New projects
October 23rd, 2009 | 6,693 views | 9 Comments » | TweetHey everyone. I’m working on a couple of cool new projects that I want to let you know about!
AP Study Notes
I’m planning to completely rehaul my AP notes site, APstudynotes.org, and rebuild it from the ground up. Right now, it has a bunch of awesome notes for 3 popular AP classes (US history, US government, and English Language/Literature), but it’s still lacking in quite a few areas. The site is still in development, and I’ve got a lot of work to do on it, but it’s already been extraordinarily popular. Right now, it’s getting 1,200,000 page views and 520,000 unique visitors annually! I haven’t advertised it at all, but the feedback has been overwhelming. I get emails every week from thankful students, and even some from eager students asking why the notes for a particular AP class aren’t posted yet!
My goal was to keep adding new notes (my own or purchased/donated notes from other students), and over time, slowly build up a huge database of quality notes. At some point in this process, I realized that this method simply doesn’t scale very well. There are simply too many classes, too many textbooks, and too many types of notes (outlines, vocabulary, unit summaries, practice quizzes, etc.) for me to create and format all by myself. So, I stopped updating the site for a while.
My goal in re-hauling the site is to allow users to add their own notes to the site, and let the community decide what the good stuff is. My hope is that the good stuff will float to the top.
I have a a bunch of really neat ideas (I think!) that will make this the best AP notes site on the net. I don’t want to divulge too much here, but I believe that when it’s finished, it will be an invaluable resource to high school students taking AP classes.
Music site
My second project is still in the planning phase. But, for now, just imagine one website that will satisfy ALL of your musical needs: MP3 downloads, online streaming, concert tickets, music videos, album art, lyrics, music suggestions, and social features. I have a vision for an awesome online music experience, and I can’t wait to start working on this one.
I know that there are plenty of great music sites out there right now, like Lala.com, Last.fm, iMeem.com, iLike.com, Pandora, and others, but I believe that I can build something unique that brings plenty of new ideas to the table. Plus, I think this will be a great way to practice a whole slew of important web dev skills: Javascript, web crawling, data mining, large-scale database management, and more. I can’t wait to see where this idea goes!
Blog might not be updated for a while…
I’ll try to keep you guys updated as I work on these projects. If you don’t hear from me for a while, now you’ll know why: I’m coding like a madman! 
If you have any ideas or suggestions for me, please let me know in the comments! Thanks a ton for your support!
Feross,
Do you intend to earn revenue from the music project? Have you considered it or other business models?
I hear many folks talk about developing interesting things in the music industry but people just can’t seem to earn a decent return. (Steve Jobs apart offcourse.)
Hi Alexander,
I don’t have any immediate business model plans, but I do have some ideas that could potentially generate some revenue.
I think the important thing first and foremost, is to focus on creating something that’s really valuable for the user. I don’t really know where this project will lead, but I think it will be fun to see what happens as I go.
Do you have a connection to the music industry or did you just stumble upon my blog by chance? In any case, thanks for your comment!
I actually discovered your blog through a post on dcpos.ch.
I’m a recent college graduate with a job in energy services. I’m really looking to start a company but haven’t figured out the right opportunity. My problem is that old/new energy tech is really capital intensive.
Obviously the Internet/Mobile is a great place to start, particularly the latter, with start up costs next to zero.
Goodluck with the project. The music industry is definitely waiting for a really compelling business model and overall execution.
Cool — do you know Daniel?
You’re right – clean tech (usually) requires a ton of investment before it can yield useful results. In some cases, VCs have to wait 10 years to find out if they made a good investment decision!
Thanks for the encouragement — I’ll be posting updates about my progress on my blog throughout the coming months.
Hi Feross,
Wish you all the best with your projects. I agree that these type of projects increases your programming skills and self confidence.
Thanks
Keep it up.
TC
Thanks TC!
[...] While Facebook employees hacked on their own Facebook side projects, I decided to work on my music website by building a music data web scraper. By the end of the night, I finished a relatively polished [...]
I like the idea of the AP study notes…..go for it.
with millions of eye balls the bad stuff and mistakes are most likely to be seen and corrected unlike when you alone does the notes……its a good idea to let people post their notes and rank the best. “wisdom of the crowds”
Qolo
You are doing great things. Your open source will help to learn even laymen and power users.
You are doing the great thing for tech guys.
With regards
Dhanapalan.P.R.S