Other Software > Developer's Corner
Some ideas for programs, websites, mashups and software projects
2stepsback:
Hi all,
This is a list of ideas I had given to an acquaintance who runs a web2.0 consulting startup (the site tells everyone how to make their site successful in the present web2.0 scenario). He also sells a fairly good CMS of his own written in PHP and MySQL. Unfortunately he did not feel like implementing any of these at that time, so I'm putting them up here so that if any of you folks own a CMS or are planning to start a hip new web2.0 site, maybe these things could help. He did mention that a couple of ideas were pretty good, but they were not implementable right now.
I'm putting down both sides here:
He felt that #1 , #2 and #4 were irrelevant or impractical (which I thoroughly disagree with, naturally :) ), #3 was OK and #5 was good.
Somehow, he just didn't get the idea of "mashup" and so, he said #6 was irrelevant.
I think, if done properly, and that's not soooo big an IF, all six can produce tangible benefits, if nothing else, sufficient hits to recover hosting fees.
YMMV.
Here they are:
Idea #1
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Free QuickSearch for Mozilla Firefox plugins.
People are turning to Firefox on a large scale due to all the negative publicity received by Internet Explorer 7 and Vista. They now want an *easy* way of finding plugins, themes and extensions. See my page at http://2stepsback.co.nr/Firefox/
Idea #2
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You could offer a free site analytics engine for any site, based on custom code written using the GData / Alexa / Urchin etc.
So, you could offer the service free to track and display information about subscribers' websites, maybe
plotting a few graphs of traffic, requests, specific pages etc.
Idea #3
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Using one of the several Apache/BSD/MIT licensed Javascript / AJAX frameworks, make a few really hip
modules for your CMS - like Online Workflow graphs for your CMS to be used as a Collaborative editing tool.
See Zoho Virtual Office and MS Office Live - I'm not hinting that you take up something as ambitious as a
complete online collaboration tool, but just a module for simple folks to remember and manage workflows or process flows or even idea flows.
If you already have a CMS, moving all the data from PHPNuke, PostNuke, PHP-BB to your CMS are really important applications as they remove the entry barrier of the loss of existing data your potential customers may face -
The rationale: Everyone first starts out with a free forum or CMS software, then finds the bugs and patches too complicated and then wants to move to a supported version. Then, finding that moving to another CMS means losing a lot of data, they get a freelancer to do the job.
If you put a module into your CMS, you've opened entry points for several users of PHPNuke, PHP-BB etc. to convert to your CMS.
Idea #4
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"My-surfing-history"
A small Firefox plugin and a small Internet Explorer Add-on to send a user's current URL to your server (or a nice domain name like surf-memory.com or surfistory.com ) and then make some or all of it available to be shared or automatically posted to multiple social bookmarking sites.
There can be a nice trail graph than you could generate using GD, or a simple set of breadcrumbs text links for those on low-speed or dial-up connections
Idea #5
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Porting the MySQL backend of your CMS to PostgreSQL, Oracle.
Idea #6
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I've been going around a lot of sites concerning VOIP integration, SMS integration and EPABX-on-PC ( eg.
Asterisk), for my latest local project. I can confidently state that if your CMS gets an SMS/MMS/VOIP interface, it should stand out as a unique selling point for your CMS. This market is new and hot. Not many around here (India) are into this. There is Skype/Gizmo for traditional VOIP and there is Truphone for MOIP.
IMO, this will give your CMS a huge marketing advantage over others.
-2stepsback
2stepsback:
Some possible AJAXy upgrades for all forum software:
NOTE:
This is a brainstormed list, not evaluated for practical necessity or ease of implementation.
1. tick some posts and put them into a place of my choice for later reading - like into my bookmarks
2. make a web port of a popular opensource PIM GUI as a module of a forum program - also taking care that everybody's work can be synchronized - eg. copy Keynote or WikidPad GUI to SimpleMachines
3. some kind of VOIP setup - could be even Gizmo or SKype conferencing!
4. tagging of posts - see communityserver @ the sharpdevelop web site - it has a tree view on the left and selected posts appear on the right much like wikidpad or treepad or Keynote on the desktop.
also, adding "notes" or "comments" to posts so that they stick around or float around here and there.
5. bookmarks should show in categories and categories should show up as rectangular blocks - see http://protopage.com/
In fact a lot of things should show in a rectangular blocks fashion.
If you think carefully, that calls for a browser plugin which can make in to blocks *any* page - maybe with a little tweaking with some intermediate script language or so.
6. Also, making available a tiddlywiki page and filling it up from a simple xml file which can be hand edited as well if need be.
More later,
2stepsback
EDIT:
See this thread: https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=3689.0
It gives a lot of good ideas and opinions.
justice:
Document management system for the end user: tracks duplicates, copies, moves of user documents + versioned backup. Linking in with contact management facilities so you can see who/where there are copies of which versions of your documents.
Seeing as all documents not attended to eventually get lost.
2stepsback:
Phew! Thanks a million, justice! I was getting more and more worried that this entire thread was rapidly receding from public memory with a classification like "God knows what he writes... It seems to be something - whatever..... "
So, thanks a million! ( that's 2 million so far)
Following are my extensions of your ideas. ( NOTE: "you" = reader, and "you" != "justice")
Document management system for the end user: tracks duplicates, copies, moves of user documents + versioned backup. -justice (March 27, 2007, 10:12 AM)
--- End quote ---
SFFS Pro in the other thread (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=7714.0;topicseen) seems to be doing something similar to this already.
Linking in with contact management facilities so you can see who/where there are copies of which versions of your documents.
--- End quote ---
Is the explorer context menu a good place? Also, who ever said that there should only be a context *menu* when you right-click? Why can't there be a context run dialog or a context voice message or a context listview pop-up? And y'know what, these may or may not be easily doable in Windows Explorer per se, but they sure are easy (peanuts, in fact) in a web based explorer - things like webdesktop, eyeos, xcerion, lots more. If and when Google releases their much awaited next-gen internet-booting LiveUSB GoogOS, they'll have *web search* and *web services* included in the "explorer right-click". Greasemonkey may be doing this already If it's difficult to visualize such a dynamic UI, I'd refer you to the demo video for Scrybe. It's not yet released and they haven't replied to my application for a beta testing account for over three weeks now(which probably means that the number of beta testers is sufficient), but it seems they're releasing it soon. Let's see.
Seeing as all documents not attended to eventually get lost.
--- End quote ---
IMO, for large volume text entries (= lots of words/phrases/links/addresses) the craigslist UI is best, as also is the delicious "tag-cloud" UI. That should really make its way into the plethora of explorers on windows like XYPlorer, Magellan Explorer, etc.
The explorer or shell should also "ruminate" .... er .... like indexing done by desktop search programs, but tag based rumination and maybe occasionally asking the user intelligent questions like
"I'm about to tag the whole bunch of mp3s you got from Napster with *DRM* and *illegal* ( ;) ), should I continue? Yes/No/Cancel" ....
so that's one more thing that desktop taggers can do - Tag2find is the only one I know.
(running out of steam... er.... stuff .... especially in the stomach ;) )
More later,
2stepsback
PS: everyone else: this thread isn't my exclusive property..... trespassing welcome! ..... unless it's very boring......
License(!!): Ideas released in "public domain" <-- which means when someone makes money by adding these features or making these programs, I'm saying that even my fourth generation descendant who will rule this planet in 2200 will have no legal claim to the money made from use of this idea.
hohohahahahahahehehehe......
app103:
OK...idea was originally conceived with a sense of humor, but could actually be a good one...could be profitable...who knows?
People are really into the social stuff...look at blogs, live journal, myspace, digg, etc.
People love drama...they like creating it, being part of it, observing it. (refer to the drama created in flame wars in almost any socially interactive site)
Combine that with the drama created in real life that finds its way online. (refer to all the teens on sites like LiveJournal and MySpace)
Then there is chatroom drama that finds its way to forums. (take a look at any forum related to the winmx chat network)
There is a never ending supply of drama.
Why not create something that takes advantage of it and welcomes visitors to bring their drama to your site? Visitors can create it, participate in it, observe it...and you can monetize it.
The full idea came to me as I was waking from a semi-sound sleep.
I discussed it with a few others in 2 chatrooms. They found the idea funny, but did almost take me seriously. If you want all the details of what I am talking about, refer to the logs of those 2 conversations here:
http://omgplzstfukthx.blogspot.com/2006/12/drama2.html
I still think it's a great idea, even if it is funny, and it just might be a good money maker. I am not going to use the idea myself, so you are welcome to it.
Just don't forget to thank me if you make a million...and give me a link to the site so I can see what became of my insane thought. :D
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