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Scribd, Xobni, and OMGPOP were the ones that made it big from that batch. Jamglue did well too, till they were shut down by legal threats. And while JumpChat
by pg 16y ago
Scribd, Xobni, and OMGPOP were the ones that made it big from that batch. Jamglue did well too, till they were shut down by legal threats. And while JumpChat didn't last long, founder John Resig later became well known as the creator of jQuery.
- andrewljohnson 16y agoSorry paul... didn't mean to downvote you. Do you own a smartphone?
- jackowayed 16y agoHe doesn't because he's too addicted to the Internet as it is, so the last thing he needs is to have access to it at all times. He likens smartphones to hip flasks. Unless that's changed since he wrote that in an essay/HN comment/etc. I do wonder if at some point they'll become so ubiquitous--and so many YC applicants and companies will be focused on smartphones--that he'll feel he has to to get one so that he can better judge the value of companies focused on mobile and give them advice.
- andrewljohnson 16y agoGood final graph. Hopefully that will convince him to fix this site. It's become too much a testament to how little design matters, and the point is now counterpoint.
- Zev 16y agoI do wonder if at some point they'll become so ubiquitous--and so many YC applicants and companies will be focused on smartphones--that he'll feel he has to to get one so that he can better judge the value of companies focused on mobile and give them advice. It is possible to own a smartphone but not use it as your primary phone. For example: I have an iPhone 4 that I use specifically for development purposes. I've made a grand total of one phone call with it; to cancel the contract.
- jackowayed 16y agoThat will allow him to try out apps (which I'm sure he does on the founders' devices or on YC-owned devices), but it won't make him think like someone with a smartphone. It won't help him think up RFSes with mobile apps at their core, and it won't allow him to say "wow, that app you're pitching to me would remove the annoying 3-step process that I do whenever I do X on my phone." The importance of him truly thinking like someone with a smartphone will grow over the next few years
- jacquesm 16y agoSmart phone will come down in price to the point where all phones are smartphones.
- andrewljohnson 16y agos/will come/came Smart phones are basically free now - you just pay extra for data. There are now 45M smart phone owners in the US, out of about 250M phone owners, and it will just take a few years to erase the last dumb phones. Smart phone sales were about 170M in 2009, and 280M in 2010, worldwide. Its going absolutely freaking nuts... biggest computing platform and market opportunity of a generation. Same significance as PCs or the internet. Half a billion new computers, as fast as semi-modern PCs, all in the last two years. Go make some money everyone.
- pg 16y agoJessica has an iPhone. I use hers to try out startups' apps.
- ma2rten 16y agoOMGPOP is not in the list on TC.
- robryan 16y agoIt's probably hard to say, but compared with the last group, which on paper looks excellent, did this group similarly look great after the end only for a few clear winners to appear later on or was the gap easy to see even comparing to when this article was written?
- pg 16y agoThe groups of startups have been gradually getting better over time. Since 4 years = 8 batches, they're now significantly better, as far as I can tell. Investors seem to think so too, because they have a much easier time raising money.
- iloveyouocean 16y agoOMGPOP started as iminlikewithyou.com if that helps piece together the tangled history :)
- ig1 16y agoWasn't OMGPOP from the batch prior to that (W06 as opposed to S06) ?
- SteveMorin 16y agoI thought OMGPOP was Winter 06 by Charles Forman is that wrong?