Startup idea: help people avoid buying books (without infringing copyright).

3 pointsamichail3 comments

Given a book as the query, the service would return a collection of web links to comparable free content on the web.

I guess the main issue is this: what motivation can one use to encourage people to maintain such book-centered link collections for the benefit of others?

Perhaps an advertisement-based profit-sharing system might work?

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It is called a search engine. Cuts out the need for manual submissions and skirts copyright issues by claiming to offer an unrelated service (indexing).

Yes, but there's effort involved in using it. A student would appreciate having a collection of links available as an alternative to a textbook say.

Sounds like you're describing curated search for a particular set of queries (text books). Isn't this a subset of what Mahalo does?

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