Their biggest asset is their name. Who here saw "Radio Shack" and didn't immediately know what the company was about (well, what it used to be about)? Who has never bought something from the Shack, or known someone who has?
Among techies and hobbiests, the name is marketing gold. If they started selling quality components again, everyone and their dog would recommend them because hey, they're Radio Shack. Everyone knows the Shack.
1) Skim through the pages at high speed without wearing down the battery 2) Keep reading through an EMP 3) Knock my library off a high bookshelf onto concrete multiple times without damaging it 4) Lend books to friends and family 5) Read any book hundreds of times without having to recharge it 6) Hurl a book across the room without damaging it 7) Toss a book into a crate and ship it UPS without packaging, and be reasonably certain it will be readable if it ever arrives at its destination 8) Have ten people reading books from my library at the same time 9) In less than two seconds, take a book from the library and hand it to a 90-year-old who's never used an electronic device in their life, and have them start reading it without any problems 10) Sell my books to other people
There are a number of problems to overcome.
1) Jobseekers with fake resumés. Allow employers to filter unsuitable 'hits' and easily request information which has not been supplied.
2) Employers with unrealistic or unsuitable jobs. Allow jobseekers to filter unsuitable 'hits', request information which has not been provided, and provide anonymous feedback (both public and private) about the realism and presentation of a listed job.
3) Middlemen posing as either employers or jobseekers. Make it simple to report abuse and difficult (or expensive) to register and/or operate multiple accounts, abuse the purpose of the site, or pose as an employer or jobseeker with the purpose of wasting other site users' time.
4) Difficulty in communicating between employers and jobseekers. If the site tries to restrict or hide one side from the other, or fails to allow both public and private discussions between all account types, it won't do as well as one which encourages and enhances that direct contact. If the site wants to make money, it can start charging for accounts after it's established a reputation as The Place to Be, or it can provide additional services (RSS feeds, customisable filter systems etc) to paid accounts.
5) There's obviously a market for middlemen - recruiters and whatnot who do the legwork for employers who prefer not to - or they wouldn't exist. So embrace and extend. Explicitly allow those types of accounts. Why keep your own list of potential good employees when you can do it on the site and have it update in realtime? Keep full communication and disclosure available between employers and jobseekers, sure - and if middlemen can still carve out a niche even when their clients can talk directly to one another (and even filter the middlemen out!), let them do it in an upfront manner.
I can think of a couple of likely metaservices, for starters - providing advice on how to classify and write up jobs, and on how to classify/code and write up resumés. With instant feedback, the badly worded and/or coded entries will be slammed, reported and/or receive bad feedback quickly, while service providers with good reputations will grow via word-of-mouth.
Some kind of Ebay-like system? That deals with similar problems (fake listings, deadbeat buyers) in a number of ways.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would I want to buy ANY player with DRM on it? That'd be like buying a car I could only drive by cramming myself into the glovebox.
Their biggest asset is their name. Who here saw "Radio Shack" and didn't immediately know what the company was about (well, what it used to be about)? Who has never bought something from the Shack, or known someone who has? Among techies and hobbiests, the name is marketing gold. If they started selling quality components again, everyone and their dog would recommend them because hey, they're Radio Shack. Everyone knows the Shack.
Let's see - with my current library, I can -
1) Skim through the pages at high speed without wearing down the battery
2) Keep reading through an EMP
3) Knock my library off a high bookshelf onto concrete multiple times without damaging it
4) Lend books to friends and family
5) Read any book hundreds of times without having to recharge it
6) Hurl a book across the room without damaging it
7) Toss a book into a crate and ship it UPS without packaging, and be reasonably certain it will be readable if it ever arrives at its destination
8) Have ten people reading books from my library at the same time
9) In less than two seconds, take a book from the library and hand it to a 90-year-old who's never used an electronic device in their life, and have them start reading it without any problems
10) Sell my books to other people
There are a number of problems to overcome. 1) Jobseekers with fake resumés. Allow employers to filter unsuitable 'hits' and easily request information which has not been supplied. 2) Employers with unrealistic or unsuitable jobs. Allow jobseekers to filter unsuitable 'hits', request information which has not been provided, and provide anonymous feedback (both public and private) about the realism and presentation of a listed job. 3) Middlemen posing as either employers or jobseekers. Make it simple to report abuse and difficult (or expensive) to register and/or operate multiple accounts, abuse the purpose of the site, or pose as an employer or jobseeker with the purpose of wasting other site users' time. 4) Difficulty in communicating between employers and jobseekers. If the site tries to restrict or hide one side from the other, or fails to allow both public and private discussions between all account types, it won't do as well as one which encourages and enhances that direct contact. If the site wants to make money, it can start charging for accounts after it's established a reputation as The Place to Be, or it can provide additional services (RSS feeds, customisable filter systems etc) to paid accounts. 5) There's obviously a market for middlemen - recruiters and whatnot who do the legwork for employers who prefer not to - or they wouldn't exist. So embrace and extend. Explicitly allow those types of accounts. Why keep your own list of potential good employees when you can do it on the site and have it update in realtime? Keep full communication and disclosure available between employers and jobseekers, sure - and if middlemen can still carve out a niche even when their clients can talk directly to one another (and even filter the middlemen out!), let them do it in an upfront manner. I can think of a couple of likely metaservices, for starters - providing advice on how to classify and write up jobs, and on how to classify/code and write up resumés. With instant feedback, the badly worded and/or coded entries will be slammed, reported and/or receive bad feedback quickly, while service providers with good reputations will grow via word-of-mouth. Some kind of Ebay-like system? That deals with similar problems (fake listings, deadbeat buyers) in a number of ways.