As 10/10 grew near, I started getting pretty disappointed that I had not yet decided on a project. I’ve thought about doing a PHP web app with an MVC framework to an iPhone app written in Cocoa. I’ve even thought about developing content for blogs with topics ranging from programming to business development to… music games. (Yes, I love music games. Too much. In fact, if a certain post gets done, you’ll see how much I love music games.)

After some meetings with the Josh’s upstairs (in my mind), I’ve decided to move forward with making a feed reader. Not GadgetGet or SetStat, but FeedSt.

Why Not Gadgetget?

Here’s what I wanted to create in a nutshell.

• Gadget repository
  • First a niche market (maybe just Apple products to start out), then move into anything using electricity. Heck, at this point, consider moving into any nonperishable item ever. Maybe RFID would have taken off then…
• Search engine for pre-existing prices and reviews
• Gadget pricing
  • Keep historical data of price point drops and show trends.
• Wishlists across vendors
• Marketplace(s) for buying and selling gadgets
  • Push data to eBay, Amazon, and Craigslist, or even, create GadgetGet’s own marketplace.
• Better reviews, with relevance.
  • A new algorithm-intensive (of which I’d have to re-learn some of the insanity) engine to parse relevance on who’s reviewing what.
  • Example: I care much more about what a friend with a proven track record of awesome gadget picking has to say about some douchebag online complaining about the shipping company when it has nothing to do with the product.
  • Much later, I figured out that this is called “Collaborative Filtering”. Definitely quite the challenge.
• Much more in-depth specs and comparisons.
  • One example: LCDs
  • Warranty: Really annoying to find if you’re looking at multiple LCDs.
  • Actual item weight: I needed this for mounting the LCD, but everyone was listing the weight for everything that comes with the box.

Most of this functionality exists out in the web. It’s just not tied together in one happy place. I also have a list of companies that have already created so-so comparison shopping sites that achieve some of these features but very poorly (sidenote: I have no idea what gdgt.com is supposed to be about, but maybe it’s something like this?).

The real question is, would I use this? I would use this to keep track of all of my gadget purchases, and even check how much I’ve spent on stuff over time. It’d be a very useful system to buy and sell used gear as I shed my technological skin very quickly. It’d also be extremely useful for when I want to find out more on an array of items. If I ever wanted to get into photography, I could very quickly look up which lens were awesome at what, using reviews of people that I trust.

But I can deal. Searching on Google for review ends up serving me pretty well, and all I really ever do is go to Amazon and Newegg for reviews and buy from Amazon anyway (because Amazon Prime is so freaking awesome). Eh. It’s a problem that I feel like only a certain few people have, and I don’t foresee myself paying for this service. If that’s not the case, if it really is that I’m trying to profit from advertising (3rd party accessory affiliate sales or direct affiliate sales or just general Google Adsense), I’d need some serious runway in terms of money, hardware, and people. Eh. I’ll maybe work on this later.

Why Not SetStat/StatusFix?

Initially, this project was supposed to be my first foray into creating a pure social network. You know, the kind where there’s very little thought to actually how one is to make a living off of one. (I kid… kinda.)

This was my first effort (although a minor effort, at best) of actually doing what people would generally call a “startup”. I got a couple of my friends together to build the thing, and renamed it to StatusFix. I probably should have gone all out and went for VC capital, if I were bold enough. Regardless, getting a group of friends fired up about a social networking app was ultimately a fun overall. Getting everyone together and managing meetings as well as release schedules… would have been fun if I kept going.

As the project unfolded, I lost sight of what I wanted. I learned that this wasn’t a project that I was in control of, but became much more of a group effort. This isn’t a bad thing if from the start it was to be a group effort, but from the get-go I had a vision for StatusFix, and I wasn’t going to compromise it. I also felt that I wasn’t a very effective person in the project overall. I had to step back and prove to myself that I could “do”.

So I left, leaving it in the capable hands of the people I worked with. I haven’t heard much about the project after I left, but I think it’s still being worked on here and there. I’m definitely holding onto StatusFix.com for a while… it’s a good name, and maybe someone will make some use of it. (I want 5% cut, tee hee.)

I learned a lot of lessons from this experience. Relationship lessons aside and more on business lessons, I learned that I didn’t want to go into creating a project for the sake of having a project made. It had to be useful for me and also be freaking profitable. Also, it had to be fun, new, and exciting in ways that I can’t really describe: the gut feeling.

And so, more recently, going back to the original name, this general concept of a social networking application turned into one for setting status messages across multiple platforms. (Sidenote: StatusFix was going to be everything and the kitchen sink. Which would have been redonkulously awesome.) It wasn’t just for messages; I wanted to incorporate status images also. I began to think about the iPhone platform for this, since there’s a camera built right in. The location awareness was interesting as well. With the recent garbage that’s going on at the iPhone App Store with the NDAs and the removal of applications, I thought twice on this project.

However, the iPhone App Store is not why I pulled back on this. I decided to go with another project, although I see myself using this app quite frequently. I feel like someone else can work on this. It’s just something I may do in my spare time, but it’s not all that important. Also, the features of this app might as well just be an addition to any of the multitudes of applications out there already.

Plus, it’s a social networking app, for the sake of social networking app. Facebook is doing that… moderately well. They’re keeping afloat, which is good. The only place I’ll be making money is the sale of the iPhone app, and maybe some kind of freemium scheme for the webapp. Meh. Definitely a good side project or a proof-of-concept project, though.

Why FeedSt?

Okay, finally. To the point of the post.

I use Google Reader. A lot. I don’t think I can go without a whole day without my news (lest be hit with the dreaded 1000+ count on the number of unread items… I’m never letting that happen again). I can benefit directly from a better feed reader, with a lot of features that I personally can use and love and would even pay for (not much, but I’d be willing to go over from free to not free, $.00 to $.01, which is a huge difference.). Reader’s good, but it can definitely be better.

The question is, am I building an app based on just pure providing the same look and feel of Google Reader plus some features? I hope not. I hope to actually do something different than just slapping a few more features on Google Reader and call it. I wouldn’t pay for that, not saying that this is strictly going to be a pay-only service. Freemium ftw.

A sidenote here is that I have a soft spot for this project. This truly was my first “business mindset”-driven project ever. After I graduated from college and after I did a couple months of freelancing, I really wanted this project to work out into the first project of HanMeta. I went on and got a full-time job, though, and so the plans of world domination was put aside.

Make something people want. That’s it.

I feel as though feeds are going to be immensely important real soon. I’m talking not only in the technorati, but for everyone. “iTunes for data”? Heh.

Of course, I can’t put all my eggs in one basket. But really, at this point, I’m sick of the researching of what projects I should or should not be doing. I picked it. My gut has a warm and fuzzy feeling. I hope it isn’t the massive amounts of caffeine.

Rock. Roll. Repeat.

I feel like a huge weight has been thrown off my shoulders. Now, it’s time to learn even more what I have to learn as I go along.