Crowdfunding the creation of the next version of LFGSS

I'll take a look at the REST API. Interested to see how it's coming along.

I'm keen to make the (Android) app for that.

A quick thought on the classifieds thing.
How would you feel about an opt in (or out) system of ads for forum classifieds? You could actually get quite sophisticated and trawl people's posts to determine their preferences. You could also have sub cats of ads for people to opt into: frames, wheels, razors, camera bodies, whatever.

I suspect that viability of this kind of model would depend on an available engine for targeting ads.

Of course, you will probably hate the idea. For me, the world of advertising needs to shift to opt in, voluntary ad consumption to get to the next level. Internal advertising on product related fora could be a start.

I wasn't even figuring display advertising into my schemes at all.

It wouldn't just be opt-out, it wouldn't be.

Yes, I know. Not sure I explained it well, due to posting on a phone and getting frustrated.

I am thinking of it as pushing a classified threads to users based on preferences and behaviour. It seems to me that ad targeting algorithms seem quite similar to classified relevance algorithms.

And of course these would not be banners or pictures, just a computationally determined set of classified threads that are pushed to the user. It could even be implemented as a sort order of relevance instead of date, when viewing listing. Thinking about it, it doesn't only have to apply to classifieds. I would like to see suggested threads that took into account my preferences and behaviour.

Lots of meta data requirements here, mind.

I was thinking of allowing saved searches, based on attributes... "alert me about frames that come up for sale that are 59cm, oh and also alert me about cranksets that are Campagnolo Record".

Just a pure notification system driven from the classifieds meta-data.

Don't do that! It's a feature perfectly designed to empty bank accounts. I'd get emails from LFGSS every day saying: "Hey, there's a frame in your size, why don't you buy it?"

Well if you sell them it's also a feature perfectly designed to fill bank accounts.

API mockup discussion here: https://www.lfgss.com/thread97878.html

BTW... did you notice we now have a forum for this stuff?

No, I checked the fora drop down, but didn't click through.

Will remedy.

Feel free to start threads for feature requests, I'll merge and split as necessary so that there are logical groups.

Missed out on the seedrs investment so decided to go down the patronage route. :)

Much appreciated.

BTW... did you notice we now have a forum for this stuff?

You'd think there's be some forum wide notification when the forum gets a new forum. Doesn't happen often
New forum here>>>>>>>> http://www.lfgss.com/forum67.html

You'd think there's be some forum wide notification when the forum gets a new forum.

Sounds like a feature for the new platform. Adds to list

BTW... did you notice we now have a forum for this stuff?

Yo Dawg etc etc etc

purely from a selfish investor point of view, the company should be protecting its intellectual property. having the microcosm stuff on a publically accessible part of the forum is contra to this.

I agree to a point... it depends on what you think is the IP and what "stuff" you refer to.

Happy to explain why I'm fine with keeping quite a lot out in the open and only a small core will not be open. As well as what it is that I feel the core is.

I feel that a lot of what is essential to mc should be open to drive the community and adoption. Having open conversations about features and API seem like a great thing.

He may not be talking about the API though so I thought it best to ask what he means before I responded.

if you are satisfied the posts in the API thread are describing general prior art containing no commercially sensitive content, and you're not in breach of the company articles of memorandum, or the investors agreement, then that's peachy with me, and i can wander back to margaritaworld.com to perfect the tequila based cocktail (not teh bloody pizza..)

I'm satisfied of the above (and I actually read the articles of memorandum end-to-end, some 110 pages!).

The API is a public interface.

In the same vein as these ones:
https://stripe.com/docs/api
http://disqus.com/api/docs/
http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/docs/2/events/
https://developers.facebook.com/

Because of the way Microcosm aims to build revenue, which is through the content itself rather than through banner or display advertising, we want... no... NEED developers to embrace what we're proposing and to build clients based on them.

It becomes a competitive advantage over time to have a well-used API... because it allows communities to implement clients that fit their niche of niches needs. And it also allows platforms that we could not immediately service to have clients built -minority players like for the iPhone ;)

An example, the polo guys could use the API to create a tournament application in which events, discussions, etc were powered by the Microcosm API yet actual game results were powered by their app.

The API is what allows such blending, and they allow clients to be create that fulfil niche needs which in turns helps with traction and growth.

There are very good arguments to be made that some companies (Twitter, and Stripe) grew solely because of their open API and the simplicity and consistency of it. It was trivial to make an app that provided functionality in a way that suited the needs of different minorities of users.

Where Twitter went wrong is that they rely on control of the client to present sponsored (display) adverts. But as I mentioned above, this is one of our strengths and not our weakness.

The API discussion will be very open, as will the front-end. Where it is easily argued that core IP and value needs to be protected is in the database schema, the backend processing, that is the architecture of everything behind the API.

That's the stuff that will be protected, virtually everything else will be open.

Open is good, I'm sure it will encourage other clever people to do stuff with it that you may not of considered at first yourself, but that will still be a benefit to microcosm.