johnrob

50 ms·

631.
by johnrob 16y ago
It's hard to sell brand advertising on user generated content, which is another reason the approved partners are desirable.
632.
by johnrob 16y ago
The only downside of greasemonkey is that you have to install it on each browser you use. By bolting it into news.arc it would always be there (assuming you're logged in).
633.
by johnrob 16y ago
Here's an idea that could address a lot of complaints here, and potentially be kind of fun: Add an extra personal setting where you can input urls of javascript files that you'd like your home page to link to. All that news.arc has to do i
634.
by johnrob 16y ago
I've always thought soda is the ultimate example. Tons of players, big and small, even though Coke "owns it" by practically every metric. 100% market share is extremely rare.
635.
by johnrob 16y ago
Will there be as much money in the e-signature business as there is in the e-fax business? The latter seems to be saving the user from a bigger hassle, hence the obvious monetizability. What happens if google docs adds the ability to add
636.
by johnrob 16y ago
Do you know if you actually have a merchant account somewhere (created by stripe)? Or does everything go through stripe?
637.
by johnrob 16y ago
Seems like it. Maybe they are specifically trying to connect with the younger crowd. As a VC, they're naturally going to skew toward the 30s and up crowd and this could be a counter measure.
638.
by johnrob 16y ago
As the number of startups increases, is there a risk that most or all of the investors end up chasing the 10-20 best pitches? While perhaps any single company could hold their own in isolation, it seems like they're fighting the others for
639.
by johnrob 16y ago
It's going to be interesting to see how they scale. Each person has their own body of data that needs to be crawled and updated on a regular basis. Google, on the other hand, has one body of data (the web) that is applicable to every user
640.
by johnrob 16y ago
What has YC (and every other prominent investor) been emphasizing lately? That the team is the most important part of the deal. And that team looks rock solid, arguably more so (on paper) than google did in 1999.
641.
by johnrob 16y ago
The web beat native on PCs - it would be bizarre if the same thing didn't happen on tablets. My opinion is that apps dominate right now because user input is clumsy. For the web to work, it needs to be easy to type urls. But tablets (so f
642.
by johnrob 16y ago
Could Apple argue that customers might think they are buying from Apple, when in fact they are buying from Amazon?
643.
by johnrob 16y ago
Don't know anyone at the moment, but I've always thought this could be an interesting alternative for a potential founder who has some savings (especially someone roadblocked by a partner search). I haven't heard of many people doing it th
644.
by johnrob 16y ago
What ranges of equity/salary compensation are offered these days? If one should be skeptical about an employee who wants mostly cash, how should founders react to someone preferring all equity?
645.
by johnrob 16y ago
I think we over estimate the impact startups have on job creation. The recent home runs (google, facebook, zynga, groupon) have created astonishingly large value with relatively few employees - a few thousand on average. Startups are good
646.
by johnrob 16y ago
WhiteyBoard is a physical product. Get it on the shelves of Walmart, then use social media to build brand awareness. Otherwise, stick to intent based advertising like search ads.
647.
by johnrob 16y ago
After the 700 billion TARP bailout that our government minted on a whim, I've never looked at Federal money the same way. If it's not 12 digits, it's definitely inconsequential.
648.
by johnrob 16y ago
Nobody complains about referring friends as a way to ascend pre-release invite lists (i.e. http://www.socialcam.com/ ). How is this any different?
649.
by johnrob 16y ago
This is where the 37 signals folks would politely say no. You can't please every user, and something tells me that a majority of gmail users aren't sporting a 10k contact list.
650.
by johnrob 16y ago
Another reason HN may be boring: we've beaten a lot of the common topics to death. It only takes a handful of articles about "how to pitch a VC" to soak up most of the relevant advice on the subject. While posts often present a unique com
651.
by johnrob 16y ago
I'd love to read a book/blog exposing "the mind" of the corporate acquirer, much like the book "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" supposedly does for the sexes.
652.
by johnrob 16y ago
This is a very crowded and somewhat mature space, which makes for an interesting marketing problem. I'd love to hear about how you guys approach it in some future blog posts!
653.
by johnrob 16y ago
One reason content can look good in a tablet is that it's designed with UX in mind. Print design has always favored maximizing the content per page over actual usability.
654.
by johnrob 16y ago
When these companies hire people without telling them the percent, what caliber of person do they think they're getting?
655.
by johnrob 16y ago
Even if there is a bubble, who cares (in these parts at least)? Back in 2001, you needed money to build a product. The bubble bursting meant no money, and thus no product. These days a downturn won't prevent you from building something.
656.
by johnrob 16y ago
Trick question. Respond to customers, not competitors.
657.
by johnrob 16y ago
I don't understand why the other incubators don't just copy the YC application. Maybe it's not perfect, but it's good enough. Better than losing good candidates because they didn't want to fill out yet another form.
658.
by johnrob 16y ago
Any idea how big the range of the bluetooth is? I'm curious how far away I can be from the other device I'd like to communicate with.
659.
by johnrob 16y ago
There's a selection bias at work: we only hear about the success stories (whether success means raising money or an exit). It stands to reason there will be a heroic tone to it since succeeding is hard. If the press wrote about every foun
660.
by johnrob 16y ago
MeeGo smartphones and tablet devices will offer overwhelmingly superior experiences and applications than iOS and Android based competitor products That is one bold statement. I don't know if I'd bet the company's success on a claim like

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