Unvalidated Ideas #011

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ChangeLogLog - Ecosystem summaries for developers

Software moves really fast. Keeping up with just the software you have installed is a mammoth task, never mind all the new software that is being improved, refined and released every day.

Development and security teams are awash in a sea of bugfixes, feature releases, and slight changes. Save them from this pain by producing a roll up of important changes to the software they use.

Even just a combined list of release notes would be useful, but what developers would love is a summarized and reduced compilation.

If you can go one step further, make the decision of what package versions they should update to, and when it makes sense for them, and you'll be loved by the developer community.

There are multiple use cases/avenues:

• Staying on top of feature releases (new awesome things about your software)
• Finding out when you have to update a piece of software (security breaches/problems)
• Watching out for deprecations and knowing where you must clamp versions (preventing breakage)

The market for a product like this is huge -- basically everyone that uses software! -- but finding the biggest niches who care to have progress rolled up for them will be the hard part.

The advertising revenue opportunities are large just like the market. An in-email advertisement, along with a premium ad-free, summarised and enterprise-grade emails could generate great revenue for just one niche (let's say Java's Spring Framework or Ruby on Rails), now imagine having many niches under one roof! The targeting opportunities are endless, and completely above-board (in my mind) since they're based on interests and business relevance.

You'll probably have to build a somewhat custom email crafting automation but this is the kind of knowledge product that would be no-brainer for any tech organization (even if it's just checking a box), and could be charged for per-seat.

Read my raw notes >

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Victor (vados@vadosware.io)