Close To Open Up For Early Users

Hey!

Yes, sorry, I've been busy, but the site is underway. I've had more time to spend on the site recently and I for one want to for sure open it up so people can start using it, and also help us all by giving me feedback on it. Early users will also have some extra benefits! :)

I also, want to do it as early as possible, so I don't work on things on the site that people don't care as much about. However, being the only guy working on it, it takes time, and I do want to make it functional first. Basic, but functional. Being able to add title, description, images/screenshots, upload files and have the whole payment system working.

Most of the things are pretty straight forward, but I also like to think one extra time about things so I don't have to redo too much later.

I can't wait to get this open to the public, because then the fun begins!

About the Marketplace

So, what is this site that is coming about?

When I stumbled upon Go just over a year ago now, I just fell in love with it. Being a software developer myself, I noticed that the guys behind Go, Robert Griesemer, Rob Pike and Ken Thompson, really had thought hard about this new language. Now, it's not perfect by any means, but after doing a Bitcoin site myself in Go and seeing all nice things about this language, I can see it has a lot of potential. Not to mention mobile and cross-compiling support. The fact that it compiles to a binary is just super, and something I worked around by embedding the interpreter in other languages. I have a long list of other pros, but I will save that for another time.

And now, only 1 year later, I see an explosion of more and more new cool things coming out that are made in Go. And, I wanted to create something that would let me be more involved with Go myself. I figured it could be quite cool if I created a marketplace that helps us all both ways:

• People can make money by making cool products/projects/templates in Go. It's a nice incentive if nothing else right? You get money for you hard work, and who knows, you might actually end up making a living out of it. How cool wouldn't that be? This isn't all that impossible actually. Especially if you are early, as obviously I hope the site I'm building will grow large.
• And on the other spectrum, people will buy because it will save them so much time to not do it themselves. They can focus on what they really want to do. I know from personal experience (since I'm a coder myself) that even though the code in the end might look simple, there are most likely many hours work behind because of testing it and making sure it works as intended. Also, as a developer, you spend a lot of time thinking about the problems you are trying to solve or that show up while working on whatever you are doing, to make the solution better. Meaning, more time is spend on it that it might look like. Point here is that all this time is saved by whoever buys instead. And, because it's paid for, and hopefully more importantly, the creator will be more and more inspired to continue improving and work on it because he/she loves the creation and just how simple and amazing developing in Go is. Money paid for it is nothing per buyer, but it adds up for the creator making it worth it.

The site is currently ongoing and I'm posting this to actually ask my potential users on how you would like a site like this to work. Both for those that want to sell and buy on it. I really want to make it slick and THE Go-to place for high quality, smart and cool things made in Go. I even have a design of the site in progress right now, so feedback here might help me with how the site should look like as well. I’m bootstrapping everything myself, so it will start basic, but have all the essentials. Only to become better with time.

I really do want to create this for my users. Here are a few things I'm been wondering about.

1. How would you like to use this site? A .zip or use git?
   
   I might just start with a simple .zip solution. Again, I want to get feedback early and build it for my users, and integrating git type of usage might be better in the long run as it might involve better work flow between user feedback of bugs and features and making the updates by the creator. But it will take a while to get in place, so a simple .zip might suffice for now.
   
   
2. What kind of licenses would you like to have?
   
   This is tricky, but in loose terms I will probably do like other marketplaces does. Cheapest price if for own private use, 10 times more for when end users can be charged for and like 100-1000 times more to be able to resell it yourself. I also think that it would be cool for people to be able create some kind of template, that others can buy and build upon, and would be able to resell on the site. Not sure how such license would be made, so it's a good license for everybody, but I think it would be cool to have that possibility. That way things will only get better and better, and more valuable with time.
   
   
3. Price models. On other markets, users normally pay once, and get updates for free. I like this model. Especially since the creator will probably increase the price with time as whatever is created will become better and better. And buyers like it because they get it for a good price and free updates forever.
   
   If you have other models, please do tell.
   
   
4. I'm also very interested in the best way to protect the work people do. Any idea here beyond having a secure site is welcome. I mean, there really is nothing I could do if someone buys something and just torrent it. I would like to think though, that those that buy think it's worth the money, and it's small and affordable anyway. And, since you paid for it, why just give it away for free? It will hurt you and the creator in the long run. Thing is, if you buy, and many like it and buy, the creator would love to continue working on it which benefits you back as you get improvements (for free). If you paid for it and shared it online, the creator might just give up on it, and you lose as the creator won't improve it any more. And let's be honest, no software will ever be perfect...
   
   
5. Related to #4 is that the creator could actually potentially only upload the binary, but I think most of us would like to have the source so we can look at it and build it ourselves because who can trust just a binary otherwise, right? Building yourself in Go is very simple also. And, the idea is that you have all you need when you get it. To build, you only need Go itself. This could potentially also be a license and a price thing. Source a bit more expensive naturally.

I will make as much as possible up to the user to decide. And feedback here will help me with what you people would like to see in such site.

What do you people say? Anything else on your mind regarding this I'm listening to as well.

Thanks!

Hello!

Well, hello world!

So, things are in progress with the main site...but I figured this blog could also be useful every now and then...

Hope you like the header I made in Blender 2.75a.