Sometimes a project can just be about supporting other projects. »

The next project I'm about to layout details on related to wow.ly is URIData.com.

URIData is a bit unique within the wow.ly universe because it's not really a consumer focused project, but rather a developer focused one. That is, it's a web service that's only really useful to developers.

In fact the only reason it's even included under the wow.ly umbrella is because it was born out of, and supports, the needs of many of the other wow.ly projects (especially timelylinks.com). Since it's a simple, reusable service that fits in-line with the overall 'data collection' intention of wow.ly I figured it made sense to release it as it's own project as well.

With that in mind, there's not much useful information that can be filled out in the questionnaire about this project.

URIdata

What it offers:

A simple web service that returns basic data about any supplied Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).

What makes it unique:

It will expand and provide details about URI from most any URI shortening service.

Emotional tie to client:

Simple developer focused tool. Does one job, quick and simple.

Why and who should purchase:

N/A.

Where to find prospects:

N/A.

How to sell:

N/A.

Cost to reach 100X required customers:

N/A.

Expected conversion rate:

N/A.

How much it costs:

Free.

How many clients are needed to make 100k (or break even):

N/A.

Estimated time to reach 100k:

N/A.

Resources needed:

Server to host web site and run code.

Existing competition:

There are multiple API in the market that allow for expansion of certain short URI services, but none that I currently know of that are generic and all encompasing like URIData.com is.

Current Subscribers:

N/A.

Current Income:

N/A.

Current Resources:

Server to host web site and run code.

Other Notes:

This product was really built to server internal needs of other wow.ly products, but has a nice side effect of allow us to collect a large amount of data about URIs around the internet.

Next 3 Steps:

1. Better handle various response codes (ie. 404s, 200s, etc.)

2. Handle unreachable addresses (ie. things behind a proxy or paywall?)

3. Handle 'obivous' non URI values

Estimated time to complete 3 steps:

1 day.


Probably the most important thing to note about this project is that sometimes worthwhile projects aren't so much about how to treat them as businesses. Sometimes the need/value of a project comes from them supporting your other initiatives.

In this case, we needed URIData for oursevles, and it was very low cost/high potential value to also let others have it.