Finding the pain

As of today, I have two things in my personal portfolio.  

• An Android app called App Usage Monitor.
• A partially built web application at doodlesforum.appspot.com

The motivation for building each of these applications was to learn: to learn about mobile development in the first case and about building Google App Engine web applications in the second case.  Secondary reasons for building each of these apps is that I thought some people will find them amusing/useful and that no-preexisting app provided the same functionality.  

As I come closer to finishing up my doodlesforum project, I heard about Jeff Atwood's newest project, Discourse.  Discourse is software that will help discussions on the internet, aka forum software.  I don't know how popular this software will become, but I am pretty impressed that he chose to tackle this question.  

I think choosing the right software project to work on next is difficult.  I don't know if I'll ever work on a project that has such simple yet profound goals such as:

• Let's build a good internet search engine (Google) 
• Let's build a good Q&A site (Stack overflow)
• ...
• Let's build good forum software (Discourse?)

I think a good way to choose projects is to find the pain, and then build something that solves that pain.  I'm not sure what pain I'll look to solve for my next project, but it's something I'll keep in mind.

Stealing Android Apps

Lifehacker is promoting an app that allows users to remove ads from their apps.  In my book, it sure feels like stealing.

A few years ago a similar situation played out on our desktops.  Villainous spammers made internet browsing a clicking war as they used pop-up windows to shove their ads in our faces.  In response, browsers mercifully designed pop-up blockers that has all but stopped the madness of popup ads. 

So, what is different about the situation?  I don't think there is anything different.  The only difference for me is that I'm the guy being blocked this time. I guess it's one of those, sucks to be me situations.

So, what can be done?  Are we in a hopeless predicament?

I know that Android Apps can include an end user license agreement (EULA).  Making users agree to a legal document makes me feel a bit dirty.  I want to make my users feel good when they use my product.  I can't imagine that this would alleviate the situation either.  

Maybe the solution is just to educate our clients.  Here's a letter I could send: 

Dear Android User,
I'm glad you downloaded and installed my app. I genuinely hope you enjoy using it, and I hope it makes your life easier and happier.  But you should know something.  As much as I like building applications, writing code is hard and time consuming.  It's difficult to put together an Android app that works well on tiny phones running Honeycomb as well as a tablet running Jellybean.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm happy to work through the bugs and create something awesome for you.  With that said, can you please allow my small pop-up to be shown in the app you downloaded from me.  Better yet, if you see something of interest, please feel free to click on that ad.  It might be a little annoying to you, but each of those clicks and views mean a lot to me.  And if you block those ads, well, it stops my income flow.  That means, no money to pay for power, no power for computer to run, and no more development of basically free apps for you.  So let's work together on this one. 
Sincerely,
A working for pennies - android app developer. 

PS. If you really *hate* ads, feel free to email me or leave a comment telling me how much you'd like to pay for an-ad free version. 

I'm not sure if that would work either.  I really think Google should step up to the plate and help us small app developers out.  Either, ad blocking apps should be removed from the play store or they should help us block the blockers!

So, what do you think? Is it stealing? Is there a better existence we could all mutually agree to?

Affiliate Ads in this blog

Adding ads
In November of 2012, I began adding Google Affiliate ads in some blog entries.  However, I have since moved to using the amazon associates program for affiliate ads. 

I never felt like I understood exactly how Google's affiliate program worked.  For example, Google Affiliate Ads is supposed to work in this fashion: "When a blog visitor clicks your affiliate ad and makes a purchase, you may earn a commission for referring that visitor."  Why does the "may earn a commission" clause mean?  What instances would a commission be denied? 

I also found that the universe of possible products that I would like to endorse was not covered by Google's affiliate ads.  If I did find a product I would like to endorse, it was often selling at a higher price.  Using Amazon solves these issues.  I can endorse almost anything, and the price is always competitive. 

Of course, the proof is always in the sales numbers.  I will make (very happy) updates if there is ever any progress on that front.

1 percent

Given $100,000, is it possible to earn 1% ($1000) a month? 

After a bit of research, it seems like the answer is No.  The going rate for a CD is about 1% APY.  This means, after a year, I'd get about a 1000 dollars.  So, using a CD will earn roughly 12 times less than the goal ...

Local Lending

This is a system where people lend money to funds which go exclusively to local businesses.

The key to the process is that the lenders, also known as investors, would accept a rate of return that is not very competitive.

The local business borrowers would then be able to get capitol at a better than premium rate.  With the money, businesses could build a better product, expand, or withstand lean times. 

The lenders would benefit from this because the neighborhood that they live in will become infused with more money and the value of their homes will rise.  There are also psychological gains in which members of a community feel as if they have a stake in the community's success.

One obstacle in this plan is the risk for the lender where the borrower does not repay.