A commercial web page

[SteveS]

Jim wrote:

Mike probably knows how to do all this, Steve

.
I hope he pops back-up on the forum with this thread where I/we could ask him some pointed questions. I am probably wrong, but I feel like the right automated Solar Arc program could have some possible commercial potential, maybe instead of 10$ a lower price. I know this: I was told by a psychic/astrologer team that there would be a time in my life (not told the time to a couple of years in my life) where I would be faced with grave harm to my career. When this time arrived I was able to recognize it as "meant to be" which helped me better prepare myself psychologically to deal/cope with it. I think with the right person writing the humane delineations for the possible malefic angular Solar Arc hits, which would be you Jim, may actually help people in the World better prepare for the good and bad times marked by the exact 0,90,180 for angular Solar Arc hits, recognized by the times in their lives when they could recognize like me when the timing cycle was manifesting. This automated program may have good "word of mouth" potential for advertising (the best kind), particularly for the people who bought into the automated program services that would be able to see their lives in perspective to their past as something to be understood philosophically/higher learning pertaining to "TIMING" for their future.

I wish Noel Tyl was still living because I think he would have been able to understand where I am coming from better since he has in a way already seen the potential for an automated Solar Arc Program, with his book "Solar Arcs" 'Astrology's Most Successful Predictive System'. Rapid new technology for commercial systems are a phenomenon imo, and I would have loved to have a clearer understanding of these systems at a younger age for the specific use with astrology and angular Solar Arc timing systems. Its only been since the 2000 that Noel published his book recognizing that the computer birth of exact angular solar arc hits were now possible for the astrologer. Noel damn sure recognized this new development for the entire field of astrology and is the reason he wrote his book.

Its like I already knew that I would probably with high % be facing a possible crises timing period in my life with my present d MC 90 r Pluto, since my r Pluto is partile mundo cnj r Saturn. Now, definitely recognizing a huge month's long problem with my back and its pain issues, I am alert and alive that I better be looking to all my better options to do something with positive attitudes (not negative attitudes) at new(er) technologies like robotic surgery that may help me in my crises angular Solar Arc hit with Pluto. I am now faced with a huge "burden" timing period in my life. I am glad that Solar Arcs has helped me to see/understand this malefic cycle in a better light so that I may react to it with better positive attitudes.

Mike, are still reading this forum?

[Jim Eshelman]

I am probably wrong, but I feel like the right automated Solar Arc program could have some possible commercial potential, maybe instead of 10$ a lower price.

In that case, I ask that the web page where it's hosted not be identifiable as linked to Solunars. We'd be slitting our throats if it got out that a Sidereal community was relying on Solar Arcs as the main tool for making their predictions.

I do like your reasons for wanting to do this.

[SteveS]

No problem Jim, I understand. IF an automated program was achievable, and put on solunars as a test, you would write all the explanations for the program. I totally agree with you Solar Arcs are only one of the main tools for predicting outstanding life incidents. IMO, SSR's and a few SLR's are most important, but I don't believe these could be automated, but I could be wrong.

I do think angular Solar Arc 0,90,180 manifest "major life developments" just as Noel (RIP) wrote in his book. I don't think predicting what is going to happen (impossible) is that important, but any system that can predict major "life developments" within a one year time frame, I think would be interesting to a very low cost purchaser for the TIME of a few major life developments. Combined with your style of delineations, it could be an important first step in attracting more people to Sidereal Astrology. It could be explained by you that other solunar time frames are important if the purchaser wanted to pursue with your individual services. What captured my main interest into Astrology was the fact that a psychic/astrologer team predicted for me what was going to happen in a major way in my life, but not when. Angular Solar Arcs predict when--so does 'outstanding incident' SSR's as long as we know the location of the SSR. Only if an automated Solar Arc is possible at a reasonable cost (big if), I would/could write a Business Plan for anyone you choose to review. I have written a couple of Business Plans for other owners of Theaters, so I have experience in this area. But, I am only still brainstorming the concept.

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

...I ask that the web page where it's hosted not be identifiable as linked to Solunars. We'd be slitting our throats if it got out that a Sidereal community was relying on Solar Arcs as the main tool for making their predictions.

No problem Jim, I understand. IF an automated program was achievable, and put on solunars as a test...

Steve, It will not be put on solunars. Not even as a test. Please stop now.

[SteveS]

OK JSAD, I will stop now, but if Mike pops in I will ask some pointed questions.

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

As long as you understand it will not be be hosted on Solunars.

[SteveS]

Sure, no problem JSAD, but I respect Jim's final decision more than yours . Its not a big deal to me no matter where I go with this brainstorming. Its just causal discussions on an astrological forum. There may be other members who are interested in this possible program from a business standpoint that could interest me or them further---who knows where discussion may lead. You seem to be putting limitations on these causal astrological discussions. Jim and I have had understandings long ago, If I write any posts that he does not like--just delete em, and he knows he can PM me anytime for cease & decease posts--I will understand.

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

It's not my decision. It's entirely Jim's. All I've done is repeated what he said, and repeated it again when you seemed to ignore it. This isn't me telling you what to do. It's me telling you to pay attention to what Jim has said and follow his directions. (so to speak.)

Nobody said you couldn't discuss the project. Only that, as Jim said, you can't host it here, and you can't point people here from whatever web site you set up for it. Please don't put words in other people's mouths.

Good luck with your project.

[Mike]

Wow, lots of things for me to comment on...

Yes I'm here, just very busy and very tired, so I'm not checking the site much.

Here's just some off-the-cuff thoughts from a developer about all of this.
The short version is that the core calculations are not difficult to program, but creating a web application out of it is.

IMO, SSR's and a few SLR's are most important, but I don't believe these could be automated, but I could be wrong.

All of this can be done programmatically; I'm not sure what you mean by "automated." From a given date, time, and location, all of this can be done programmatically, provided enough time and other resources to code it. Depends how intense the logic is.

My program, Nova, is a web app that is 90% done and offers natals/solunars, also with code for transits/progs but no UI for them yet. I just haven't had the energy to buckle down and work out the last few things and deal with deployment.

However, this kind of thing in general is very intensive to construct:

It seems the astrological programmers have a monopoly on things and this is the real problem involving their costs of producing a specific small program for one specific astrological function, but I don’t know these things for sure.

The astrological component is small, but the rest of the program is a lot.
Here's some very rough math, just to give you an idea.

Web developers average $60/hour according to a quick Google search. Most freelancers charge by the day, not the hour. Let's assume 8-hour days here, though different people do their math differently.
I would imagine this taking no less than 2 weeks for an expert to complete and deploy (and such a dev would probably want more than $60/hour), though a developer working with you would definitely need much firmer requirements before giving a quote. You're looking at an absolute minimum of around $6k for development time.
If you want chart visuals for any purpose, as far as I know, that all has to be written by hand, so probably add 2 more weeks (minimum). I had to do my own for Nova and it took quite a long time and is still looks pretty janky, and will need a major overhaul when I have the energy to start learning it.

Then comes the topic of core chart calculations. Either someone can re-write all of that by hand if you provide all of the formulas - in which case probably add another 2 weeks, at least - or use the Swiss Ephemeris calculation library (which Nova and Solar Fire use), which means either paying the folks at AstroDienst $700 for a professional license, or making the source code public under an open-source license. (You can still charge for it, but it's a little harder to justify, and your code is public.) When development time is taken into account, it's probably cheaper to pay for the Swiss Ephemeris.

Hosting is much cheaper if you're not persisting any data; somewhere between $10-$300+ a year for a domain (depends what you want the website to be named), and, I don't know, somewhere between $5-$50 a month for hosting the server the code runs on, depending on a whole lot of things.

It took me well over a year of on-and-off work to get things together enough to have it run locally, and it is not ready for deployment yet. My skill level has something to do with this - I've worked on Nova as I've started a professional career doing this - but still. It's a lot.

It seems to me, once a specific Solar Arc online program is in place, as soon as a person fed in their birth times/location the program could easily spit back to them the information needed and when the person closed out the program the information is zapped away not requiring any bandwidth costs. I don't know anything about these things, I am just brainstorming trying to see things from a different astrological business model.

While you do get to save a ton of money by not persisting any data, you still have to host the code that executes all of this stuff, and that's not free. See above.

The calculations themselves don't take much computing power. For perspective, Nova is written in Python (not an especially fast language), using the Swiss Ephemeris library for the heavy lifting, and it can calculate a few thousand solunar returns per second. Other calculations are likely harder, but not much harder.

But running a web application requires things on top of just this. For one, in order to have speedy response times, you need multiple essentially duplicated processes running, waiting to be given tasks like this. There are additional layers that are necessary for a sleek and secure web experience on top of the core program. These add cost via development time (it's part of deployment) and server power (although not that much).

And so on. There are other nitty-gritty details and technical problems to solve (at least, problems that I haven't solved).

This automated program may have good "word of mouth" potential for advertising (the best kind), particularly for the people who bought into the automated program services that would be able to see their lives in perspective to their past as something to be understood philosophically/higher learning pertaining to "TIMING" for their future.

Personally, I think you're overestimating how much value people would attach to predictions that only take effect years from now, and how much people would spread that by word of mouth. I could see other astrological models being more lucrative. But that's just my take. I could be out of my depth here. I'm not an entrepreneur, to be fair.

OK JSAD, I will stop now, but if Mike pops in I will ask some pointed questions.

Ask away!

[SteveS]

Mike, thanks for ringing back in to the forum and this thread.
Mike wrote:

If you want chart visuals for any purpose, as far as I know, that all has to be written by hand, so probably add 2 more weeks.

No visuals needed, only a short list of exact dates for angular Solar Arc hits calculated forward and past life times with their individual Solar Arc speed for 90 years. And a delineation paragraph with the angular hits to the planets involved. Maybe one page of explanations for the simple technique for angular Solar Arc hits. And last but not least, options for payment with the purchaser.
Mike wrote:

Personally, I think you're overestimating how much value people would attach to predictions that only take effect years from now, and how much people would spread that by word of mouth.

You could be 100% right Mike. IMO, it all depends on the major life developments that occur with their angular Solar Arc hits past and future. In other words, the program is not predicting what will happen, only a brief psychological description for their major life developments depending on planet involved in a one year time frame, which will be very few. In my mind with your above explanations, the programming is not the main issue nor its costs. The difficult part in my mind is how to market this service which I have absolutely no experience. Any possible lead help/ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Mike, could an app be developed to do the same functions as an online automated program? Would an app be simpler to produce than the online web page? A simple app guarantees the purchaser complete privacy. I am thinking an app make be easier to market going into profit partnership with the sources who advertised and sale of the app, your thoughts? I completely don't understand how the app's market works but it seems to me to be a hot market. When 100 apps sale, can another 100 apps be quickly produced for sale or does it only take the production of one app for mass marketing?

Thanks again Mike for your response.

[SteveS]

JSAD wrote:

Good luck with your project.

Thanks JSAD, but there definitely will be no project if I can’t get my bad back normalized. I am just exploring things from a commercial standpoint, mainly out of curiosity.

[Mike]

Mike, could an app be developed to do the same functions as an online automated program? Would an app be simpler to produce than the online web page?

A phone app is essentially the same thing as a web app (aka a "website"). In fact, many major phone apps (like Amazon's) are just another layer sitting on top of their web app. Same development process, nearly the same costs (you could potentially get away with not having a remote server running any code, depending on the design, but the overall cost difference is negligible).
It's software running on your phone instead of in a web browser; that's the only major difference here.

A simple app guarantees the purchaser complete privacy.

That's not true. Desktop is probably slightly safer, based on my experience. Mobile apps are notorious for harvesting personal data. Facebook, Amazon, Google - all the major players do this. In fact, most mobile apps make money by harvesting your data and selling it, not charging you to download the app.

When 100 apps sale, can another 100 apps be quickly produced for sale or does it only take the production of one app for mass marketing?

Mobile apps aren't consumed when someone downloads them. There's just 1, and everyone that wants it just installs their own copy of it. Same as a website.

I completely don't understand how the app's market works but it seems to me to be a hot market.

About the same as web services. The hottest trend right now in mobile app development is to basically just put a thin layer on top of your company's existing website, and not make a separate application. (See: Amazon)
I could get into very fine details about web vs mobile and current trends and all that but I don't think it matters for your purposes.
I'm not a product manager though; maybe a mobile app would sell better just by virtue of it being a mobile app. But that's a business decision for the business's individual situation, not a developer's call.

No visuals needed, only a short list of exact dates for angular Solar Arc hits calculated forward and past life times with their individual Solar Arc speed for 90 years. And a delineation paragraph with the angular hits to the planets involved. Maybe one page of explanations for the simple technique for angular Solar Arc hits. And last but not least, options for payment with the purchaser.

I think you are strongly undervaluing how important visual design is to the user experience, and how strongly that visual design influences sales. Advertising doesn't appeal via logic - it's all design and tugging on the emotions. I don't think you're going to sell a product that's just text.

I am thinking an app make be easier to market going into profit partnership with the sources who advertised and sale of the app, your thoughts?

I'm not sure what you mean by this; can you elaborate?

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

Steve, most apps are sold through either the Apple App Store or Google Playstore. It's probably 70% downloaded from one of the stores VS downloaded directly from the developer's website. The main "marketing" tool is the app is distributed through the store. The average user never looks for apps outside the stores unless they use a website regularily (like amazon) and are offered the option of downloading an app to their phone for that site. Usually a phone app saves them data use.

If people are looking for an astrology program they would find your prediction app based on keywords. You choose the right name for your app (should be obvious, rather than cute) and add the right keywords.

Google both stores and take a look at how they work. BTW, both have stringent requirements that must be met before your app would be allowed in their stores and both take 30% off the top. That's all detailed on the store sites.

When you "sell" the app, you're selling a license to use the software, not the software itself. People download copies.

You could buy ads on many astrology websites directing people to your app on the stores or to your website. Mentioning it in a post might be seen as spam. Mentioning it more than once would certainly be seen as spam. On the other hand, buying an ad would be seen as supporting the site (and maybe endorsing the site) so might get you an editorial mention.

[Jim Eshelman]

Mike, do you know Kayla Block? I think she's primarily a web UI dev. You have a lot of friends in common. If you don't know her, you might want to connect on FB. Feel free to use my name.

[Soft Alpaca]

Eventually once I get my life on track a bit more I intend to do sidereal work artistically (through mixed medias) though I can't promise any sales or 100% of proceeds upfront, but if it does come to fruition I will definitely make sure Jim-Solunars is rewarded for his (your) research (as well as the continuation of those before him).

I was taking professional art lessons (drawing and painting) from a local successful artist in highschool (and I went to cooking school and kind of regret it from time to time.) I plan on picking up the electric guitar as well..

[Jim Eshelman]

Thank you. We should probably get a nonprofit set up sooner rather than later to collect these donations for when they're needed.

[SteveS]

Steve wrote:

A simple app guarantees the purchaser complete privacy.

Mike responded:

That's not true. Desktop is probably slightly safer, based on my experience. Mobile apps are notorious for harvesting personal data. Facebook, Amazon, Google - all the major players do this. In fact, most mobile apps make money by harvesting your data and selling it, not charging you to download the app.

Thanks Mike, this is the stuff I need to know and learn before I can possibly know how these new technologies operate.
Mike wrote:

I don't think you're going to sell a product that's just text.

You may be right Mike, I don't know. What I want to sell/market are one year timing frames in one’s life whether it be in their past or future which may resonate strongly in their conscious as an important life event/incident. I want it to be just simple text as brief as possible; text with certain key explanations plus delineations describing planetary psychological influences that they may encounter dealing with their important life incidents/events. I think angular Solar Arc 0,90,180 has the potential to resonate strongly with an individual timing important life events/incidents. If I do purchase this automated astrological program from a developer and later decide it has no commercial value, then I will just try to give it away free trying to reach masses of people in the World. At this point in my life, I am not motivated by profits, only trying to raise the consciousness of masses of people in the World that there is an astrological technology/science that proves: "Timing is Everything."
Steve wrote:

I am thinking an app may be easier to market going into profit partnership with the sources who advertised and sale of the app, your thoughts?

Mike responded and asked:

I'm not sure what you mean by this; can you elaborate?

I would try to reach the big players (“sources”) who distribute most of the apps in the world, first by letter and then personal contact to see if they wanted to share in the potential profits with the automated astrological app/program. I don’t know how these things work, but I feel like most people in the world would be interested to access a simple app to put on their phones which could tell them interested timing frames with their individual personal private lives.. I think a phone app has the best potential for reaching masses of people in the world through simple word of mouth. For example: Let’s say a group of people were having lunch or in a causal group meeting, and just one person had used the automated program/app and discovered that one of their one year time frames in their past manifested an important event/incident in their life and was impressed. I think that person may tell other(s) about the automated astrological app where that other person could simply take their mobile phones and download the same astrological automated app to see if the automated program nailed a one year time frame in their past with a significant life event/incident. Now that I think about this more, I think the app should sell for 2$ instead of 10$. No one would have to think twice about taking their mobile phones and spending 2$ for an app that may tell them important one year time frames in their entire life. I am sure things are not as simple as I am making them---just trying to understand how this new technological world works.

Mike, I really appreciate your feedback and experience, you are indeed helping me understand things better.

[SteveS]

Thanks JSAD for your knowledgeable post. I responded to Mike's post before I read your latest post which certainly helps me understand things better related to this thread .

[SteveS]

JSAD wrote:

You choose the right name for your app (should be obvious, rather than cute) and add the right keywords.

I was thinking naming the possible app “Identify Important Development Times In Anyone’s Life”

Opinions or other suggestive titles?

[Jupiter Sets at Dawn]

"Critical Timing"

[Jim Eshelman]

Play off one of your own passions to grab attention: "Your Biggest Wins & Losses!"

[SteveS]

Thanks Jim & JSAD.

The number of mobile app downloads each year has been steadily increasing. In 2019, there were 204 billion app downloads world wide (excluding re-installs and app updates).