I love this one! It has occurred to me that while there is a wealth of information online, there is perhaps even more information in print that takes a staggering amount of work to digitize and organize sensibly. It's very interesting to come across someone actively working on a project like this.
An idea I had recently that's vaguely related is that it would be really cool to try to put together a massive product information catalog/database. Maybe it could be maintained similar to Wikipedia in terms of editing/review/adding new content - the idea being that it should be as objective, unbiased, and complete as possible. The impetus for this thought was of course that I hate advertising and on some level think it shouldn't even exist, so I was thinking of what an alternative might look like.
I am actually working on that at the same time. I'm using the same wiki engine I'm building for Magazedia to build the bigger site which collates every product ever made. Which is a large task, let me tell you...
What! That is an incredible coincidence to run across your comment in the same week I've been thinking about that. I can only imagine it is a monumental undertaking - I personally filed it under "cool ideas I'm hopelessly incapable of attempting for now," as I'm currently just an analyst/half-ass analytics engineer (pivoter) with far more enthusiasm than skill at programming.
Would be glad to hear more about it - your basic approach, some of the biggest challenges, whatever it might be. Shoot me a message if the mood strikes!
EDIT: just created my account recently and did not realize there is no PM functionality on HN, doh.
An idea I had recently that's vaguely related is that it would be really cool to try to put together a massive product information catalog/database. Maybe it could be maintained similar to Wikipedia in terms of editing/review/adding new content - the idea being that it should be as objective, unbiased, and complete as possible. The impetus for this thought was of course that I hate advertising and on some level think it shouldn't even exist, so I was thinking of what an alternative might look like.