Nullpointer.ph – A Developer’s Haven?

My friend and his circle of friends recently announced the launch of their new website, Null Pointer. From the looks of it and as they claim themselves, it is a Filipino version of the well-known international developers’ forum we know as Stack Overflow. They have the same looks, use the same engine (that is what I heard) and have the same purpose. So why create a new forum then?

The question is simple but complicated to some. So is its answer. Let us answer it from taking the forums’ purpose into consideration. Let us just take 2 points.

1) The forum is there to help facilitate a healthy environment where expert and newbie programmers can share their expertise.
2) The forum intends to support itself via advertisements and in the long run hope to create enough income for the site creators to earn a living from.

The forum is there to help facilitate a healthy environment where expert and newbie programmers can share their expertise.

This is a good goal. It is a noble goal actually. Wanting to help people is certainly a good thing to do. However, why duplicate an already successful forum in Stack Overflow? Niche. The creators of the site want to localize the forum to Filipino developers. Though, the world is moving towards being more globalized, it still makes sense to make a niche out of a large niche. Being in a large crowd has its drawbacks. Your voice might not get heard loud enough for people to answer. Being in a global forum makes that a case in point. There have been reports that sometimes members of that forum have their concerns not noticed thus their problems unanswered. Null Pointer hopes to fix that by taking the Filipino developers under their wings where every developer can speak out and have their questions answered.

The forum intends to support itself via advertisements and in the long run hope to create enough income for the site creators to earn a living from.

This one is a bit obvious. If you want to be successful, model someone successful. And Stack Overflow is certainly a smashing success. By doing what Stack Overflow does even to the point of copying its looks, Null Pointer has a big potential of success. And by successful, I meant that the forum will overflow with traffic that will in turn convert into cash (hopefully).

So if you are a developer, go to Null Pointer and give it a spin. There is nothing to lose.

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