Are You A Coder? Hit Me Up!

How about I just post the project here...

Similar to a traffic exchange, but a squeeze page exchange. I was
doing some research on co-registration leads and it occurred to me
that there is a much better way to do things. The scenario would be
that an ezine owner with an email list, or anyone simply looking to
build an email list would come to the site... register... add their
ezine to the rotation... then the system pops out a unique link that
they use as their thankyou page. The ezine owner would then use it as
their re-direct url after a double opt-in confirmation, or as their
actual thankyou page.

The thankyou page would simply have a non-removable banner type thing
up the top or bottom of the page (or both) saying something like...
"Thankyou For Your Subscription To List/Ezine Name, Our Friends In The
Fake Niche Industry Also Run A Highly Reputable Ezine You Might Like
To Take A Look At Below. This Friendly Neighborhood Service Is Brought
To You By [Squeeze Page Exchange]"... And the rest of the page would
be another ezine owner's squeeze page iframed or however, not exactly
sure how that works technologically, but I do now that it would be an
iframe type concept.

The [Squeeze Page Exchange] would by a hyperlinked text with the ezine
owners affiliate link to the squeeze page exchange service. In saying
so, the system would need to incorporate an automatic affiliate
program type setup, so once an ezine owner signs up to the service,
they not only get their automatically generated thankyou page link...
but they also get an automatically generated affiliate link that they
may use to promote the service, of which is also automatically used as
the hyperlink for [Squeeze Page Exchange].

Each time an ezine owner gets a hit to their thankyou page, they
receive "x" amount of credits for showing another ezine owners squeeze
page, this is a reward for helping someone else in the same niche
build their list. Each credit is then used as a token to promote their
ezine on someone else's thankyou page. I was thinking 1 hit would give
the user 5 credits, and each credit is worth 1 squeeze page view. So
as en ezine owner, if I generate 100 new opt-ins per month for my
email list, and as long as I am using the unique "squeeze page
exchange" thankyou page, then my squeeze page would be promoted
through the system 500 times on other people's thankyou page, which is
500 free visitors that I wouldn't normally get, and better yet, niche
targeted.

Each member may add only 1 ezine, any extra would be either a lifetime/
yearly/monthly access of "$x" per extra ezine. Members may also
purchase credits, as some members might not be generating any opt-ins
for themselves and would require a kick-start to their list building
campaign. Any affiliate earnings may be used to buy such things, so
instead of "cashing out", they could simply use their earnings to buy
extra credits, or add extra ezines to the system.

I would also like a notification type system where users get sent
their stats, earnings, and ofcourse a friendly reminder that they may
purchase extra credits, etc... It would be ideal that any new members
are also registered into aweber as new leads, seamlessly. So as soon
as they signup to the squeeze page exchange, they are automatically
added to an aweber list as well.

What are your thoughts? Being list builders, would this be a valuable
service you would use? And being coders... how hard/easy would this
project be to code and get running?

mrozlat, you'll probably best be served by finding a person or two that you can trust, and work with them on getting a functional prototype up and running quickly. You should be able to have a basic system up quickly - we're talking a matter of days (or even hours), not weeks.

As for "asp.net" vs "rails" vs "php" vs anything else - let that be something decided by the person or two that you trust. For the stage you're at, choosing a tech - or being talked in to one on a forum! - before the people who will build it are chosen is putting the cart before the horse.

We're probably going to run a 'how do I choose a contractor' meetup at our local web design group in January, because this is probably one of the most common issues people with biz and app ideas have. You're facing it right now, and there's no easy answers short of networking. It's not a *requirement* that you be face to face with someone at this stage - some interesting startups happen with remote developers - but it's highly recommended (by me) to find someone in your area you can have face to face meetings with.

As for asp.net vs rails vs anything else - they're all good. They all take data input, process it, and spit it out. Someone skilled at ASP.NET will be more productive than a Rails newbie, and someone skilled at PHP will whip the butt off of a mediocre Java developer. Find a talented developer, and let them make the tech decision, because they will be the ones living in that world with you.

FWIW, "(asp.net) is fast and powered by silverlight" is wrong on a few levels, and you need to be wary of being taken in by these sorts of statements. You'll need to take the time to learn *some* of the basics of web tech as you undertake this project, precisely to be able to spot misstatements like this, rather than just going along with them because it sounds impressive. Not saying you've been mislead by this yourself, but I've seen it far too many times in meetings, where the project managers or idea guys nod approvingly, then later admit privately they don't understand what's been said. If you have questions, ask (which you're doing here - just don't forget to keep it up!)

The 37signals book would be a good read, certainly. Perusing sitepointforums.com may be another good place to look for talent or just info on the webdev field.

Good luck.