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Building a .com in 24 hours

dominiek.com — This is about how I spend 24 concentrated hours spread out over 4 days during Holidays to build the online service Wigitize.com. What I tried to do for this project is use some new methods/tools out there to solve practical problems in my weakness area: design, frontend coding, system administration and SEO.

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  • johanm, on 01/08/2008, -5/+67very nice work. although this would probably take me about 24 days and not 24 hours.
  • cvonwallenstein, on 01/08/2008, -1/+16Pretty slick. It's nice to see the API was reasonably well thought out. Too often, it's "o0o0o shiny graphics" with no meat underneath with these rapid prototypes.
    • LegalSatire, on 01/08/2008, -2/+31It's nice to see a "Web 2.0" website that isn't expecting to be the be-all, end-all of their trade. This guy seems to appreciate that he's just practicing, and isn't out to secure some venture capital and dash. I don't need to see another 40 YouTube clones, and how many sites can build their model EXACTLY like digg?
  • secretmode, on 01/08/2008, -9/+2awsome.
  • gr33k, on 01/08/2008, -18/+4Looks pretty cool...reminds me of a site I log on to everyday...what's it called again? uhmmm oh yeah Digg!
    • adooga, on 01/08/2008, -2/+26Yeah. Except that it resembles digg in no visual or functional way whatsoever.
      • gr33k, on 01/08/2008, -8/+1Fonts, and how you upload remind me of Digg
        • BlueCyclone, on 01/08/2008, -1/+9Does Google also somehow remind you of Digg?
          • gr33k, on 01/08/2008, -5/+1what a dumb comment back...look at the ***** article....then look at where you upload....now stupid....go to digg and submit an article WOW it looks the ***** same!
          • PetroSan, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5if you mean that is also has an input field then yes. absolutely the same.
  • EpidemiK, on 01/08/2008, -53/+3Very true, we have become quite desensitized and my take on why it's considered such a big deal is that the personification of dogs as the family pet and protector of people has become a part of everyday life for most people. I'm seeing people with dogs as pets constantly. It must be that people have been conditioned to believe that pets are cute and cudly and to see them destroyed for whatever reason is not right.

    Although my opinion is that no one person, or animal should be killed without proper reason. When I say proper reason, I mean many things, like if the animal is euthanized because it's going to die anyway or if it's in self-defense.

    What scares me is that people have been conditioned also to witness fellow humans killed and this isn't by accident. There is more and more, if you do the research, a police state forming in the US and pretty soon we will be in a locked down control grid. They already have the military coming into towns and running drills on people. Sweeping neighborhoods to take peoples weapons. They are training kids too by sweeping schools, arresting children, conditioning them basically to accept the soon to be global nazi world.

    I know this is totally off the topic we were on but we need to wake up folks and realize that within the next few years if we don't stand up and fight this we will all be slaves. If you do the research they are already talking about reducing the population of the world by 80%. The global elites will run our lives completely, there will be no cash either. We will not be able to own land and actually that's already in place, the government can take your land from you whenever they want. Why do you think there is a big movement on the enviornment? It's all done to steal land from us under the pretext that they care about the environment when it's the furthest thing from the truth.

    Speaking of how this movie makes it out like Frank Lucas was evil cause he brought in drugs, well the government brings in most of the drugs and then tries to make it out like we the citizens are the evil ones. They do this on purpose to creat chaos then they offer the solution to brainwashed people that they will step in and take care of them, but they created the chaos to begin with. Perfect example of a recent situation like this is 9/11 which was a completely fabricated, inside job pulled off by the global elites and blamed on patsy's that were actually CIA agents. Do the research, the information is there but you won't see it on the news at 6 because the global elites own the mainstream media and obviously you will not be told what they don't want you to know. We need to wake up and realize that things like Homeland Security and The Patriot Act are total frauds that viserize our constituion completely and rob us of our rights.

    Wake up people because time is running out. I read somewhere that they plan to have us in a total police state by 2010. Do a search on how soon the military will be policing our country and there will be check points just like Nazi-Germany where you have to present papers and so on or you could be arrested and sent to camps where they can do whatever they want with you, including torture you without any warrants, or charges. They can even kill you and you people all allowed for these things to happen because your brainwashing over 9/11. It's like we all signed a contract for something without reading the fine print and when we start to say no, it'll be too late because all they will have to do is point out the Patriot Act and so on and say "well, you agreed to it".

    We are in alot of trouble people. This is why I felt I had to change this subject and tell you this and I implore you to take this seriously because it's real and spread the information. Also, if there is another so-called Terrorist act soon, DO NOT believe it was some foreign element, because even if it is, they are most likely in co-operation with the US government/Global elites.

    Also, there is a cure for cancer, has been for along time. There is a cure for AIDS too. Also AIDS is a man-made, CIA germwar fare disease, which is why it's so rampant in poor countries like India and Africa where the elites want those people to be taken out because they consider them undesirable.

    Do the research people. Wake up. Stop believing the mainstream news cause it's all lies. The real news is out there but you have to work to find it. If you enjoy freedom on even a small level, get going and learning these things and spreading the information because soon we will not even have a bit of freedom.
    • LmaoTzu, on 01/08/2008, -3/+23LmaoTzu *****-Insane-O-Meter (patent pending) reading: CRITICAL
    • flamingbird, on 01/08/2008, -3/+8Did you post this in the wrong spot chief?
      • LmaoTzu, on 01/08/2008, -3/+12Yeah, normally this stuff is written in feces on the walls of asylums [or on PrisonPlanet]
    • dadm110, on 01/08/2008, -1/+5Holy *****, nice essay. By the way, what the flaming ***** are you talking about?
      Also, LmaoTzu, you cracked me up.
    • sq2shooter, on 01/08/2008, -2/+3Holy crap you are a moron. If you actually believe that conspiracy crap, you need help fast.
    • Djharlock, on 01/08/2008, -1/+1Er did mother hen fly the coop?
    • davidrossiii, on 01/09/2008, -1/+1You are retarded.
  • MikeonTV, on 01/08/2008, -4/+80Nice way to get people to test your website.
  • Emused, on 01/08/2008, -13/+8Lets see if the fine folks at ICANN (InterNIC) can keep up to that hectic pace. (cough cough) DNS propagation alone takes 24hrs.
    • has2k1, on 01/08/2008, -2/+2124 hrs in 4 days.
    • ravage86, on 01/08/2008, -1/+17You can register a domain and have it work everywhere instantly. DNS propagation is only really a problem when you're changing DNS records, not creating them.
      • mooey, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5Even changing DNS records is not a problem if you change the TTL before hand.
        • ravage86, on 01/08/2008, -0/+3Usually true, but some naughty ISPs ignore that and cache it longer.
          • lcmatt, on 01/08/2008, -3/+1Last domain I registered took around 10 minutes to propagate, Its lightning fast these days.
          • rastakid, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1I don't think you understand the point here: even though the RFCs say the TTL value is used to control DNS caching, some broken DNS servers ignore that value and *still* cache for a longer period of time. How do you know your domain propagated to all ISPs flawlessly? Ofcourse, as you said yourself, this only holds truth when you're *changing* records.
  • OKeric, on 05/12/2008, -7/+2Well I guess his site is down already... the digg effect even after having to copy and paste the link.
  • Uncle_Joe, on 01/08/2008, -1/+8Good job on the site and good read on the post.
  • dtd00d, on 01/08/2008, -3/+50Or perhaps 24 seconds: http://www.something.com
  • andrewcsayer, on 01/08/2008, -6/+1I've seen million dollar .com's wiped out in 18hrs and less.
    • lazyfisherman, on 01/08/2008, -4/+0Names? Please elaborate.
    • inf0, on 01/08/2008, -5/+1Wipe your bottom lip, you're drooling.

    • jonesyb, on 01/08/2008, -2/+2So *****! Does that take away from this very inspiring piece of work that probably cost the lad a web address and a cheap hosting package.
  • xdvx, on 01/08/2008, -2/+5Probably error page http://dominiek.com/assets/2008/1/6/Picture_62.png will be used soon
  • jonesyb, on 01/08/2008, -1/+4Simply stunning. Very inspiring too. It makes me think there is hope for people like me. I want to now get off my arse and do something like this.

  • majglow, on 01/08/2008, -2/+4My internet startup is taking a bit longer than 24 hours :'(

    Granted... it is a bit more complicated.
    • DMCLP, on 01/08/2008, -1/+6^^ Yeah, Mine has taken 18+ years and not counting.
      Something to do with always growing/experimenting,etc...
      It'll never be complete...
      LOL
      • DMCLP, on 01/08/2008, -2/+3Oh yeah, If anyone has some Venture Capital to throw may way. That would be awesome!!!!
        • ravage86, on 01/08/2008, -3/+4Oh, you'll let me give you money? How much am I allowed to give you. Can I please send you about 10 million to start. If that's too much I understand, I just really want to send you at least something.
      • raynar, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5Try and get on a national computer tech show, and advertise your site for free without having to pay any marketing at all...oh wait, thats been done...
        • strictnein, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1Don't forget to forget to mention that you're involved with the site!
    • zongamin, on 01/08/2008, -7/+2yours is ***** though
  • Billistic, on 01/08/2008, -7/+2Ok so it's a tool that makes rss feeds for sites that have content that runs from a database?

    Don't most systems that have database pulled content usually have RSS support?
    • thailand1972, on 01/08/2008, -2/+1Exactly. I've created my own RSS reader for my own sites, and I know a lot of developers who have developed their own, or use a 3rd party app. This is nothing new. It's neatly presented, but I don't really get the 24 hour angle. It's a 3 page website (probably takes a few hours to make) and the tool itself would have taken the most time. More like 24 hours to make a web app.
  • Goobernutz, on 01/08/2008, -4/+4they should have put in at least 10 more minutes coming up with a colour scheme that doesn't induce nausea. or maybe i shouldn't have just read that "Moments Before Cup Chicks" thread. i got poop on the brain.
    • rboyce, on 01/08/2008, -0/+5Ugh, I took "poop on the brain" a bit too literally at first there.
  • galleryfront, on 01/08/2008, -1/+4Is it just me or are most popular digg stories about 30 hours delayed when compared to other social news sites? (I say other... i only really visit digg, reddit and slashdot).
    • Dantetheinferno, on 01/08/2008, -0/+3Eh. It's the nature of the beast.
      Popular stories have to come from SOMEWHERE, and so that's auto delayed.
      Then one of the stories has to climb out of pre-frontpage hell. Takes on average 5-10hours.
      Unless it's super popular and super current (Obama winning iowa for instance)
  • solistus, on 01/08/2008, -7/+2I wonder how long it would have taken to get this thing working in PHP. Ruby on Rails is truly amazing.
    • zammit, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1LT 30 minutes
      how friggin hard/time consuming is it to probe a domain for possible RSS feeds... then give users a few "options" through an "API"
  • johnnysaucepn, on 01/08/2008, -2/+12So, basically it's a duplicate of this? http://widgets.opera.com/widgetize/start
    • Grogtron, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2Pretty much but without the title bar whoring for a third party.
  • dichotom, on 01/08/2008, -1/+8And here I was all proud of a joomla site I setup over the holidays
  • FoxFaction, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1Do this, remove some of the caring, make it affordable to an average person, market it to the average joe/jill and you'll make millions of dollars.
  • misterFR33ZE, on 01/08/2008, -4/+16This is how I disguised a shameless plug as a how-to guide to get traffic for my website! lol

    I'm sure this will help many though, so good for you.
    • jashby2, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2I found some of the tips very useful. e.g. Firebug...I haven't installed this yet, but it looks extremely helpful.
      • zammit, on 01/09/2008, -0/+2firebug rocks. esp. paired w/ the web dev toolbar. excellent debugging tools.
  • dadm110, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1Dugg for subtle references to theoakmonster.com and wine library tv.
  • u2wedge, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2feeds say 'NaN days ago'... glitch?
    • solistus, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2NaN is a common error code for Not a Number.... Yeah, probably a glitch.
    • zammit, on 01/09/2008, -0/+2glitch? in programming that's referred to as a bug...
      NaN happens when you don't check your vars properly
  • elitemrp, on 01/08/2008, -3/+4I'm not impressed.. 24 hours is way too fast. I started a new site in December of 2005 and it's still "coming soon" and has 1 page... Pace yourself man!
  • DigitalRealm, on 01/08/2008, -0/+7Man, it is great to see something WORTH READING finally hitting Digg for a change. Great article, and this guy clearly did this for the learning experience, which I can appreciate.
  • cbartlett, on 01/08/2008, -7/+2Rails FTW
  • Shaggy63, on 01/08/2008, -1/+6Yawn.
  • w3bsmith, on 01/08/2008, -0/+6and then you blogged about it here to help promote it ...
  • msergeant, on 01/08/2008, -0/+19That's nothing, you should see what Jack Bauer can do in 24 hours !

    Damnit Chloey, I need you to route the digg traffic through the secure subnet, we can't let them access the mainframe !
  • everymahn, on 01/08/2008, -0/+3Send 2 more hours implementing decent hosting/bandwidth with load balancing - all that work just to watch the site crash and burn?
  • binhcan, on 01/08/2008, -2/+4Cool stuff, dugg it, but really... it couldn't take the load from digg alone, how can it deal with the real traffic?
  • mrfunkeye, on 01/08/2008, -6/+2Being a professional webdeveloper I am building my own .com in my spare time. Been busy for over a year now and just finished the signup logic and user database.

    Not that I am a lousy programmer, but because I do not want to get pwned or being hit by the digg-effect in the very first hours. I even threw away the first version and started from scratch again because there were some fundamental flaws in the code and database design.

    Still busy with security issues such as input filtering and credentials, when finished and fully satisfied I start looking at the application logic itself and then connect one to another. This way I can make changes to each of the components (security / application logic) without messing up the other.

    I am not in a hurry, beter safe than sorry.
    • Nextrix, on 01/08/2008, -1/+2Exactly that is the best way to play it out, than just relying on a framework to do the work in the areas you never thought should exist. Frameworks are only good for programmers that can understand how they work internally and not a new learner to the code in general. Frameworks have only 2 purposes, 1 reduce production time, and 2 make a more standards complaint code structure, something PHP does not have and really benefits from a framework.
    • thailand1972, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2I can understand your pace if you're going to reuse the code - that makes sense to me. If it's purely a one-off, that's a lot of time to devote.
  • Nextrix, on 01/08/2008, -0/+2That is pretty good for 24 hours, but then again you used a MVC framework which reduces a lot of the coding work. I am hoping you at least know how the framework internally runs, because if this is just another "ohh look a tutorial on how to make a website in ruby" project then you site will fail.
  • slantyeyed, on 01/08/2008, -1/+2the article bored me, but wigitize.com is pretty cool
  • Wuss, on 01/08/2008, -4/+4Article should be renamed "Drive free traffic to your .com by bait and switching diggers with an unrelated topic that has nothing to do with the subject of your .com".

    Not to be to much of a dick, but let's just call this out for what it is. A guy trying to self promote under the guise of a "how to" article.
    • Ozymandias42, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1And he says that he didn't understand SEO!
    • ComplexBlue, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1It's what came to my mind straight away
    • rkiga, on 01/08/2008, -1/+2why does it matter that the topic of his .com is unrelated to the topic of his blog/tutorial? did you expect him to write a tutorial on how he made a website that he DIDN'T set up? would it have really made you feel better if the tutorial was for setting up an imaginary website? all blogs are self promotion. there are many worse and more selfish things to do than trying to help others by writing a nicely organized tutorial that helped me, if no one else.
  • cnldelta, on 01/08/2008, -1/+1I've seen that stuff before, the only real advantage wigitize.com has over springwidgets is that it seems to be easier to customize with plain css but it doesn't pick up my RSS feed from digg so I can't use it to display my diggs on my blog at http://www.cnldelta.com/index.php/blog/
  • jaredweb, on 01/08/2008, -0/+0Interesting, yet a site that isn't available to view isn't a site at all. Setting up a production server takes a lot longer than an hour. (if you want your site to stay online that is).

    @Emused - I haven't had a instance of DNS taking more than 4 hours in the last few years. I believe the 24-72 hours is a worst case timeframe, way off from reality. I've bought a domain from godaddy and had it propogate in 5 minutes.
    • starkraving, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1He's probably on a shared hosting package for now, until his site grows large enough to warrant co-lo or something more dedicated. It's how I would roll out a site too, while I was developing it. Co-lo costs $200+ a month, shared hosting costs like $7 depending on your server-side needs.
  • cmdrNacho, on 01/08/2008, -1/+1For all the .com wannabes out there I strongly suggest 37 signals book Getting Real http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ .. from a lot of the above comments, i can tell they really should read it
  • Spoomeister, on 01/08/2008, -1/+2Dugg for not being yet another rawstory or xkcd article.
  • infinite411, on 01/08/2008, -3/+0So I guess ***** brown and mylanta green is 2.0 ish.
  • HellGlitch, on 01/08/2008, -8/+2Here's one.
    http://www.internetisseriousbusiness.com/
  • samfishercell, on 01/08/2008, -0/+1This is why there are web developers AND there are web designers. I would love to see what would have happened with one person designing, and one person coding.

    Oh well - great job for a 24 hour blitz.
  • TheJalu, on 01/08/2008, -1/+0Digg Wigitize.com here: http://digg.com/software/Wigitize_com_Create_your_ ...
  • Amadeus2490, on 01/08/2008, -3/+1I was actually shocked to see Ron Paul on the show; I didn't know he was on until my mom - a Ron Paul convert - told me "Ron Paul's gonna be on Jay Leno!" I really enjoyed the interview; I never thought in a million years that Jay Leno would go so far out of his way to stick up for him.

    I wonder if Leno donated to Ron Paul? :-)





    Also, I know the "you live with your mom" comments are coming up in the replies, but i'm not even 18 yet and yes I still live at home. Stay relevant to the subject, please.
  • rgck60, on 01/09/2008, -0/+2Do you have any strengths?
  • zammit, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1buried as lame..
    it took 24 hours to complete this project? rather the question is.. it took more than 10 hours to complete this project? man i'd hate to be your client.
    step 1: get hosting space & domain (15 minutes)
    step 2: build a quick javascript "API" based on concept (which is a poor excuse for one at that) (1 hour)
    step 3: build a quick chocolate mint template (30 minutes)
    step 4: use ruby on rails to overkill the server-side aspect of the project (1 hour)
    total time: 2:45
  • cbmeeks, on 01/09/2008, -0/+1Worked pretty well on my site ( http://codershangout.com ) but I had to use the "no style" option because the black theme was too wide. Probably could have shaped it but but I really didn't want to. lol
  • threetoedkoala, on 01/20/2008, -0/+1I'm not sure about the 24 hours either.... what about
    How about 3 hrs and a small outsource team in Kalkuta!
  • MacGyver232, on 01/23/2008, -0/+0nice job
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