Review my startup idea, is this a dud?

[irishman_irl]

Hi,

In a nutshell I am developing a web-service that will allow the creators of user generated content to view a range of metrics relating to that content so that they can evaluate its performance. This is something I find is missing on a lot of websites & I often wonder about.

An example where this could be used is on a classifieds website, when a user posts an ad my software would track the number of impressions that ad receives, most popular days / times it is viewed, its search results ranking on that classifieds website, how it ranks in relation to other ads, offer keyword suggestions, an external / links pointing to their ad.

The customer of this product would be the website owner, it would be free initially but I eventually would like to charge based a pay-per-use model.

I have more advanced ideas for other services it could provide but they are for later versions.

A lot of people recently have been telling me they think this is a really bad idea, that it would not really be useful to users.

Just wanted to reach out and get some wider opinions - do you think I am wasting my time or would you find this a useful service?

[Experimentalist]

As I understand it, you're basically talking about stats for the creator of the content who is creating it on another site,

I think there might be potential for something like that.

However, you would just have to nail down your market better, check competitors and survey some medium-size user generated content sites on what they would want. Talk to them. Ask them, get free feedback, enlist them for a beta. Make contacts, then they will be potential customers later.

[Detrus]

Sounds a bit vague and similar to what I am working on. Is this basically analytics but not just on the content creator's site but any other site where the content appears?

[irishman_irl]

Its targeted towards websites that have a large number of independent content creators such as a forum, auction or classifieds website.

Within the users admin panel on those websites, users will be able to view metrics, kind of like Google Analytics, showing statistical performance for each of their listings on that website - so they know how they are performing. It will also inform them of any external websites, tweets or other web content that contains a link back to their listing.

Right now, analytical packages seem to be focused on providing statistics back to the owners of websites, but there is not much focused on providing feedback to the individual content creators.

[Detrus]

Ah that does sound like a dud business wise. It would be nice to see more extensive stats for each site I use, like digg, forums, HN, etc.. but most sites and users could do without it. The user won't be paying for these stats, so the site owner needs to benefit a lot for the hassle. These stats are being collected one way or another but there is a lot of variation from one site to the next. Could it turn into a big hassle for some sites?

A site owner might put extensive stats to use to design a better community site. You could make some summary visualization of the user into their profile icon, so others know who they're dealing with. Sites like digg, quora, HN already have a lot of stats on individual users and it wouldn't be a big deal for them to create a visualization for a user. More recent companies like Etsy probably have some sales stats users can see. It's a small feature on many sites, most users don't need super detailed analytics.

Too many stats are confusing, many users who use 3rd party sites like ebay, etsy, don't want the hassle of what site owners go through, like looking at referrers. Some simplified online popularity graph might get adopted by site owners, but many users won't even understand that.

With that said, developing the idea itself further wouldn't hurt. I'm sure there are more market fits for analytics. An analytics social network where people compare their stats to their friends seems like a pre-requisite for this idea. Otherwise 'normal people' won't understand what the stats mean, there won't be a competitive or psychological incentive.

[Experimentalist]

Also maybe look to see if you can write it somehow to interface with Google Analytics api -- a lot of sites use that for their own backend stats.