skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
That once seemed like a good idea to me, but several companies tried this during bubble 1.0 and they all flamed out spectacularly. The trouble, it seemed, is that it just isn't an effective investment of people's time. Anyone willing to get paid $X/hr to watch an ad doesn't have enough disposable income to make it worthwhile to spend $X/hr on their attention. The market doesn't clear and the price just shoots to zero.
"Would it be seen as taking an unnecessary shortcut and a lack of technical skills in setting up a proper charting/graphing package?"

It would be seen as making the best use of available resources. I see two key benefits to using Google APIs

1.) It will establish a sense of familiarity with non-technical users. They see Google, they feel a bit more secure in the application's ability to perform and deliver

2.) It will show developers that you recognize effective solutions based on the depth of development, and how well you implement the system.

I think a pro company could very well make use of these technologies, even if they have the competence to create the solution themselves. If the idea is to deliver results in the highest manner possible, and they feel comfortable using Google APIs, go for it.
But what if on the last day of the second year, just as you were about to say, "The hell with this", you found out that people are just starting to look into it? Surely all the insight you gained over the course of your 2 years of trying is useful - question is, what to do with it? Keep plugging away, or "sell out" and go the corporate route?

One of the guys running the project works at an office on Madison Ave. I'd love to start a startup based on this, because I just know it'll be cool, yet I can't say since finding out about this recent development I haven't spent, oh, 5 hours or so since fantasizing about what it would be like to pay off all my credit cards, have health insurance, benefits, etc. and go to work on Madison avenue near Central Park every day.

And instead of arguing with people about the idea, I would be in an environment where people who understand it would appreciate the insights I have. Plus they have a pretty big budget to play with from what I understand.

Just getting paid to do what I've been doing for fun ... and appreciated for once instead of seeing the usual "What the hell are you talking about?" look on people's faces when I've tried to discuss it.

> The try and fail route is more rewarding imho.

I suppose you're right in a way. Maybe both? Maybe, "I've tried, it didn't work out because of timing, but now I can apply my insights and sell out in style!" (?)
Great question.
I don't think the graphs look cheap on their own, but they do have a "look", which if overused could begin to look cheap - like the standard blogspot templates or an excel graph as examles. I don't think that is the case yet, nor may it ever be (you have to be a programmer to use these).

Here is another positive: the graphs are fast. Really Really fast. You get the multiple-hosts pipelining trick for free. You get the fact that Google hosts these graph servers local to wherever your customer is. Google buys better network connections than you can likely afford. Also, some engineer(s) at Google's job is to make sure that the rendering itself (server-side) is wicked fast which is more than you can say about your company or graph library you are using.

Speed is valuable and looks very professional.
I think the best way to answer this question is to observe large open source projects and see what works best. Not because open source is inherently better than industry at getting it right, but rather because open source projects conduct their business in public, so you can collect data a lot more easily.
Read what you just said aloud. You want to force users to do something they don't want to do. If that's the case, what's going to stop them from finding alternatives to access certain features of the site they need where they don't have to look at ads?

Users control software, not the other way around.
Well, I've been on the inside of that for years (in the KDE project) and could write volumes about what I've seen working and not working. But a lot of it doesn't work on the same plane; in most of the larger projects the drive to market the software and work in a business sphere comes years after the technology is there. An open source project can survive for a very long time with a simple website and a couple of mailing lists. But when it does try to make that jump it's often less than finessed.
http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nextmoveone
nextmoveone
how do i reach u?
But that's the thing. My life now sucks because I've spent most of my spare time researching this. And progress has been so slow. Friends have drifted away, etc.

If I give up and sell out, at least I'll have a comfy position at a respectable company where people smarter than me would respect what I have to offer because I have 6 years worth of thinking about the problem on them.

But the startup route ... hell I can't even find any programmers to put a demo together ...

I could make a career out of this "there" ... or just keep fumbling in the dark making teeny tiny progress (if any) while my personal/professional life suffers.

I don't know anymore. That's why I posted this, I guess.

Quite frankly the "75" year old me is saying, "Do what you want, but keep in mind you're going to need good health insurance as you grow older."
So what is one to do? Hire a cheap lawyer? A young lawyer? An $800 per hour attorney? None of the above?
Corruption allegations swirl around Wikipedia's Jimbo Wales
Well, I've been on the inside of that for years (in the KDE project) and could write volumes about what I've seen working and not working.

If you wrote that book, I'd buy it. The only writing on the subject that I'm aware of is a few passages of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" and "The Magic Cauldron", and it seems like there's a lot more to be said about the topic.
trying to keep company names off the net as well as my name... so do ycnewsid456[at]mailinator(dot)com
Right on the front page:

Usage Policy

Use of the Google Chart API is subject to a query limit of 50,000 queries per user per day. If you go over this 24-hour limit, the Chart API may stop working for you temporarily. If you continue to exceed this limit, your access to the Chart API may be blocked.
Thanks for that one!
If I give up and sell out, at least I'll have a comfy position at a respectable company where people smarter than me would respect what I have to offer because I have 6 years worth of thinking about the problem on them.

No they won't. You'll be a part of a dispirited bureauacracy, and nobody will care. They probably won't even finish the project.

Your best bet is to get a bunch of young college age programmers to work with you. They are unemployed and are ready to hit it out of the park. If I was in NYC I would hear you out and try to help. Start looking for talent where the people are hungry.
If you haven't done it in 6 years, I don't think you care enough about this particular idea. I'd be more than happy to be proved wrong though :)
Three of us are going to be there. Agreed. We should definitely meet up.
If you have valuable knowledge that no one else has (or can easily get), and you need programmers, why don't you share what you can here and see if anyone wants to join you? Presumably you can share enough to give people an idea of what you are doing?
Do you really want to sell? It sounds like you could make more money if you stay around and try to keep scaling. But if you really want to focus your attention somewhere else, sure, sell for whatever you can get.

How long do you think you can keep the exponential growth up? Another couple of months? Or do you think your company can really dominate the travel (or whatever area you're in) marketplace?
I feel the urge for a poll. "Orientated" vs. "Oriented"
http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutgrammar/orie...
I took a Harvard Law Class entitled Electronic Commerce that was immensely helpful (and I wasn't otherwise a law school student). Also: Nolo, Lexis Nexis, The Teaching Company, lawyer relatives, blogs, etc.
If I didn't care I think I would have shrugged it off a long time ago. Not trying to do it until recently has been more the result of massive amount of change in this area which I found I just barely kept up with. I just barely got to the point a year ago or so where I had time to reflect and think how this can translate into something useful.

So it was more like 6 years observation and thinking in a sort of real-world lab experiment, and only the last year or so of "apply lessons learned".

But since I'm not a programmer, and most programmers I've come across are working on their own projects, I couldn't figure out exactly how to proceed ... and based on the limited feed back I got, whether it was even worth proceeding or if I was just fooling myself and seeing an oasis.

Plus regardless of whether I cared enough, now that I found this out I realize it's a valid thing to more than just me. So now I care more. It's just been a long, unrewarding (except the intellectual curiosity part), clumsy, guideless trip so far.

My "adult" self tells me to give up and move on, or perhaps profit from it by working for "the man" ... but then again, what if I wind up 10 years ago in a situation where I say, "Dammit - I should have tried for just one more year - but instead I gave up and now look what happened - it took off right after I gave up and somebody else is doing it."
Why No One Should Ever Buy Gawker, Boing Boing, Or TechCrunch
Google Calendar now syncs with Outlook
I say growth will peak in 6-9 months.
This was the one thing holding a lot of folks back from using Google Calendar.

It'll be interesting to see what comes of it.
As a guy who sold his last business to the first offer (which was a good one, but not a great one), I would encourage you to think VERY hard about what happens after the sale. Are they hiring you? If so, how are you going to like that? I hated it.

If they're NOT going to hire you, what are you going to do next? It doesn't sound like you'll have enough money to retire, which means you get a job or start something new.

You have an incredibly unique opportunity RIGHT NOW. Many entrepreneurs try multiple times and NEVER make something people want-- you may never do it again (there's a helluva lot of luck involved).

So, if I were you, I'd keep growing it unless you think it's a short term play or that it's going to quickly plateau.

Even if you ARE going to accept the offer, COUNTER. Say, "We think we're worth a lot more than that-- we'd like to see a better offer."
If I could find some programmers who won't dismiss my value after I've transferred my insights, I'd gladly do it. But judging from the thinking processes of what I see on posts here ...

Just to give an example, a few days ago a "bored developer" posted a post saying he was looking for good ideas. Whenever I see MBA/Financial-types posting on Hacker News looking for programmers, the response is usually, "Why should I partner with you - what value do you offer since you can't code?"

So I asked a simple question on this post: Suppose I share some ideas with you that you wind up developing. What do you offer in return? I was hoping maybe an arrangement like "I'll code on the weekends for your idea if you share an idea I like enough to pursue" or something. Instead everybody kept downmodding my post; last time I checked it was in the negative something range.

So if I can find people willing to go it on equal terms ...
You are correct sir! I bow to your ruby-fu!

Thanks.
Hey - no matter what happens - congratulations! Also - if you could post how it shakes out - anonymously of course - that would be great. Best of luck!
The major points that I'd mention, reacting to what you said are:

- It's not as open as it looks. Once projects grow over a certain size, either formally or informally a lot of the decisions are made behind closed doors.

- There's a lot of variety here, from open source startups (Ximian, Canonical), to projects that after many years begin playing in the business field (GNOME, KDE). Open source startups work more or less like normal startups from what I can tell, except for you know, the code part and a little nominal open-ness. Big open source projects that started open and move to emulate corporate processes go through a lot of the fallout that happens any time there's an attempt to change established processes in an organization, but it's probably even uglier because the contributors have no particular obligation to stay and often the people pushing through the changes are learning how to do it on a several hundred person organization (which rarely happens in business). That doesn't mean that there's no real progress, but it's not something I'd want to emulate in a business.

- Developers getting into a large OSS project usually learn how to be developers in that project. Most of them start off comparatively mediocre. This was certainly true for me, though I didn't realize it at the time. But usually after a project has been running for a few years they've developed a stunningly hard-core development culture which can take a mediocre hacker and turn him into a wunderkind in six months. When marketing first shows up on the radar, the guys are similarly mediocre, but they're several years behind the curve on developing a marketing culture and have to deal with a couple hundred hackers and their associated hubris to boot.

- Eric S. Raymond is a bozo. Seriously.

And just for reference, this isn't all specifically about the KDE project. I hang out around enough OSS guys that I've seen the same happen in several projects. There may have been some that have avoided it. I can't name any off the top of my head.

Edit: I take that last point back. I can think of an exception. The guys that ate my lunch. :-) Amarok. From day one they starting building a community, marketing, worked on bringing people of all sorts into the project. That impressed me. (And from the get-go, we've been friends and swap a lot of code, so there's no bad blood.)
If I could upmod you twice I would.

From a man who has actual experience in the field.
> our best bet is to get a bunch of young college age
> programmers to work with you.

Columbia couldn't seem to care less, and the entire NYU structure has so far gotten ... hold your breath ... 2 resumes. Only one of which was remotely relevant, but not experienced enough to take initiative on this.

And since I'm not a programmer, I don't have the experience to provide guidance in that department.

I don't know why, but NY is not very start-uppity at all. People here fantasize about going to work for the IT dept. of Morgan Stanley or something.
Your situation is seems similar to Guy Kawasaki's Truemors experiment. You have something that you believe is interesting/useful but the market didn't believe you. IBM looking into it signals a market change in your favor. Since that's the case, I say do it.

However, it sounds like you need two things (er...people). A star programmer and a star evangelist. The first can be had (for a price). The second is harder to find. Either you need to become one or you need to hire someone that already is one.

Reference: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/06/by_the_numbers_.html
One solution is to continue trying;
Another is to "sell out" to BigCo;

Yet another is to publish your idea and possibly get hero status when someone that understands the relevance of your idea and has the necessary resources/skills to make it happen does so. You'd probably feel good about those 6 years spent thinking about it and researching it not being completely in vain.

I'm a bit freaked out thinking that great ideas can die with their originator if they never publish...
Be careful! VCs also have a somewhat different outlook than founders or angels. Taking money early from them means they're involved early, and they're probably going to want to see results. Some pressure can be healthy, but too much can kill a company.
uhuh.... tell that to my company. we are getting 2.5% increases on average, that is less than inflation.

but I think they have seen it first hand when tried to hire few people fresh of the school, and all of them had multiple offers, so they are ending up hiring somebody that I thought was not that great.
If you couldn't pull it off in six years, do you think another year or two will be enough? Do you think you can pull it together faster than IBM (and the dozen other competitors that will spring up once IBMs work becomes more widely known)? Ideas are worth practically nothing--you have no monopoly on your idea, unless it sucks, and even then, you probably aren't the only person working on it.

I ran my previous business for nearly seven years, before throwing in the towel. It was profitable for about six of those seven years, and it kept me in food and houses...but it wasn't a success, by my definition, and I won't twice make the mistake of continuing a business that I don't believe can win in its market...not just get by, but win. Perhaps you're not making that mistake, but I'd suggest you change your tactics immediately. Six years is an awful long time to have nothing to show.
I'm 21! Retirement!?

Points taken. Very much appreciated.
The New Gender Gap in Education
You spent 6 years on this idea with nothing to show for it[red flag]. You say your bottlenecks are programmers, and that you couldn't convince anyone to join you [red flag]. Why did they not buy into it?

Instead of having you convince people, why not have some evidence to do the talking for you? Learn to put ideas into UI flow charts, functional specs. Show a paper prototype to customers and see if it is something they would pay for. Do whatever you can so that other programmers won't look at you like a "dreaded idea guy that wants 99% equity."

As for call IBM or try the start-up route, I would at least call them to see where they are with their research.
I would say if you are showing the charts in your web-apps that means lot to the end user e.g. analytics data. It is one of the important aspect of application and that decides whether people like it or not. In such case it would be good to have in-house expertize on charts/some library e.g. JFreeChart for java or Flot(JQuery) JavaScript << good for minimal charting capability>>. That helps to keep control and plan ahead. I mean same applies for google charts too. But in that case you are loosing out control over some part of your application as you are delegating this important task to third party(google). If it is part of product/portal; I think lot of clients wont approve such decision.They will prefere custom-build/coded part for that in the application.
Ask YC: Getting involved in open source projects
I'm a freshman in college and an aspiring hacker. I would say that I am competent in Python and Java, with a basic knowledge of C. I would really like to put my skills to the test by getting involved in an open source project. I just can't seem to find the right way to "mount on."
Here's my take on the question as well as few of your responses throughout.

Stop worrying about programmers. If you have been toying with this idea for 6 years, take another one year and learn how to program. if you're cash strapped there are plenty of online tutorials and good old manuals. If have some cash outsource it to india or elance. if people are paid with money, they sometimes tend not to 'care' what they are working on, but give results.

The fact that IBM is doing research in this field means that they think that it might be worth it to work on this.

I think you need to act on it and if you spent that amount of time mulling it over, checking into things. get it done and see what people think, let the market decide. If someone doesn't get it, explain to them why they should. people thought blogs were stupid, all the other search engines didn't buy into google, now they wish they had.

I was in a similar thought process when i started my site, after i started it i kept coming across competitors i never even heard of. the fact that people are using my site and getting results was my 'vindication', after all there are a lot of other services that guarantee so much but didn't work for some people.

as far a i know ideas are worthless. pg talks about it some where. put it out there and see what happens, if IBM looks into what you are doing and blatantly copies you, sue them, but expect a long drawn-out legal battle that you won't win.

Lastly, people might have a hard time helping you out here if you don't talk about your idea. People might be interested in helping you out, by closely guarding your idea people might not help out.
I have a friend who's been through a similar position, except in the hardware world. Last year he got a full time job, and while he says he still wants to pursue his idea, the likelihood is diminishing every day. Just for reference, he's a Ph.D. just above 30, and his idea comes from something he discovered coincidentally from his research.

If it is really a good idea, find a partner who complements your skills. Assembling a team is probably the hardest part. If you can't assemble one, all odds are against you, no matter how good the idea is. If you don't have people at your disposal, you have to convince other people the idea is good; you'll have to prove it some way or another.

If you're like my friend, who has extensive knowledge beyond what competitors would have in several years, the idea is unobvious enough that even if you outline it understandably, you don't have worries about competitors. If it isn't at that level of sophistication, my bet is that even if competitors haven't thought through things as thoroughly as you have, they will have implementations that are simply good enough.
You've made the mistake of believing an idea has value. It doesn't. An idea plus a good execution of it has value. If you can't convince a developer that you bring needed value to the execution of that idea, and you can't pay developers to work on your idea, then you have nothing.

In six years you could have learned to program well enough to build a kickass demo--the fact that you haven't makes it pretty clear to developers that you don't believe in your idea enough to commit your own time to it (other than, apparently, thinking really hard about it)...but you'd be really happy to have someone else commit time to it and share the results with you. Hell, with the quality of modern tools, if you started today, you could have a proof of concept running in a year, even if you've never seen a terminal or a text editor before. Python, Ruby, Perl, and even PHP, make developing simple applications, well, simple.

Sorry if I seem to be dismissing you without knowledge of your idea or your actual work in the field, but this is what you're facing in trying to get someone to write your software for you, for free. This is what you have to overcome, and I hope I've made it clear that the way you are presenting it is not going to do that. What you think you're saying, and what an engineer hears you saying, are apparently two very different things. I suspect you think you're saying, "I've done all of the legwork and research and hard work leading up to actual development, and now I just need a technical person to put these well-researched pieces together." But, an engineer hears, "I've done nothing but have super cool ideas for the past six years, and now I'd like you to implement my vague and over-reaching specifications into a product, for free, and share the results with me."

You can't really blame them for not signing on, right?
Working Model?

http://workingmodel.design-simulation.com/WM2D/index.php
close bugs on a project thats already out there, create a new feature on one, or start your own.
On a side note, I used to love that magazine and was disappointed when they changed it to "Contact Kids". I think there was also a TV show.