Idea: Competitive Microblogging | Hacker News Reader

Idea: Competitive Microblogging

9 pointsimperator6 comments

I have this idea for a website where you can craft competitions around goals you want to achieve.

For example, if you want to eat healthy, you set up a competition for eating healthy and invite your friends to it. Then you log your meals with them. It keeps you objective and focused because you want to look good to your friends and perhaps best them.

This idea isn't relegated to one thing, any goal you wish to achieve you can set up a competition around.

The inspiration for this came from reading PG's essay on "How Not to Die." This paragraph kept harassing me.

"You've probably noticed that having dinners every Tuesday with us and the other founders causes you to get more done than you would otherwise, because every dinner is a mini Demo Day. Every dinner is a kind of a deadline. So the mere constraint of staying in regular contact with us will push you to make things happen, because otherwise you'll be embarrassed to tell us that you haven't done anything new since the last time we talked."

The idea of using others as objective markers for your progress isn't new, but I don't think it's really been digitized.

I'm going to apply to Ycombinator with this idea, so if there's anyone who wants to come in on it as my partner, please email me at primevector@gmail.com.

The other point of this post is to see what people think. The comments here are always thoughtful, so please, do tell.

This is nifty, in the same way that the "don't break the chain" ideas are nifty (I like this kind of GTD idea, and making it social is cooler). Start thinking about the business case for this idea, though. I don't mean you have to know how to make money today...I'm just wondering how big you visualize the market for this product being. Whether it's a feature or a product you want something that appeals to a very large swath of people (or a small swath with disposable income to spend on what you're providing).

I'm happily surprised that people liked this idea. I always expect my ideas to garner more resistance.

In regard to the market size, I think everyone who has friends and goals could use this.

In regard to creating revenue, I have two ideas. 1. The cliche: Targeted advertising. Having adds based on your goals makes a lot of sense if the ads can get enough context to be relevant. 2. Let people pool prize money. The person who reaches the goal wins the pot. My company would take a small fraction of the prize. I don't know where this would take the company though. Would the company have to be a bank? Would it fall under gambling laws? What are the complications of holding things in what could be viewed as mini-escrow? This path is probably more complicated.

"Let people pool prize money. The person who reaches the goal wins the pot." Dude, your head is full of bright ideas. You got a killer application, indeed!

This is a great idea. SelfImprovement and GettingThingsDone were always hot topics in our competitive world. It is like 43things.com but more focused on doing than just willing to do. If you write an interface to Facebook and such then you will get a even more.

I second the call for a Facebook application.

I like the idea. It's similar to Goalmigo but with a competitive twist.

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