Needing Inspiration
As probably everybody who reads this already knows, I graduated last December. Frankly, since then, I've been bored. I've even done stuff for my day job at home, sometimes out of need (deadlines), other times out of good ol' fashioned boredom. I even built a gaming PC to pass the time, which is almost too addicting, and while it's a fun pastime, I don't feel like I accomplished anything when I quit back to the desktop.
So I've been looking for a development project of some sort. I've already re-written about 90% of my senior project in Python, an application called StudentCodr, but I've lost interest. It's basically just glue between Subversion, LDAP, and Apache - if you have an LDAP account, like you would at a college, you could create a code repository, add other users to it, and collaborate on a development project. Eventually, though, I gave it up. Frankly, I don't see it going anywhere, despite one of my most respected professors asking to use it at CSUCI for future students. Maybe if there's a demand for it, I'll pick it up again.
Since then, I've been trying to come up with an idea. Not necessarily one to make the next YouTube or Facebook, but something which others on the internet may actually find useful (myself especially), and may even be coerced into pitching a couple bucks my way.
I've had a couple ideas thus far, but either it's my pessimisim shining through, or some other reason that considers them dead ends. The first one I had in the back of my mind as a future direction for StudentCodr - basically creating a front-end to the versioning system so anybody could have versioned collaboration. So, guess what came out a week or two ago: Dropbox. Hell, they even call it the same name as the network share I created at the office for collaboration years ago. Figures.
Another idea would be a really killer app, if it were to be available quickly. However, it's a huge project, which I'm not sure I'd be able to do in even a few months. As a Mac user, I'd absolutely LOVE a CalDAV <-> Exchange proxy. This means iCal + Exchange integration, a holy grail for many Mac users in corporate environments. Snerdware had a different solution with the same end goal working on the client side in OS X 10.4 with GroupCal, but that broke when 10.5 Leopard arrived, and they've yet to release an update in the 5 months since. I've basically nixed the idea, as even though I'd be entering a pretty empty market, it could be useless any day if Apple decided to announce better iCal + Exchange integration. This is becoming more likely now that the iPhone will have native Exchange synchronization, including calendar, contacts, and mail.
Yet another idea would be to remake a product which my company used to use, but was discontinued - MailSift.com. MailSift was a simple concept - put their server in your MX record (primary mail server for your website, for you common folk), and they'd filter the mail using open source tools, forwarding only the good stuff on to your server. Basically, outsourced spam filtering. You could train the filter using a simple yet effective web UI, and it worked. When they went out of business, we had to switch over to a similar system written in PHP, and I'm not thrilled with it. I think I could do much better. But, it's not like the mail filtering business is an empty market, and there's a lot of integration to be done. Again, who'd really use this in the days of free GMail for your domain?*
So, what should I do? Does anybody have any neat ideas they'd like to bounce off me? What about encouragement for one of the previous ideas? I dunno, but I need some inspiration.
*Yes, I realize that Gmail isn't entirely the same, but my point is that spam filters are like opinions; everybody's got them, none of them are perfect, and nowadays, you get one whether you want it or not.
This entry has 2 comments:
Jason says:
There can never be too many people doing the same thing, if you can't have choices it eliminates competition and eliminates the drive to do anything better. First there was facebook, then there was myspace, first there was yahoo, then there was google. Yahoo is still successful and has been for a lot of years because people used there email before "gmail" existed. Its also healthy for a business to charge money for there services, giving everything away for free doesn't lend itself to a free market. Google gives everything away, and when the world realizes there nothing more than a really big pay-to-click ad company with a search portal they will sell there stock faster than you can blink. Yahoo owns an ISP and is about to be bought by Microsoft. Apple used the mp3 player to completely turn around there company. Think Diamond and Creative are pissed? Probably. My point is this: Don't give up, follow your dreams no matter what they might be. If somebody else did your idea, so what? Just do it better Remember if two guys from Palo Alto didn't go to the home brew computer club with this ugly wooden box, Apple would have never started, Windows wouldn't exist, and it wouldn't have forced Apple to build a better OS...and I wouldn't be using a MacPro Tower today. Whatever they can do, you can always do better. Put your mind to it and you can accomplish anything.
Tyler says:
While not coding or web related, I've been trying to come up with something much more entrepreneurial, something to get me out of the cubical farm. I've had a couple ideas myself, but no really good way to materialize them. It's all about finding niche markets and trying to exploit them. And I'll echo your complaint about dropbox... somebody always beats me to the punch with great ideas. I'll be thinking and I'll pass the ideas your way. You could do the same and I'll always listen and comment.