Teachers sell their original work online - Jun 28, 2006

Do you do any development work? Good enough to sell? It might be now.

I've seen sites like this in the past and the quality has been terrible. However, TeachersPayTeachers.com seems to have a slightly better model, due to the implementation of a social rating system. Like the news site, Digg, this site allows users to rate materials.

Something like this would be an impetus for me to do more original development work. I find that I get lazy if give the opportunity. The ability to make a little coin on my work would be welcomed.

Unfortunately, I don't think that I'd ever sell enough to recoop my the yearly fee. Teachers are a cheap bunch. I don't think this is by choice, it's by necessity. We don't get paid much. How many of you would go out and buy a lesson with your own money? Not many of you.

If the schools bought subscriptions for their faculties, that would be something that you could sell. I'm not sure how people would get paid on a subscription model, but it's worth a look.

digg

digg

Wow! I dig Digg.

The first time I went to this site I just thought, "big deal another news aggregator." Today, however, I got lost for the first time in it and I've fallen in love.

Google really does a great job at aggregating the news, but this site goes way beyond and pushes news based on user submissions and feedback. How cool.

MySpace to Add Restrictions to Protect Younger Teenagers - New York Times

MySpace to Add Restrictions to Protect Younger Teenagers - New York Times

Will it make a difference? Won't predators just sign up as a 13 year old? I don't get it. Either get serious about confirming the identities of your users or just let it be. This band aid approach will just make some people complacent.

Approaches like those implemented by Korean mega-service, Cyworld, require identity confirmation. This, combined with MySpace's new policy, would go a long way in "protecting" children on these sites. Hopefully, Cyworld's U.S. debut will continue this very effective approach and then MySpace might have to follow suit.