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Show HN: VidFall – Pay with time, not your wallet

30 pointsby badgercapitalalmost 11 years ago

15 comments

dkycalmost 11 years ago
The age old problem that the demographic that watches video ads for .50$ is not the demographic you want to advertise to...
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bengali3almost 11 years ago
Clean and i got the message in 3 seconds. I would guess your viewers will result in lower conversion rates for the advertisers when viewed from your page. Not sure how to handle that if advertisers notice.<p>Also, since your whole pitch is about the $$$ your leaderboard should be tied to $ somehow instead of just # of watches. That&#x27;s more for your own dashboard. (ie highlight the wins, not the amount of pain other users have been put through)
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chatmastaalmost 11 years ago
These business models usually face a problem of one ad view not being enough to incentivize someone to watch it. I like the penny auction spin you put on that. Clever.<p>That said, is your ad network aware of this and okay with it?<p>How do you verify these are real viewers? There are a lot of &quot;attack&quot; vectors here... automated servers + proxies, or even just somebody with a clickbot on their home computer cycling through videos and buying an item once its price goes below what they can sell it for elsewhere?<p>Also, why would your users not just buy giftcards at any number of the discount gift sites, many of which offer higher discounts than you, without the need to watch a video?<p>I&#x27;m very curious about the economics here, because I find it hard to imagine you could win all these &quot;startup of the month&quot; type accolades without thinking this through.
Dragonaialmost 11 years ago
I like that the competitive edge doesn&#x27;t feel very pressuring. Cool idea, I&#x27;ll keep an eye on this site.<p>Also just a quick note - the copy on the About Us section could use some slight sentence structure and organization checking. :) The end in particular reads a little strangely:<p>&gt; We even feature charity auctions, which apply the revenue users generate from watching video ads towards great causes around the world. Thanks for your interest in VidFall. Founded in September 2013, VidFall is a portfolio company of Wasabi Ventures, LLC.
sadkingbillyalmost 11 years ago
How does this not violate the terms of your affiliate agreements?<p>Are the video ads from direct clients of yours or through a general affiliate program?
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ChrisArchitectalmost 11 years ago
In Time (2011) - &quot;... To avoid overpopulation, time has become the currency and the way people pay for luxuries and necessities....&quot;
aaron987almost 11 years ago
I honestly don&#x27;t see the benefit of this. If I understand it correctly, a bunch of people watch ads, causing the price to go down. But only one person gets the discounted price, and everyone else who sat there watching ads gets nothing? In other words, the majority of people using the site get no benefit.
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nacsalmost 11 years ago
First time I loaded the page, I got some massive text in the middle of the page that said:<p><pre><code> Error 500 CDbConnection failed to open the DB connection. </code></pre> Should look into caching that front page or at least handling DB errors more gracefully.
nicksergeantalmost 11 years ago
Wow, I&#x27;m quite impressed. I bought the $100 restaurant gift card (for $30). They sent it to me tonight, but it was only for $50. I emailed them, and they responded within 8 minutes with the remaining $50.<p>Kudos to their customer support.
neil_salmost 11 years ago
Really cool concept! I want to try it out, just for the game theory aspects of it.<p>Has anyone successfully received the items they ordered off of this?
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badgercapitalalmost 11 years ago
Wow, well thank you HN for the support. Really incredible to be on the front page. You guys blew up AWS! Cleaned up the DB issues! Let&#x27;s party!
llamatabootalmost 11 years ago
Bought an Amazon gift card to test it out. Says it will arrive in 24 hours. Would be nice if instant, but looks good so far!
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obisw4nalmost 11 years ago
Its very hard to trust this website when there is a massive misrepresentation of the number of viewers.
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galuggusalmost 11 years ago
Who do you use for your ad network?
brandonpindulicalmost 11 years ago
This is awesome