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In technology, billion dollar markets and opportunities are usually only recognized after they've landed. Its hard to predict or foresee markets, and even if yo

by coryl 16y ago

In technology, billion dollar markets and opportunities are usually only recognized after they've landed. Its hard to predict or foresee markets, and even if you can, you have no idea what will work and what won't. There are actually billion dollar opportunities opening up all the time with every new platform. Look at how many companies the Facebook API spawned; Zynga is valued at billions of dollars and is 3 years old. They make dinky flash games for gods sakes. Playdom was acquired for around $800 million by Disney. iPhone and Android apps have made millionaires out of small teams of developers. The makers of Tap Tap Revenge, a series of iPhone games, were grossing millions in revenue. There are ALWAYS opportunities. Obviously fewer billion dollar ones, but who cares otherwise.

saurik 16y ago
I second this. Back in 2000 I had a friend who had this stupid website called "GroupNetwork". Every time he brought up his site (and he brought it up a lot, as it kind of defined his entire life at the time) we'd all make fun of it for a while before moving on. Specifically, you would create an account on it, and then had access to a rather limited blog mechanism (you could download much better blogging software) and a relatively lame photo gallery (why would I trust this site with my photos? it isn't even good at browsing them). You could then make these things called "groups" in which you could add your friends, assuming they also had an account (and how likely would that be, right?). The worst part was that he had this "API" by which third parties could write new applications that plugged into this framework... sounds great, but it meant that all the third party apps had to use HTTP requests (dude: slow) to get access to the data. He tried to make it feel better by making all of the queries based on SQL (insecure? seriously: stupid). OMG was that a stupid idea. ;P

by coryl 16y ago

saurik 16y ago

I second this. Back in 2000 I had a friend who had this stupid website called "GroupNetwork". Every time he brought up his site (and he brought it up a lot, as it kind of defined his entire life at the time) we'd all make fun of it for a while before moving on. Specifically, you would create an account on it, and then had access to a rather limited blog mechanism (you could download much better blogging software) and a relatively lame photo gallery (why would I trust this site with my photos? it isn't even good at browsing them). You could then make these things called "groups" in which you could add your friends, assuming they also had an account (and how likely would that be, right?). The worst part was that he had this "API" by which third parties could write new applications that plugged into this framework... sounds great, but it meant that all the third party apps had to use HTTP requests (dude: slow) to get access to the data. He tried to make it feel better by making all of the queries based on SQL (insecure? seriously: stupid). OMG was that a stupid idea. ;P