Parallelized web site creating and selling - underperformingstocks.com
I often have ideas for little web sites, stuff I just get the urge to create for the fun of it. Some of them have done rather well, like langpop.com but even that doesn't make any money, and, sadly, as I age, that is becoming a more important factor in life.
So I decided to try a little experiment. I was thinking some about "value" stocks, and fiddling around with Google's stock screener, and thought of the idea of a site that highlights underperforming stocks: http://underperformingstocks.com - so far so good - I went ahead and registered the domain, and put together the beginnings of a Rails application. At the same time though, I decided I have enough things to do in my evenings and weekends, so I decided that it might be interesting to start selling the site at the same time I'm building it.
I'm not really sure how it will work out: perhaps people will see that there's not much there and not bid for it. Perhaps someone likes the idea behind it and is willing to buy on that.
My idea, in any case, is to keep working on it as the auction progresses. As an additional twist, there are obviously a lot of features that could be added to the site, so I'll prioritize work on features suggested by users who have bid on the site. Here's the auction listing on Flippa.com:
Edit: I'll also be posting updates to the twitter account I created for the project: http://twitter.com/#!/underpstocks
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about 1 hour later:
Why not build a site that searches for underperforming sites for sale on Flippa
about 1 hour later:
Alan - nice idea - but you'd need an API for metrics, and also it'd be something where you'd be quite vulnerable to Flippa.com implementing the exact same idea.
about {{count}} hours later:
David, the Google stock screener is great and I was also considering writing an app based on its data - but I haven't found an API for it yet. Did you?
I only know about http://code.google.com/apis/finance/docs/finance-gadgets.html#Raw_Data which gives you access to open/close/high/low, and also you have the option of parsing the csv for the historical data (which is what I currently do), but the interesting stuff like P/E, price/book value, est. div next quarter, cash/share, debt, beta,... all aren't accessible via the market data API.
Or where you planning to scrape the html from http://www.google.com/finance/stockscreener ?
about {{count}} hours later:
Alec, I did some sniffing around and found a way to get the data I need from their site without really scraping it. Not an official API, but I don't hit it frequently at all, so I think it's likely to be ok. Hopefully I'll open source it at some point.
about {{count}} hours later:
David, I'd be very interested in hearing about the workaround you found. Any hints you can provide?
about {{count}} hours later:
There's a JSON api that Google itself uses, which you can see if you fiddle with firebug some. If you'd like code, we can discuss it via email.
about {{count}} hours later:
David, I found something interesting: http://jarloo.com/tutorials/get-yahoo-finance-api-data-via-yql/ which notes that things like "select * from yahoo.finance.stocks where symbol=”aapl”" are possible via YQL.
PS: I've sent you an email (mentioning this just in case my email ended up in your spam folder and you missed it).
{{count}} days later:
Just don't get into trouble for providing financial advice when you should not.