Your Thoughts on CubeTimer 2.0

cubetimer

cubetimer

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Hey guys, my name is Dan - I'm the creator of CubeTimer.com

When I first made it, it was a quick hack I put together for myself. I didn't start with the intention of making it usable for other people, so I took a lot of shortcuts when building it. Over time, some of those shortcuts have become real problems since the site became so popular, and I'm finally getting around to doing something about it.

I realize there are a TON of online timers out there, but I truly believe I'm building something much better. The main reason this hasn't happened sooner, and the primary reason I'm making this post, is that "spare time" is hard to come by for a business-owning father of four :)

I'm trying to find a way to create the best FREE online timer available, but also offer some premium features for a price. I do this stuff for a living, and I know I can build something you'll enjoy. Without getting too much into details, I just wanted to pose the question:

Would you be willing to pay for a really great online timer?

What kind of features would you be willing to pay a premium for? I'm not looking for a particular response - this is more of a fact finding mission. I'm just trying to find a way to fund my desire to build something awesome. Share your thoughts, ask me questions, etc.


Thanks for your time!
Dan
 
Almost nobody would be willing to pay most likely. Pretty much every decent and commonly used timer out there is free, qqTimer, Prisma, csTimer, PPT, jjTimer. However, this is obviously a very broad statement considering I actually don't know what the benefits of paying are, and how the timer works. I'd have to see what it looks like, maybe give a trial for a few weeks to let people grasp how it is?
 
I pay would for something that has achievements. You know, you login or whatever and you get "awards" and compete against other cubers and what not.
I say this because its working pretty well for Xbox and Playstation.
It would kinda make cubers practice more to beat their own times.

If its not complex and fun, I probably wont pay for it.
 
I think "complex" and "fun" are at odds with one another.

I'd also venture to say that there are a lot of timers with a lot of features, but that a lot of those features aren't used much. Something clean, attractive, accurate, easy to use, etc.

I want to be fun, but not complex. I like simple.

As for payment - we all pay for things we enjoy. We've all bought Rubik's Cubes, right? We buy food when we can have a sandwich for free at home. I just want to offer something that's worth it.
 
PandaCuber said:
I pay would for something that has achievements. You know, you login or whatever and you get "awards" and compete against other cubers and what not.
I say this because its working pretty well for Xbox and Playstation.
It would kinda make cubers practice more to beat their own times.

If its not complex and fun, I probably wont pay for it.
Click to expand...

http://twisttheweb.com/
 
Leaderboards are something I've thought about, but of course it would be totally on your honor. There aren't any good ways to validate people aren't posting fake times. Achievements is an interesting idea I actually haven't heard yet, but I'm thinking it may have the same problem. What can you achieve with times that are totally on your honor? I'd like to know what you have in mind...
 
Yes. I'd pay a flat fee of 20$ for a really good timer that had every feature that I wanted.
Problem is, there aren't enough people here that respect the work that goes into it or cares about the few additional features.

My suggestion to you is to not expect a ton of profit from this. In fact, don't expect any. If the community were bigger, I could totally see it being a thing.

This community (unfortunately, in some ways) is a purely social "here's what I made for the community! You like?" rather than "I made something professional and it'd be nice if I didn't waste many hours doing so."
 
StachuK - I've found that to be true, too. Cubers tend to be very young and don't realize it's hard to make anything of quality for free. I appreciate your input. I'm going to give this a shot one way or another, and we'll see what happens. Just trying to gauge the level of interest right now.
 
Many people would. Many people wouldn't. I would pay *if* it was a really good timer.

Problem is, this is not a large enough market that you can truly make it a worthwhile timer. My advice would actually be to try to do something else, maybe related. We have a *lot* of timers, and a lot of people working on them. There are other cubing projects that haven't been attempted, and perhaps you could work on something related that isn't just useful for cubers.
 
I'd pay you 10$ to go through all of the aCube source code, comment it, and tell me how everything works ;)

Porting this to C# is no fun when you don't know what's happening 50% of the time.


EDIT - you know what, raise this to 20$. If it's a good, thorough explanation. Please? :s
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the input guys. As said before, I'll be working to redo this either way - but some of the responses of adjusted my thoughts on how much effort I might be able to warrant putting into it. I recognize it's a hobby, not a living. Not going to make much money here, but it's still fun to build and gratifying to see people use it. If all goes according to plan, CubeTimer may not be the most feature rich app out there, but I aim to have it be the best balance of simplicity, attractiveness, and most commonly needed/used features.

But - time will tell how good my aim is ;)
 
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