Dang! That should have been obvious!

[swestrup]

I always hate it when an obvious, lucrative idea in web services comes around and leaves me feeling that *I* should have thought of that.

Well, here's another one: Prosper is a website for lending money to, and borrowing money from, other members of the site. Its a simple idea, but it could easily get really big. Just look at the Grameen bank.

Comments

[rosy1.livejournal.com]

Why not just do it for Canada?

Or surely, there's room for another player in the U.S. market.

Maybe there's a way to improve or add a different slant to it. It's often the people that are not the first who are the most successful... because they innovate or improve on the original idea.
remember AltaVista BEFORE Google? Neither do most people these days...

I always say that the best commercial marketing is evolutionary, not revolutionary...

[sps.livejournal.com]

...Or, of course, because they are viscious bastards who step on other people's faces and then sue their bums off over things that never happened.

(Not meaning Google, you understand.)

[swestrup]

... I'm not sure I follow this. Are you saying the only way to succeed these days is to be a bastard?

[sps.livejournal.com]

Well, I hope that's not true, but I'm not sure. And hearing what sounds a bit like 'there's no point in trying to make a contribution, success is achieved by theft' (something I've heard more than once elsewhere, in one way or another) doesn't help my mood. Sorry, I think I'm being grumpy!