Created API demo for Medium.com... but...
by Jon YongfookBuilt another quick demo over the weekend to showcase the capabilities of my API.
This one takes a medium.com article url and auto generates some social media assets for it, within a couple of seconds:
https://www.bannerbear.com/demos/mediumformat/
Try it out with any medium.com post you like! (p.s. it doesn't work with medium articles on custom domains, unfortunately - it's just for articles on the medium.com domain or subdomain)
This demo is strategically important as I would love to sign up some publishing platforms or media portals to Bannerbear. So this is a pretty relatable demo for business folks at those kinds of companies.
But...
...I don't know about you guys but I'm sure there's others who feel this way. This past week I've been feeling some existential conflicts. So many people are falling sick, so many people are losing their jobs, the world is slowly falling apart...
I feel like I should be doing more to help. I'm super happy with my product and its new direction, now I'm just trying to think if there's a context / application for it that can be more helpful to people who might be looking for new sources of income.
Note that I'm not looking to build anything directly Covid19 related. Frankly I've felt uncomfortable as a member of the maker community in the last week as I see 18 different "corona tracker" sites pop up. The intentions behind these kinds of things are probably genuine, but personally I don't think they help, I think these mini projects at best distract people from getting information from official sources, and at worst just oil the wheels of panic.
The space I'm in right now is, how do I help some one who is out of work put together a little bit of income.
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Crap, that's awesome. Any plans to support custom domains?
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Thanks! But sorry, no plans for that. This is just a simple tech demo so I want to keep the scope focused. If I started allowing custom domains to be used in the demo, then I would have to perform additional checks to ensure that I’m looking at a medium page - whereas currently that’s just taken for granted as I only allow medium.com urls.
That said, there is absolutely nothing stopping someone from using my API and building a tool exactly like this that does work with medium custom domains. Part of the reason I’m keeping the scope of these demos limited is to leave space for others to create something better!
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Hey @yongfook!
You are helping more than you might think... 👇
I am putting together an initiative to help non-techie business owners start selling online on the run, taking them by the hand from zero to hero!
I was checking Bannerbear API last week seems to me a great tool for non-techies to generate compelling images and banners.
Same with https://hypotenuse-ai.com/ for descriptions.
You can see the landing page at https://ineedmyshop.com/, planning to provide it in English and Spanish, still work in progress, feel free to constructively tear it apart :)
Just wanted to let you know that at least, indirectly, you are definitely helping!!! :)
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Firstly, congratulations on shipping the demo.
Re "how do I help some one who is out of work put together a little bit of income," I'm going to brain dump some ideas - feel free to ignore them all:
I think one way you could help is teaching how you're making these APIs and how you're building the product generally. Not a short term solution, but I think there are a decent number of people with more spare time looking to improve their skills and employability for what's likely to be a tough job market.
Some sort of marketplace could also help people with design skills earn some income. Maybe a template marketplace or a service that matches designers with some of your customers who want custom templates designed. Not at all easy to pull off though.
A simpler option, if possible, is to hire someone (maybe part time) to help with development, content, or whatever else could push the business forward.
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The first idea is very interesting to me since I run careermove.io. Can I DM you on Twitter?
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Hi Ramy, thanks for the reply!
Regarding teaching, I feel like if anything, there is an overabundance of materials on this right now. I just don't know how my "build an API" tutorial would be any different from the 100s already out there. I guess in a way it's always a positive thing to add to a pool of free resources for people to improve their skills. Even if there's overlap with other content. I'll keep this one in mind.
Marketplace is an interesting idea. The need has cropped up already - I've had users already tell me that they have no design skills and they need more templates in the system. The est way to scale that would be a marketplace. I think the earning potential would be limited though. I'm not a huge platform like Canva, I'm a niche API product so the kind of sales volume a template designer could get from my platform would be small. There's definitely a seed of an idea here though, perhaps it just needs a could of tweaks to go from an interesting idea to a great idea :)
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You can still try to get their affiliate networks. I did the same job for my content based website of golireviews that hosted on WordPress.
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I also think about this from time to time. It always comes back to creating jobs, how can I create jobs for people? Running a successful business that can hire is one option, creating some kind of marketplace where people can sell their existing skills/products is another.
The marketplace concept seems most impactful. Is there a niche skill you could create a marketplace for (like, personal tutors for learning a language)? The problem here is in order to make it effective, you have to find people selling their services and people also looking to buy the said services. So you'd have two audiences you need to attract.
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hi asebold, thanks for your thoughts. to be clear, I'm not looking for a brand new idea. I'm looking to see how I can use my product to help more people in this current climate.
There is scope for some kind of Marketplace model to work with Bannerbear.com ... and as I mentioned in the other comment, I really like that idea. Just got to let it percolate.
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Hai Jon, I've been following your work since you started the 12 month challenge, and it's been really inspiring to see how your work and thinking evolve. This is perhaps a little selfish, but I wonder if you can help aspiring indiepreneurs to get started, perhaps by spending a little time on advising or reviewing projects?
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Hi weiwei, thanks for your thoughts. I'm hesitant to do this as, similar to my reply to Ramy I feel there's a wealth of information out there already on "how to build products". But if enough people are interested in my personal take on it, then maybe.
My intention is to somehow use Bannerbear to have a positive impact outside of the maker community though.
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ahhh I see! I misunderstood your post then. I think the suggestions above are great.
I look forward to seeing what's next with Bannerbear!
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