue.

Edit: I expected pvsh to be about "I want this thing" instead of feature requests for specific products. It seems weird to me for Corporations to request bounties on features, but I still like the idea as a way to connect user's wants with entrepreneurs.

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