1) If someone else is doing it that's good, in fact preferable. You are probably not the only person to have had a given idea, ergo if someone else is making money at it you probably can too.
2) Focus on the building core of the product. Don't worry about the attendant features, just...distill your idea down to its barest essence and start with that. Forget scalability, fee structuring, user account management...just put all that stuff on a shelf for now. Get a proof of concept working. Have other people look at it. Float it to your friends here at HN.
3) Think about how much you need to make? You don't need to be "the next XXX" to have a lot of fun and make great money. A million in revenue isn't worth any of the company's you mentioned attention (well, maybe MySpace), but it's a big deal to a tiny company.
1) If someone else is doing it that's good, in fact preferable. You are probably not the only person to have had a given idea, ergo if someone else is making money at it you probably can too.
2) Focus on the building core of the product. Don't worry about the attendant features, just...distill your idea down to its barest essence and start with that. Forget scalability, fee structuring, user account management...just put all that stuff on a shelf for now. Get a proof of concept working. Have other people look at it. Float it to your friends here at HN.
3) Think about how much you need to make? You don't need to be "the next XXX" to have a lot of fun and make great money. A million in revenue isn't worth any of the company's you mentioned attention (well, maybe MySpace), but it's a big deal to a tiny company.
This book here mentions a lot of what I'm saying: http://www.amazon.com/Business-Software-Manager-Programmer-E...
It's well worth the money.