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If there's a sign of a bubble, it's companies building things that already exist, on top of companies that have no business model. Skeptical.
by axod 17y ago
If there's a sign of a bubble, it's companies building things that already exist, on top of companies that have no business model. Skeptical.
- chrysb 17y agoFacebook status message. Enter Twitter. Exit axod.
- tsally 17y agoFacebook status message. Enter Twitter. Exit axod. Hi. Good to see the CEO of the company posting on this thread. Just in case you were not aware, Twitter launched before you were able to tag other people in your Facebook status. Tagging a person, however, is just one of many differences between Facebook status and Twitter. There are no hash tags, no lists, and no trending topics on Facebook. More importantly, on Twitter you can get direct access to the words of celebrities and other notable people. On Facebook typically all you would see would be an HR maintained fan page. There's a big difference between that and getting a direct line via Twitter. I'll give a concrete example. A couple of days ago I was able to ask Jason of 37signals whether he knew of a copy of his talk from Start Up School besides Justin.TV. He responded to me within an hour. Interaction like this is not possible via Facebook status updates. It seems to me that your claim that Twitter built something that already existed isn't true. As a side note, your tone seems a bit confrontational for what I would have expected from a YC CEO.
- chrysb 17y agoI'm aware of why Twitter is successful despite Facebook. Although when it originally came out a lot of people didn't understand what the difference was. The example just points out that things can be similar and still pull away from the pack because of the small things they do differently. My tone, which obviously text does not convey, was playful and light-hearted. We all know you don't post news to YC to get fluffy love comments, you post it to get 100 reasons why you suck. We don't take it personally.
- tsally 17y agoMy tone, which obviously text does not convey, was playful and light-hearted. Ah, my apologies then. :)
- kirubakaran 17y agoStart Up School video Please share the answer.
- tsally 17y agoNo such luck, I'm afraid. http://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/5567344755 http://twitter.com/jasonfried/status/5567344755
- kirubakaran 17y ago"Tech Bloggers" might cite this as yet another proof that Twitter is useless :-p
- axod 17y agoConvince me why a twitter targeted HD video site needs to exist? How are you different from any general video sharing site on the net? Facebook consider "Able to share a video in status update" as a small add-on feature. Why when it's in the twitter world is it considered a good idea for a startup :/ Surely you can appreciate to some, this seems bizarre.
- numbchuckskills 17y agoyou're not alone, I find it bizarre but usually keep my mouth shut. What's the value play for me to leave youtube to use this?
- chrysb 17y agoHD is only one single feature that we added that keeps us ahead of our competition. Most of these comments are very narrow in vision. Vidly has a long-term vision that only begins with Twitter. We'll be sure to keep the community posted as we continue to release new features and slowly reveal the direction of the company. We appreciate the doubt, without it, we wouldn't be having any fun.
- pg 17y agoReally? That's the sign of a bubble? What other instances of this pattern were you thinking of? I think you just wanted to say something insulting about Vidly, but couched in a form that seemed intellectually respectable. In content your comment is isomorphic to the kind of troll posts you see in TechCrunch threads.
- axod 17y agoApologies if it was taken that way. FWIW The vidly website looks cool. I just can't see why people will switch from youtube. I simply can't fathom how this can end in a good way: startup = {name:"twitter"}; while(true) { if (startup.isHyped()) { startup.getMoreFunding(); // People invest in things that have hype // Others see it as good idea to build something based on it! var newStartup = {feature:["search","share video","share numbers","twitter porn","twitter lolcats"]}; // newStartup implements the feature // Child hypes up the parent some more startup.hype += newStartup.hype; startup.acquire(newStartup); // When you're 100% reliant on the parent, where else can you go :/ } } I just can't see how the loop can end with anything other than an OutOfFundingException. I certainly wasn't trying to insult Vidly, more try and understand the rationale for such a startup existing. As I say, if it's facebook, being able to share video is just an extra feature they add. Like 'search' and handling urls properly. Why so different for twitter? Why must there be a startup dedicated to searching tweets, that twitter acquire? Can't they search their own data? Why does another company need to do url shortening? As an exit, surely if you build on something else, you really limit your chances of being acquired to that parent. And if the parent is just funded by investors and not revenue... :/ Just seems flakey to me. Do you think vidly can be profitable? Isn't it pretty risky building on twitter? What if twitter blow up? Do you expect any other potential exit other than twitter acquiring them with their own funding?
- chrysb 17y agoSee my comment below regarding narrow vision.
- netcan 17y agoI certainly wasn't trying to insult Vidly, more try and understand the rationale for such a startup existing. Here are some possible rationalisations for such companies existing, such companies betting on acquisition by a limited number of buyers & other concerns: - Smaller companies can sometimes do things better. - Smaller companies can sometimes do things cheaper. - Small companies can fail, so they can try riskier things. - Small companies may not have as much of a brand to protect, so they can try riskier things. - More features can be put to market test by multiple indipendant companies then by the 'parent' alone. Individual features can be put to market test and good ones have a better chance of being discovered. - Features can be tried multiple times by multiple companies, with the best one ultimately emerging. - Startups (using a certain definition) have a 1/x chance of succeeding at launch. Success/failure is binary. The risk of faling completely is extremely high. Therefore, a 10% or 20 or 40% chance that Twitter will disappear while they rely on it to survive is not as scary as it is for an established company. If your chances of success are only 1/5 anyway, going to 1/6 is not too bad. Basically, startups are structured to handle that sort of risk. These reasons may or may not add up to a net efficiency gain overall, better features or whatever. Redefining what companies do themselves vs what they outsource is an interesting part of how economies evolve. Outsourcing innovation (even if it is just a small feature) might be a good move, sometimes. The market gets to decide.
- crescendo 17y agoThe problem with analyzing companies like this is that they don't really admit of a traditional value-based assessment. What is the value proposition of a service like Vidly, really? It shortens the process of posting a video link to Twitter by a few steps. Yes, I'm understating what they do, but when you distill it down to its actual benefit to an end user, that's it. Option 1: 1) Open youtube.com. 2) Create a youtube account (First time only). 3) Post video to Youtube. 4) Open twitter.com, or a Twitter client. 5) Post a tweet with the Youtube link. Option 2: 1) Open vidly.com (or client?). 2) Post video and tweet to Twitter. You've reduced the steps it takes to post a video to Twitter from 5 to 2; big whoop, right? But looking at this alone misses the point. Here's where it gets interesting: given that they're both free, and that users actually know about Option 2, most of them will choose Option 2 without hesitation. Besides that, the relative complexity of using Youtube for this task might have been a barrier for many people who otherwise would've posted videos. When you combine this with good marketing, the vibrant user base of Twitter, and a large mass of people hungry to broadcast videos, big things can happen.
- danielrhodes 17y agoBefore we started Vidly, we did a test on YouTube out of interest and it took us well over 15 minutes to sign up and post a video to YouTube. It takes a very small fraction of that to post to Vidly.