sourceforge 2.0 ??

I was thinking.. You know.. the usual thinking that goes through..
Imagine the number of developers in this world. Well, considering the number of people in Indian firms these days, I can assure most people, that the number is not something negligible. Its pretty huge.. Most developers( I am saying most here, intentionally ;) ) would have coded/created one or the other kind of application or product (hopefully).

Now I know people would come up with answers to me and references like this and this but the approach I am suggesting here is probably quite different..

Current Scenario :
Sourceforge : People use this to form groups?? think of what has to be done or what they want to do and then go ahead in doing it??!!. Sourceforge as such not only gives one space to host his projects which are open-source (am I right?) but also allows people to collaborate on these projects.
On the other hand, in freelancer one is either interested in getting some job done or is interested to make a few bucks by doing some project. Freelancer collaborates between the service provider (usually programmer) and customer for a particular service.

What aspect do these sites miss out on? Well, first off, in these projects the visibility is pretty low. For both the project and the programmer. This project is something the programmer is probably going to be putting in his resume. Well, isnt it? I would if I did a project like this. So why should he mention all the details of the project on his resume.. Wont the programmer feel even better if the web gives references to him? Wont it be a centralized location for his profile?
And even for the project. Its pretty difficult for the project to get noticed if it is niche.. yeah, I know we have tags and such ..But still.. Tough..

So now what I want :

Combine Digg, Sourceforge, freelancer and add a few pinches of salt, some water and some more things that I call special ingredients and we have exactly what people want ( or atleast I think so ). How many people do you think currently go to Sourceforge to download something they want? Mostly its geeks or techno-enthusiasts. Most projects there are also oriented towards that (I feel so). The requirement specification is drawn out by the co-ordinator of the project who in most cases will be a geek/nerd. Sourceforge is such a chaos and so is freelancer. So what does one have to disentagle the chaos and make some sense out of the whole mess and try to find something he / she wants ? yeah, I know sourceforge provides tagging support and people can search based on tags etc. But there are so many replica's.

Coming to the point. I was wondering if one could have a digg like system where-in people can come in and post requests... for example.. someone can say I want a software to maintain my day to day accounts.. It should be possible to synchronize my online account with my mobile and office computers.
Other people who see this, will either digg the idea or not(digging...huh!!) depending on whether they are interested in that particular software. Apart from normal diggs we will have separate diggs by people who wish to contribute to a particular project. Like in digg people will also write what additional features they want from the particular software(wiki?)... The developers who digg will come together and talk... as soon as a "developer digg" is done on a particular project a separate community is created automatically and developers of that particular project are allowed to chat and talk and discuss in that particular community..

As I am writing this blog the idea of this website which provides this service is getting pretty ambitious.. However it sounds pretty exciting too :) Lets get on...
As soon as you "Developer Digg" a particular project apart from automatically making you a part of that project and its community of developers, you can in a separate "tab", like in netvibes, chat with the developers who are currently online.. use meebo and its help? ;)
Another issue that stops a lot of developers from taking part in open-source developments is CVS. Its a damn big headache. It isn't as easy as download code. edit. upload. I don't know how but there has got to be a simpler way. easier way.

In the project page, list of all people interested in this will be shown and we are speaking about social networking here. This networking is not just about being networked with someone. Its about being known for what you do as well. Like communities in orkut where people with common agendas / topics / interests come together, even here, people interested in common projects come together. And the profile here of each individual shows the projects he has worked on and testimonial-ish peer reviews of his/her work? ??

What else do you want more than this for your resume? and doesn't this put your resume online? isn't this the way you want to be working/publicizing yourself??

So mashup!!! king of mashup??

innovation

To change the world one has to do the things differently. For example one has to approach the traditional problem of intelligence with just the basic understanding of what intelligence is.. I had written somewhere else that more the knowledge about a particular subject the more you are going to be prejudiced about that subject and hence a drastic world shattering innovation is going to get hampered.

To improve a particular field, one need not be a Ph.D in that field. He just has to be someone who has 1) inclination to innovate 2) Good in multiple fields. I will elaborate upon how these factors are going to affect the innovation itself.

1) inclination to innovate :
WEll, to say the least, this is one of the factors. If you do not have the ability to notice the details of things how do you expect to come up with a new way of doing the same thing? Plain and simple isnt it.. If you are not looking for something at all, how can you know that something is important when you stumble upon it.. Only when you have the faculty to discern something and find out if it is for the real and is supported by empirical facts will things turn out to be innovations.. if newton hadnt questioned and struggled for an answer as to why did the apple fall down instead of going up or staying there, we wouldnt have somethign called as gravity, isnt it? By inclination to innovate I mean the ability to question even the most basic things.. Also an ability to question even postulates and trying to reason out for oneself if they are actually true. Only people who question such things can innovate.

Only when you are looking to innovate can some innovation happen in most cases.. its pretty rare that you are actually doing something and finally something else happens and you call it an innovation.. Only when you are in a constant look out for better ways to do things.. will better ways to do things surface...

2)Good in multiple fields / versatality :
The more someone is good in different fields, the more he / she can bring in the knowledge of that particular field to another.. if a lot of people talk in a particular language.. the more rich the language becomes over time. This is because a language grows by adding words from other languages and also by making mistakes in usages.. So people of different kinds of nature like each others company because each one brings one useful trait into the friendship which is not found in the other.. This is a very traditionalistic view but I believe this is how it is.. Only when you bring knowledge from one field and apply that to some totally different field can the field grow.

I have also suggested that not knowing about a particular field helps you rather than cripple you in doing something huge and important in that field.. I think so because the more you know about a field the more deeper you get into that particular field and it therefore becomes more and more difficult to see something in a totally new light or view.

Just Buzz

India is considered an emerging market. Terms like leapfrogging etc are commonly used and associated with countries like India. The developed countries have access to a lot of luxuries which are not yet available in India as such. These if provided and made to reach the common man would lead to a lot of possibilities to open.

One of the ideas that I believe is going to make a difference here has to do with transmission of data to mobile handsets operator-agnostic. It seems crazy I know, but could this be possible is something that most people nowadays are thinking about.

Currently the problem with this world (mobile world) is that the penetration is good, the access is good but only problem and difference between the mobile network and the computer network (Internet) is that the underlying mobile network is controlled by the operator. This does not help in easy penetration of user-friendly applications. All the application developers have to depend on the operator for all the transactions and this impedes growth.

So now the question we got to ask ourself is how do we do some data transfer without the interference of the operator. Tough, yeah, it seems!! But it should be possible. I am not giving us the best form of refuge here but I am giving us a hope.

I was thinking about data to be transmitted over the FM channel. Anyway data is being transmitted over Fm (in the form of voice? ) why cant we just change this and encode (somehow) data and send it across. We actually dont require a transmission towards both sides. I meant to say from the server to client and client to server. In most cases this wont be required. So how about transmitting data over FM?

Effort involved would be to change the modulation before content is being transmitted over FM channels so that the relevant textual data is transmitted over FM. On the device side, the mobile owner should install a small application which will be able to successfully decode the incoming data.

The applications that this will open up are going to be many..

Massive Multiplayer Market.

I love playing computer games.. They are cool and I love enjoying getting lost in a virtual world.. What makes it even more interesting is when you get to meet other real people in a game.. Very intriguing.. seems so virtual... suddenly the distances between us suddenly disappear. Anyway the point of this post is not to admire the online sprawling world of new and new RPG's. But it is to see if someone can cash in on this particular idea.

The number of players currently in the massive world of warcraft exceeds 8.5 million users. Lets easily estimate that of these 8.5 million around 2 million ( very pessimistic.. but still) are returning and regular players. They are a market someone could address. As players of online games they would need something. there might be something that they wish to have. Selling their crafts? Trading money? Moving over money from one of their characters to another? Buying subscription every month? better deals for it? Looking out for other similar games? The possibilities seem endless. These users are also possibly good marketing zones for other new games which want say beta testers? subscribers?

So doesn't it sound logical to start an online space where these people can come together? Trade!! Make use of some services targeted for them and them alone?

For stats sake:

MMORPG Subscriber Base

World of Warcraft ~8.5 million +
Second Life ~1 million +
Eve Online ~50k +
Final Fantasy XI ~500k+
City of Heroes ~180k+

So, anyone interested in looking into this niche?
All the best.