This sort of leads me to an epiphany -- a large part of what makes new startups interesting (and possibly palatable for acquisition) is how they choose to sort data. I think a good recipe for a startup (in the current climate on the 'net, anyway) is:
Offer a service that happens to build a collection of data.
Find ways to organize that data for your users that are useful, but haven't occurred to anyone before.
To be more precise, these seem more like feature ideas than product/project ideas. He's totally silent on how this stuff would be presented, consumed, or experienced, and how it would fit into the rest of a product.
Sounds like mostly good ideas, with a couple that have already been done, I think:
3) # Give me a listing of all the houses in my city sorted by (value of house/taxes paid). That would go a long way to bringing equity to the assessment system.
txcountydata.com. Let me also add that I don't know that there's a lot of inequity in the system. In my town, the only inequity is that some properties haven't been assessed as recently as others, and that has everything to do with a lack of manpower and the amount of energy a property owner is willing to expend in his defense (i.e., you're not being treated unfairly if you don't even bother to fill out the protest form).
11) Sort car models by crash and repair data.
Consumer Reports has a limited form of this, doesn't it?
"I don't know that there's a lot of inequity in the system."
CA has capped property increasesat a couple percent (3%?), much lower than price appreciation historically. Taxes are only reassessed when sold. So if you move into a house, your neighbor in an identical house next door might be paying half, a quarter, a tenth, or less of the property tax as you. People love the tax cap but it makes moving expensive (b/c of reassessment), encourages only large, expensive housing to be approved, which drives up prices, which exacerbates the tax imbalance, etc.
I'm sure a lot of people would be horrified to know how different the taxation on similar property is. Imagine if you had to pay 30% sales tax when you moved to a new town while old timers were paying 3%.
It's not dissimilar in Texas. I guess I just don't see the inequity here. I suppose one important difference is that there are some municipalities (like mine) that recognize the lost revenue and are trying to get caught up (i.e., assessments change in the absence of a transaction), but even without that, I just don't see it as inequitable.
encourages only large, expensive housing to be approved
Huh? Haven't you heard of D. R. Horton? Maybe the CA real estate market is different because it's freaking insane.
I'm sure a lot of people would be horrified to know how different the taxation on similar property is. Imagine if you had to pay 30% sales tax when you moved to a new town while old timers were paying 3%.
I'm equally sure that a lot of those horrified people would be far less horrified if they understood why things are the way they are (maybe not Californicators, though. If you live in CA, you're probably just horrified all the time).
I've seen large companies not do these either. What you've highlighted are great ideas, and I'm not sure they've been widely implemented (other than as bespoke services).
Traditional rankings of salespeople by turnover could be subject to short-termism, and these type of metrics might give a more balanced view.
Several CRM software companies can easily compile this type of data into nice reports for managers. They usually offer their apps as one huge suite, or you can purchase an "inexpensive" core engine with separate customizable modules (customer, sales, billing, finance, reports, etc.).
I have seen executives balk at the cost of the entire suite, so they decide to purchase the engine and a few modules (customer, sales, and billing) with the intent of purchasing the customized report module "next quarter". Months later, after the funds have disappeared due to lackluster sales, a forest fire, CEO fraud, etc., the lower-level managers hate the software because they think it doesn't provide the functionality they need.
The big trick always seems to be getting the data. Once we've got it, the tools to build an application to analyze it are at the ready. At least they are at the ready for Hacker News readers. :-)
#3 Give me a listing of all the houses in my city sorted
by (value of house/taxes paid). That would go a long way
to bringing equity to the assessment system.
I think that Zillow.com already does something this, don't they? At least they show what houses in the area have been sold for, and what current listing are.
When I watch TV online, recognize the pundit and flash historical accuracy rates on the screen while she talks
Is subtitle data available in a usable form? If so, that would include pundit names. Pulling them out and cross-referencing against sourcewatch or wikipedia doesn't sound impossible.
But I know nothing about TV (yet). Anyone know if this is plausible?
Offer a service that happens to build a collection of data.
Find ways to organize that data for your users that are useful, but haven't occurred to anyone before.