Not to mention the article is missing a HUGE part of the story! As in how Paulson was on the ASS END of the stick in regards to these sub-prime-shorts until very late in the game when he started cherry picking trades from Michael Burry...
Seems to me that your somewhat limiting your revenue... The problem I see is no one wants to make the first move, so everyone would want to be the "featured" date and let everyone else do the "dating work" for them.
In this structure I'd think you want to charge the dater not the prospective dates.
My suggestion would be lower the barrier for prospective dates to contact your featured "date" by making it free.
1. Charge your featured dates for the "feature" service.
2. Charge more for "localized or placed features"... AKA I want to be featured in LA, and site-wide.
3. Make the entire database searchable, your featured dater functionality is your hook, but no need to limit what who your members could find. (Maybe this is an extra pay feature)
4. One thing I have always wondered about dating sites is why none of them have used alternate payment mechanics? For example, buy a date flowers from (FTD, with your affiliate code) and get 20 free contacts, sign up for netflix get 10 contacts, etc, etc...
I think your going to need something else to drive attention/use of the site.
Right now it's basically a standalone GIST app with out any of the social networking bits.
If I were to rate the idea as-is I'd probably give it a 5/10 it seems like core functional works but there needs to be more...
How do you intend to monetize the site?
(premium services, ads, acquisition?)
Somethings I'd look into.
1. Add Group Feature (Private Group Bit Repository)
2. Maybe some kind of game mechanic to drive initial traffic and increase the sites stickiness. (pts for posting, badges, etc)
3. Plugins for Wordpress, BBS, Facebook, etc.
4. Try narrowing your niche "Business, Open Source" you can always expand it later.
Wow, I'm really surprised by all the 30" -in favors-?
I use 2 24" in monitors and love it. As for having to turn your head... that's a very minor concern if your keyboard and mouse are centered (or sightly off center) you can see both monitors fine.
For me I use textmate on one monitor (main) and have web-browser, Adium, Skype open on the second monitor - organized so all three are "on top". Works like a charm.
I have another box with a 30" monitor, but I use it mainly as a review station. Window organization is a bit of a pain on that large of a monitor on OSX.
I would have to agree that that for media (games, movies, video editing) the single larger monitor is better.
Nice cast... really enjoyed it. There were some really interesting topics covered. Hope there is a re-broadcast link so I can catch the first 20 min I missed!
That pretty much what I was thinking... but its good to get some confirmation.