5 ms·

Integration Is The Killer App

10 points by Sam_Odio 19y ago

bilbo0s 19y ago
You know I think that this means that people should probably think twice before basing a startup on a feature or technology that Google could easily implement. By implement, I mean either have their engineers hack out, or buy. To assume that they will buy it from you is foolish by the way. I'm looking at you two GUBA and Revver, but I may as well be talking about every web 2.0 startup I've had the misfortune of having to look at in the past 12 months. Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? Money is waiting for you. I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser. WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN OR SECURITY WARNING!!! This would be something compelling that is difficult to implement. It is also something that would take people more than 2 weeks to duplicate. Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's? None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE? The same thing will happen very soon with social networking, it will be included with your hosting. Probably by leveraging open source. So everyone will be able to start a story telling site with photo uploading for illustration and social features. However, I think it will be more difficult for someone to make a web based Joost with television recording and social features. So if you can, your asking price just went WAY up kid. The things I have outlined are hard, and that is the point. If I invest in something, I don't want to hear about 35 other startups doing the exact same thing. I'm not just talking about the web 2.0 people here. You would not believe the number of 'Second Life' knockoffs that are about to hit the market. They all expect that 3 to 30 million people will download and install their plugin, or click 'Yes' on their security warning. You know, the one to give this startup you never heard of FULL access to your machine. That's OK though they tell me, because they only need to get the early adopters to spread the word. The TECH SAVVY early adopters. Yeah, you heard me right, the ones MOST likely to know NOT to give a startup they've never heard of full access to their machines! If ANYONE can find a tech startup that doesn't infringe copyrights and actually has technology that would take a minute to develop, I think I would fall over from shock. Sorry about this rant. Just in the office on a Sunday looking at knockoff after knockoff. But hey, I just work for consultants for investors, it's not my money. It is frustrating that no one wants to listen to the minority report though.
- inklesspen 19y ago
  Yeah, I'll get right on that. I bet a OpenGL engine will just _fly_ in JavaScript. And of course, all browsers give the JS runtime full access to the video hardware.
- bootload 19y ago
  '... I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser ... WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN ...' gne or game never ending did just that (but it still required a plugin). The problem is twofold. Browsers are sandboxed, to get performance for 3D requires access to hardware and what makes money might not be what you first think of. (thats three). Take for instance flickr. They started off with gne, then the front end team did about 5 different apps before they realised allowing people upload & share photos. '... Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? ...' They are about. Maybe that's a good news.yc question?
- lupin_sansei 19y ago
  "Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's? None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE" So how do you explain Dreamweaver's success over Frontpage?
  - bilbo0s 19y ago
    Dreamweaver is not successful. Analyse Dreamweaver's cost/profit ratio. Remember, Dreamweaver is boxed and sold at retail. The advent of AJAX gave Dreamweaver a little more life, since to make an impressive AJAX page requires a ridiculous amount of not very well structured code. Keeping track of not very well structured code is what IDE's are good at, and what Dreamweaver's target audience is bad at. That said, as a percentage of total revenues, Dreamweaver sucks. Check it out for yourself in Adobe's latest quarterly report: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ADBE http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ADBE Dreamweaver sales were used to bump up the "Developer Solutions" line of the quarterly report. Notice it is a small percentage. This would not be so bad, until you notice that even the line in the quarterly report marked "Other" is bigger! Here's some free advice, do not invest in a startup that plans to make a straight IDE play.
Latinflava 19y ago
very interesting post, and even more interesting "rant" bilbo0s. Its that knockoff are knocking off other knockoff its insane, lol seems inovation is on vacation right now, lets hope it gets back soon.
Tichy 19y ago
I don't know these online email readers very well, but wasn't there another post recently that said that GMail has only a very small percentage of users? So I am surprised that GMail integration killed Kiko. Isn't there an email service out there where you could plug in things? That used to be the trend among web applications, to provide a Web Service/API so that it could be extended?

10 points by Sam_Odio 19y ago

You know I think that this means that people should probably think twice before basing a startup on a feature or technology that Google could easily implement. By implement, I mean either have their engineers hack out, or buy. To assume that they will buy it from you is foolish by the way. I'm looking at you two GUBA and Revver, but I may as well be talking about every web 2.0 startup I've had the misfortune of having to look at in the past 12 months. Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? Money is waiting for you. I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser. WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN OR SECURITY WARNING!!! This would be something compelling that is difficult to implement. It is also something that would take people more than 2 weeks to duplicate. Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's? None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE? The same thing will happen very soon with social networking, it will be included with your hosting. Probably by leveraging open source. So everyone will be able to start a story telling site with photo uploading for illustration and social features. However, I think it will be more difficult for someone to make a web based Joost with television recording and social features. So if you can, your asking price just went WAY up kid. The things I have outlined are hard, and that is the point. If I invest in something, I don't want to hear about 35 other startups doing the exact same thing. I'm not just talking about the web 2.0 people here. You would not believe the number of 'Second Life' knockoffs that are about to hit the market. They all expect that 3 to 30 million people will download and install their plugin, or click 'Yes' on their security warning. You know, the one to give this startup you never heard of FULL access to your machine. That's OK though they tell me, because they only need to get the early adopters to spread the word. The TECH SAVVY early adopters. Yeah, you heard me right, the ones MOST likely to know NOT to give a startup they've never heard of full access to their machines! If ANYONE can find a tech startup that doesn't infringe copyrights and actually has technology that would take a minute to develop, I think I would fall over from shock. Sorry about this rant. Just in the office on a Sunday looking at knockoff after knockoff. But hey, I just work for consultants for investors, it's not my money. It is frustrating that no one wants to listen to the minority report though.

inklesspen 19y ago
Yeah, I'll get right on that. I bet a OpenGL engine will just _fly_ in JavaScript. And of course, all browsers give the JS runtime full access to the video hardware.
bootload 19y ago
'... I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration inside of the browser ... WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN ...' gne or game never ending did just that (but it still required a plugin). The problem is twofold. Browsers are sandboxed, to get performance for 3D requires access to hardware and what makes money might not be what you first think of. (thats three). Take for instance flickr. They started off with gne, then the front end team did about 5 different apps before they realised allowing people upload & share photos. '... Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? ...' They are about. Maybe that's a good news.yc question?
lupin_sansei 19y ago
"Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's? None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE" So how do you explain Dreamweaver's success over Frontpage?
- bilbo0s 19y ago
  Dreamweaver is not successful. Analyse Dreamweaver's cost/profit ratio. Remember, Dreamweaver is boxed and sold at retail. The advent of AJAX gave Dreamweaver a little more life, since to make an impressive AJAX page requires a ridiculous amount of not very well structured code. Keeping track of not very well structured code is what IDE's are good at, and what Dreamweaver's target audience is bad at. That said, as a percentage of total revenues, Dreamweaver sucks. Check it out for yourself in Adobe's latest quarterly report: http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ADBE http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ADBE Dreamweaver sales were used to bump up the "Developer Solutions" line of the quarterly report. Notice it is a small percentage. This would not be so bad, until you notice that even the line in the quarterly report marked "Other" is bigger! Here's some free advice, do not invest in a startup that plans to make a straight IDE play.

Latinflava 19y ago

very interesting post, and even more interesting "rant" bilbo0s. Its that knockoff are knocking off other knockoff its insane, lol seems inovation is on vacation right now, lets hope it gets back soon.

Tichy 19y ago

I don't know these online email readers very well, but wasn't there another post recently that said that GMail has only a very small percentage of users? So I am surprised that GMail integration killed Kiko. Isn't there an email service out there where you could plug in things? That used to be the trend among web applications, to provide a Web Service/API so that it could be extended?