Two Ideas
I’ve had two pseudo-money making ideas in the last few days and I figured I might come right out and tell everyone about them to see if they make any sense.
The first is a job board/blog. The idea here is that lately I’ve been hearing about a ton of interesting jobs. I want a place to pass these opportunities I hear about on to like-minded individuals. Unlike a regular job website, it’s not a place anyone can post. It’s exclusive. I’ve got to be sold on/connected with the place to post the job. It’s got to be something I think is cool. The idea here is that if I act as a filter (and do a good job), it should have some pretty interesting stuff on it (like this opportunity at Buzzmetrics).
The second idea is to compile a nightly (if I could pull it off), PDF that could be printed out by commuters. Included would be a number of interesting articles from the day for you to read on your ride home.
In the end, both of these are based around me as a trusted filter. This is one of the most interesting things going on in advertising for me at the moment. Looking at The DECK for example, you see a network that only accepts ads for companies it knows/respects/uses. With the way blogs work as a trusted source, it’s a simple extension to offer recommended goods and services.
Enough babbling, what do you think? Anything to either idea?
Hi, I'm 
Noah,
That’s a great idea. Especially the job-board part.
Max
the inherent flaw in these ideas is the assumption that you are a trusted filter. i read your blog, and the articles you delicious and i have no faith in you
You’re not a fair judge Dave, you actually know me.
At the risk of appearing biased, I think the job board is a terrific idea. The filter concept moves the aggregator concept forward in a very important way: it allows your ‘like-minded’ individuals to develop trust relationships with the ‘media’ — and as you may have heard me say before, in the end, it’s all about the relationship.
I like the job board idea, it’s kinda something I’ve had in the back of my mind for yopos. The print-n-go sheet is a cool idea but it’s sorta wasteful. Why not a podcast or something?
what happened to the nyc guidebook, btw?
i like the job board idea.
NYC guidebook didn’t get a great response. Only four writeups. Feel free to add.
Everyone seems to like the job board. I think I’m going to buy a domain and make it happen.
As a lowly member of the commuting class, I would appreciate the PDF compilation. If you focused on feature stories, the burden wouldn’t be on you to update each workday afternoon. Although maybe that’s a job for the Junior Writer.
It’s hard to refute the “how wasteful” argument. Can you also invent a device that I can read this material on? Bigger than a Blackberry, smaller than a 12″ iBook.
I’ll get right on that, Jason.
If you get hung up on the new reading machine, I’ll happily print anything you’ve assembled into the portable document format. I’ve killed several small forests to read Bill Simmons’ mailbags on the ride home.
What’s the business model? Do I have to pay, or will you include relevant advertising? Any of those “make $10,000/week from home!” spam emails would probably be surprisingly effective on a sea of disgruntled commuters.