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Greg posted a nice compilation of shady tactics used during the startup period of major internet companies at http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/ruthless-enoug

by prs 16y ago

Greg posted a nice compilation of shady tactics used during the startup period of major internet companies at http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/ruthless-enough-for-startup.html http://glinden.blogspot.com/2006/11/ruthless-enough-for-star... A quick summary: Facebook: Spammed Harvard Students BitTorrent: Free Porn as Initial Bait MySpace: Spammed >100M on Launch Date It appears as if (slightly) shady techniques can give you the advantage you need to succeed.

wmf 16y ago
And let us not forget the more innocent days of 1996, when putting ads on free email was considered borderline shady: http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free...
- sprout 16y ago
  It may not be so much innocence as different cost considerations. In 1996 bandwidth was at far more of a premium than it is now, so even the modest demands of Google AdSense would have had a much greater cost to the user. And certainly Hotmail remains slow, though not so much for lack of bandwidth anymore.
nailer 16y ago
BitTorrent's wasn't unethical or shady (unless you think all adult content is shady). They'd licensed the content - which was, IIRC, an kind of free teaser ad for 'LightSpeed' porn - which I remember as being an odd name for a porn site. Caused a huge fuss on Slashdot.
- nl 16y ago
  The version I heard was that they got it off Usenet, where it had been posted by the supplier. Sounded like a sensible way to seed the service, really.
jacquesm 16y ago
The interesting bit here is that that tactic did come back to haunt myspace, but in a different way than you'd expect. The guys that built youtube used the same tactic but by bitting myspace users to come and use youtube.
nostromo 16y ago
According to "Stealing MySpace" the guys that made MySpace were about as shady as they come: spyware, porn, spam, and snake oil about sums it up. Comparatively, spamming Harvard seems pretty innocent.

by prs 16y ago

wmf 16y ago

And let us not forget the more innocent days of 1996, when putting ads on free email was considered borderline shady: http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free-email-at-hotmail/ http://techcrunch.com/2009/10/18/ps-i-love-you-get-your-free...

sprout 16y ago
It may not be so much innocence as different cost considerations. In 1996 bandwidth was at far more of a premium than it is now, so even the modest demands of Google AdSense would have had a much greater cost to the user. And certainly Hotmail remains slow, though not so much for lack of bandwidth anymore.

nailer 16y ago

BitTorrent's wasn't unethical or shady (unless you think all adult content is shady). They'd licensed the content - which was, IIRC, an kind of free teaser ad for 'LightSpeed' porn - which I remember as being an odd name for a porn site. Caused a huge fuss on Slashdot.

nl 16y ago
The version I heard was that they got it off Usenet, where it had been posted by the supplier. Sounded like a sensible way to seed the service, really.

jacquesm 16y ago

The interesting bit here is that that tactic did come back to haunt myspace, but in a different way than you'd expect. The guys that built youtube used the same tactic but by bitting myspace users to come and use youtube.

nostromo 16y ago

According to "Stealing MySpace" the guys that made MySpace were about as shady as they come: spyware, porn, spam, and snake oil about sums it up. Comparatively, spamming Harvard seems pretty innocent.