This one I'm working on currently. I'm trying to find the sites that deal with unsigned artists / smaller artists to try to get some advertising space. Thanks for verifying this was a good choice.
The problem I see with this is it might not be all that limited. There are quite a few areas of expertise out there, which could make for quite a large form, where as defined "sections" with a free form tag style fill in would make for less clutter. Its "hackers" were talking about after all, most if not all are going to be familiar with a tag system.
As far as the duplicate tags there a number of ways to correct this. First and most prominent is community editing. The other option is to tie tags together with a backend system - for example ruby-on-rails === rubyonrails === rails === RoR
I don't know that auto emailing is necessary. I tend to agree with you in the fact that the person who actually needs the help should initiate the email to the person. Something you may want to provide the option to provide contact information other then email (IM mostly). I would prefer to get an IM then an email most of the time.
This is a very interesting idea that I haven't seen done before. From what I see you would have the potential of having several people helping you with your startup. If this is the way it seems something like a "project dashboard" to organizing help would be awesome. While it would be possible to keep track of all of this in your email it could get difficult with 5+ people helping you with different aspects of the startup.
All an all I love the idea, very simple design, easy to use. I will use it over the next few days and let you know again what I think.
I find it kind of funny that while staring at a post for a Justin Bieber URL shortener you get upset about the fact that HN has a "different culture" from Reddit. ITS A JUSTIN BIEBER LINK...
I can already sense another "What has happened to HN" post coming. This one should be interesting
Just found out mine came in today right after I left for work. My wife sent me a picture of it early this morning so the whole day has been dragging....
The bad thing I see about that is if (for whatever reason) it fails and falls you (and possibly that company) will have your pants sued off. Also birds perching on your bike seat and doing their business...
I agree with Steve. The people with the extra cash will just park on it which will drive up the price they will charge you to buy it. There is no clear cut solution to this problem, it will be around as long as the domain model is what it is (but then again how would it change?).
The closest thing I can come up with would be to in-act some kind of domain activity monitor (use it or loose it) type pattern, but I don't seriously think this would ever happen either.
I'm guessing the map is for me to put in my location. If so, 2 things. 1 the area I live in is labeled wrong (email me and I'll point you to it if you want to fix it), also when I hit take another poll it takes me out to country level, it should stay.
Less say but if you think about it, are the chances higher that 1 of say 7 startups will succeed (when you have the choice of being highly selective when choosing them) or that 1 of your 2 - 3 starts with succeed to the point of bringing in 5000 a month?
I have 2 kids (7 years and 4 months) and 2 on the way (I know I work fast). What I can say above all is I do everything that I do for my kids. To run through your questions. Yes you will get inspiration from your kids as you hope to inspire them in some little way at all times in their life. Your life's priorities sure do change (or at least should). Your life become about your kid more or less. At least mine has. You will hit points of exhaustion. Its figuring out how to limit those times that becomes the trick.
With all that said its the greatest thing ever. Think of it as a little "startup" that you cannot let fail. You put a lot of time into it and in turn you get all the return you need the first time that baby smiles at you and it ISN'T because of gas heh. At no point have I thought it wasn't worth it. Its been a crazy train ride but fun the whole way.
In this case I will have a much wider range of referrers and I don't see Google being high on this list for this particular page. But social sites should be.
Its not so much cloning the ads the referrer is posting (Although this is an option) as targeting the ads at what the referrer is. So if the referrer is say Facebook maybe social networking ads, that kind of thing - but working across all possible types of referrers.
Edit: Just for a little more clarification the list of referrers would be endless and defined by the user.
1. Either you have to host the server on your account, or I have to give you my username and password to my hosting account. This might put people off so just keep that in mind.
2. Also I don't see a reason to limit yourself to cloud platforms. Hosts like linode/dreamhost/etc are pretty popular these days and service like this would help a startup with limited/no knowledge in server platforms.
3. I also wouldn't limit yourself to just Linux. If your familiar with windows systems you might make a little more money on setting up MSSQL, Exchange, and IIS (And if I recall correctly Rackspace now offers Windows in the cloud).
4. Also think about upkeep of the servers as well. If someone is going to pay you to set it up, they will likely pay you to maintain it.
I think this all depends... I don't know that there is much that can compete with face to face interaction with a targeted "end user." Not sure he got much of that in this case but I think I personally would prefer that "real" interaction with a targeted client in an early stage.