I would like to see a cam site where people pay for foreign language lessons from native speakers.

It would be great to learn and practice Spanish from, let's say, a Colombian and for many languages it would make sense for both parties. It would be inexpensive for the student and good primary or side income for the teacher.

The one drawback would be delivering high quality audio.

What do you guys think?

How do you keep out the wangs? Audio only?

For teachers, only a rudimentary pre-screening would be needed. They would not want to jeopardize their future earnings and have current earnings confiscated if they get banned.

For students... I'm not sure. I guess it would be up to the teachers to report and ban trouble cases, which would make it hard for trouble cases to sign up again unless they used a new name/address. I can see how this is a problem in random free video chat places, but I wonder if it would be that big of a problem on a site where people are giving up their credit card and real name... maybe... In other words, people may show their wang on 4chan, but they do not friend random people to post their wangs on someone's wall. Loss of anonymity is a strong motivator to not act stupid.

I'm just thinking out loud here...

Does it need to be actual teachers and students? I could see it even being a "talk to people in another language", and you pick what languages you speak, and what languages you'd like to speak to, and the other people do the same. Just having conversations with native speakers is helpful. I know in college there were foreign students who offered to pay people to talk to them in English to help them improve their skills.

Seems like it could work with randoms who just choose languages, then do a chat roulette thing, just people dick around.

"Teachers" wouldn't necessarily be real language teachers, but they would be vetted in some way and would need to act professionally. The same sort of people that hang around hostels in foreign countries offering language lessons would be the same sort teaching on the site. (wide variety of qualifications and prices)

The point of the site would be that this is where you come when you are sick of screwing around on random chat programs that are full of randoms, scammers, and people showing you their wangs. You would come to the site with the intention of learning, not for chitchat and to look at boobies. One would load up some credits with credit card, browse teacher profiles, pick one, and begin a semi-structured and - hopefully - regular lessons.

As far as economics, I would think that people would be willing to spend $10-15/hour for individual class or maybe $5/hour for 3-5 person class. So for example, Colombian/Mexican Spanish teacher would get half which would be decent enough to get quality people wanting to do this. Eventually, some sort of economy would emerge with dynamic pricing where high-demand teachers would charge more, and new and low demand teachers would charge less....

That said, it is easy to deliver high quality video these days... but high quality audio seems like it would be a lot harder? Even on Skype, audio is usually sh*t, but maybe they just realize that the attraction of Skype is video and most people don't care about audio?

I had a dream to operate an under-water brothel in some shady always-summer country.

edit: Norwegian combat divers as bodyguards and an underwater sound-system.

the language online thing, isn't that basically http://livemocha.com?

Hmmm... appears to be.

I guess all the good ideas on the Internet are already taken. hehe

I only know the site because someone suggested the same idea to me and we were pretty excited about it until we found it

no comments on my idea

Any comments on my idea? We just launched our kickstarter.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...oker-kothpoker

^ GTL? Really?

What if the idea is good, possible and there is no one doing it, do I see if patenting is possible and license it?

You cannot patent an idea. Rephrase/rethink the broader idea into a comprehensive method.

And, believe me, even if you believe that you have thought about everething regarding your "invention", there will be many times more overlooked details/scenarios.

Pitch it to everybody you sort of trust. To the industry insiders and also to completley random people regarding the industry. Collect lots of feedback and take it into consideration.

Most of what seems obvious to you can be very illogical and confusing to different people.

I had an idea about 4 years ago and thought about it for about 2 years in general terms. Then spent another 2 years writing and rewriting everything, already in talks with a patent-attorney. Later I managed to get a little funding from EU and I was ready to file the application. Maybe 3 months before the application went in I realised that the math of it, which i had done and redone in 2 years was completly wrong and basically the entire method changed.

Now it´s pending and basically what I have to show for it are lots of consepts and papers, 2 animations about the UX and lots of calculations about the profitability + an comprehensive example about an implementation that could/should work well.
So, it´s just the beginning.

One thing you could to if you are serious about it:

Take a big-ass paper. Write the name of the method to the top of the page and write any general idea or direction under it and start expanding every one of those lines. It might help you to get a better grasp on it, although I don´t know what you are planning.

How about a Webvan-type service but instead of delivering to your home they deliver to your office? I'm thinking of business parks and such where many large office buildings are clustered in a small area.

The primary focus would be providing goods from Trader Joes, Whole Foods and Costco. Have designated days for each store, so for example on Wednesdays you deliver from Trader Joes. People place their order by 3 pm and you roll up around 5 pm, park in the lot and people come pick up their stuff. Use prepaid accounts so you're not handling cash.

Charge, what? Maybe $10? Different rates depending on how many items? I'd gladly pay $10 to save myself a trip to Costco after a long day at work. I have co-workers who pay $25-$30 a pop for TaskRabbits to shop for them, and know a lot of people who work long hours these days in an effort to keep their jobs who I believe would fork over a few bucks to save themselves an hour of shopping after work.

My buddy and his wife are thinking of trying this. He's fixing up a Sprinter van and they've also got a minivan.