4 ms·

In contrast with Facebook, one of the reason why FourSquare has yet to succeed is due to significant problems with their initial design decisions ... I

by cbr 12y ago

In contrast with Facebook, one of the reason why FourSquare has yet to succeed is due to significant problems with their initial design decisions ... I would find this much more convincing if they had made predictions about Facebook and FourSquare when they were both in their infancy.

mathattack 12y ago
Does Facebook really rip off that much non-posted comments? I know they advertise Likes, but I haven't seen much more. This doesn't necessarily detract from the bigger argument which is it is useful to know the research relevant in your field. By analogy... Many hedge funds don't act like they know current financial theory. (Example: Icann) Others (Example: AQR) base their entire existence on being current on research.
Alex3917 12y ago
>I would find this much more convincing if they had made predictions about Facebook and FourSquare when they were both in their infancy. On Tumblr 4.5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523 On Twitter from 2007: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-makes-twit.html http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-makes-... On Wikipedia from 2004: http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--authoritative http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--a... (user pHatidic) On Squidoo from 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Squidoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion... Obviously I wasn't trying to make predictions in these posts, let alone predictions that would look correct ten years later, but I think you'll see that I have a pretty good track record of being on the right side of history way before these sites hit their tipping points and became mainstream. But regardless, it's not really about making predictions, it's about knowing what questions to ask in order to better understand the founders and the marketplace. Ultimately you have to decide who to bet on, but I think it would be a mistake to confuse a bet with a prediction.

by cbr 12y ago

mathattack 12y ago

Does Facebook really rip off that much non-posted comments? I know they advertise Likes, but I haven't seen much more. This doesn't necessarily detract from the bigger argument which is it is useful to know the research relevant in your field. By analogy... Many hedge funds don't act like they know current financial theory. (Example: Icann) Others (Example: AQR) base their entire existence on being current on research.

Alex3917 12y ago

>I would find this much more convincing if they had made predictions about Facebook and FourSquare when they were both in their infancy. On Tumblr 4.5 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=961523 On Twitter from 2007: http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-makes-twit.html http://alexkrupp.typepad.com/sensemaking/2007/08/what-makes-... On Wikipedia from 2004: http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--authoritative http://beta.slashdot.org/story/04/09/05/1339219/wikipedia--a... (user pHatidic) On Squidoo from 2006: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Squidoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion... Obviously I wasn't trying to make predictions in these posts, let alone predictions that would look correct ten years later, but I think you'll see that I have a pretty good track record of being on the right side of history way before these sites hit their tipping points and became mainstream. But regardless, it's not really about making predictions, it's about knowing what questions to ask in order to better understand the founders and the marketplace. Ultimately you have to decide who to bet on, but I think it would be a mistake to confuse a bet with a prediction.