On the last day of November, we have switched gears and put Side Pocket live.
Why is this relevant? Every day, you need to decide on what to spend your time. Sure, you manage your chores with an nifty GTD system, but then what. What project will you work on this Sunday with your 8y old daughter? What recipe can you cook together with your family once you manage to find a date with your teenage sons? And, don't you urgently need a killer idea for your next side project?
Side Pocket is based on the observation that all these problems can be solved with a database of ideas, classified into types, each potentially with a bill of materials and stepwise instructions. If you add in social features like following and sharing and a rating system like those from Reddit or HackerNews, plus add integration with voice assistants like Google Home and Amazon Alexa, you have the perfect base for daily inspiration combined with a repository for you own flashes of genius.
I always wanted such a thing. The ProductHunt Hackathon gave me an excuse to build it. Of course, there were only four weeks, so I had to stick with known grounds for the technology: PHP and Laravel 5, and the Google Assistant with the Laravel software as fulfillment backend.
Laravel has a rich ecosystem of packages for social features, OAuth2 authentication, media handling, tagging etc. so there was little reinventing the wheel required. Even subscriptions and team billing will be a breeze with Laravel Spark.
Unfortunately, a bug in Google's Assistant console delayed development for a few days so the integration into Actions on Google was not completed in time for the end of the hackathon. This will be fixed soon.
To get you started with Side Pocket as a source of inspiration, there are already some nifty ideas in the database. Now go and add your own!
To help find inspiration and have fun with the ideas, over the last days, I have added tons of stuff for you to try:
- Fav'ing. Give your favorite ideas your heart
- The start page now lists recent ideas that got much lovin'
- Fresh ideas can still be reached under the "Ideas" dropdown
- On detail pages you can now comment away
- When entering a new idea, go ahead and reference the source URL and inventor. We will add inventors' profile pages soon
- Ideas may have a bill of material and a list of steps. Here is an example. This is particularly handy for recipes and ideas for weekend projects with your kids
- If you would like to subscribe to the site, please use our RSS feed at https://sidepocket.cc/feed
Here are some screenshots from Side Pocket's web interface:
Of course, there is still lots to do:
- The Google Assistant integration did not get ready in time. This will be added soon so you can get inspiration or save genius ideas just using your voice
- Personalization. For example, you will be able to select if you are only interested on recipes or business ideas
- Harvesting tools and bookmarklets, so you can easily collect ideas, recipes, or instructables in your private idea collection
- Social features like sharing and following
- Team features so you can privately share your best ideas with your team mates. This might also become a source of revenue for Side Pocket
- More tools for different types of ideas, e.g a Business Model Canvas for startup ideas
Here is a screenshot from the Google Assistant console:
How will I grow Side Pocket from here? Of course, there are already many sites devoted to ideas, startups, and projects: Reddit/Startup Ideas, The Halfbakery, Instructables, AllRecipes. ... Side Pocket wants to give you a single source for ideas big and small, regardless of the domain. I will definitely use it myself and promote it on these other sites.
If you have comments or feedback please feel free to add them here or through our contact form
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