I've seen a couple of sites like this that have done well generating traffic from niche forum banner ads (http://toppppp.com is the one that sprints to mind immediately).
My worry with these types of passive income sites is the upkeep for pricing information. The OP's source looks like he's manually printed the price, and the same with my example except their prices are quite out of date by now. Does anyone have any ideas how best to scrape the price from the 3rd party site?
Yep, I have to manually keep track of the pricing. It's going to be a pain as the site grows. Growing pain I suppose. I don't showcase very many retailers. It wouldn't be difficult to write a simple Python script to fetch the product pages for the retailers I carry the most items from and automatically update the price. I can take care of the rest by hand.
It's quite scary that a company like Google can come along and shit in a startup's cereal practically overnight.
I know we were all rooting for The 'Munk, but it seems that Google's use of Price x Duration matrix effectively steals the thunder from Hipmunk's agony filter.
I mean, it's not as if Google needs the affiliate revenue, and I bet the Hipmunk guys would have preferred it had Google decided to "organise the world's information" through an acquisition. I think I'd need a good cry if this happened to me :(
It wasn't overnight. ITA has been doing flight search since forever. In fact, they even had the matrix UI before Hipmunk (though it wasn't featured as prominently):
No tears over here! We've known this was coming for almost a year—Google announced their ITA acquisition before we even launched. We've also been preparing some sweet responses :)
Can anyone comment as to the quality of these interviewees in relation to the proper YC applicants?
It seems that some of the guys wouldn't know their arse from their elbow. I appreciate how stressful it would be on stage, however a lot of them just didn't grasp the fundamentals of business or communicate a clear value prop.
Were past YC companies more polished during their first elevator pitches, or is it something that comes with practice?
Even though I usually scoff at pre-registration signup forms, I was very excited to fill this one in.
I'm sure there's a lesson to be learned about my own sampling bias and it might be time to rethink this stance (how ever hard it may be to recognise that people can actually find enjoyment in hearing about product launches and events!)
As someone who has yet to design their first site, this was a very valuable look into the mockup process.
Does anyone have links to similarly chronicled site experimentation with respect to HTML/CSS, revenue models, or a/b testing as I feel this would give a fascinating insight.
Not yet, although it's a great idea for an article. Revenue models is always an interesting topic although many startups might end up being a bit cagey about revealing their financials. I've been tempted to 'reveal all' for my own site before, although there is always a danger that when potential customers realise just how low budget things are, they might then be tempted to go to a more established competitor... just a thought.
I realise that the ego-stroking scoring is the driver behind this site's popularity , but I would also like to see definitions of words that I missed. It's pretty daunting to spend hours copying and pasting words into Google (well, ahem, maybe it is for some of us!)
I felt the same. Also there were some words I thought I knew what they meant, but my definition would only be partially correct.
Also some definitions you can guess at - do these count as part of your vocabulary or not? E.g. Clerisy, can be easily deduced to be the class of clerics, but not sure if I'd be able to say if it was a real word or not.
I imagine something like this would would have happened if the unabomber was really into maths.
I love the idea of this book and its humour, but it is quite hard to comprehend. I can actually see maths' popularity increasing as people begin to see it as a useful hobby, especially those who are learning programming.
I would willing to pay for lessons if learning maths didn't have to involve a dense textbook, but instead could graphically demonstrate the theory (think 3D modelling, moving sine waves etc.) and explain all the underlying concepts that were glossed over in formal education.
Videos or apps like this would be a great help to me, especially if it managed to retain this author's irreverence, Sal Khan's presentation style, but placing more importance on rehearsed & polished lessons, 3d animation and beautifully set typography.
Anyone know any resources that are along these lines?
I imagine something like this would would have happened if the unabomber was really into maths.
"In late 1967, Kaczynski became an assistant professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught undergraduate courses in geometry and calculus. He was also noted as the youngest professor ever hired by the university. This position proved short-lived, as Kaczynski received numerous complaints and low ratings from the undergraduates he taught. Many students noted that he seemed quite uncomfortable in a teaching environment, often stuttering and mumbling during lectures, becoming excessively nervous in front of a class, and ignoring students during designated office hours. Without explanation, he resigned from his position in 1969, at age 26. The chairman of the mathematics department, J. W. Addison, called this a "sudden and unexpected" resignation,[18] while vice chairman Calvin Moore said that given Kaczynski's "impressive" thesis and record of publications, "He could have advanced up the ranks and been a senior member of the faculty today."
I really like the design and notice that another YC blogger Ilya Lichtenstein is using the same design on his site