As a practical matter, no. Legal told me I have to implement it for all users because it covers EU citizens who might be accessing our site from or living in non EU countries.
2) How close is pg to this whole mess? I'm guessing this is no longer in his sphere of influence, but it would seem that given that Wakemate is a YC company he should probably clarify YC's position on this debacle. I realise this is more a question to pg than to you, but I guess you might have an opinion.
3) Do you think the problem that ultimately killed the company was a mismatch between the founders, or did that evolve as a result of the multitude of problems that the company encountered? I'm getting a hunch that all these mistakes by the company could have been the result of lacking a clear direction/leadership.
3.) The problems were absolutely cumulative over the course of development. Neither Greg nor Arun were engineers or technical in any way and the hardware developer had a full time job that was not WakeMate. I started ~1.5 months before launch and was told the hardware was functional. I managed to get the iOS version to work most of the time but the firmware was hosed in such a way that pretty much all units would fail over the course of a few months.
> the firmware was hosed in such a way that pretty much all units would fail over the course of a few months
I initially had some good experiences with the android version which then got more and more unreliable until I stopped using it altogether. I was led to believe that this was due to bugs in the android app. Are you now saying that it is actually a firmware bug on the devices?
And if yes, is there any hope to have this fixed once everything is open sourced?
We fixed one of the issues. I processed enough returns on refurbished units to know that there were still several bugs. One of the main complaints is that the wristband would be dead in the morning - I believe this was caused by a firmware defect that caused the bluetooth radio to blare at full strength all night. That being said this was almost a year ago so I might be misremembering specific issues. One thing is for sure though - there were bugs even after we revised the firmware.
As to fixing the firmware - that's absolutely possible although we made some non optimal decisions with the hardware itself that caused the WakeMate to waste a lot of power. That's one of the reasons why the WakeMate's battery is comically large for the amount of usage you get out of the device.
Sigh, that would have been nice to know. Arun told me to unpair and pair the wakemate again. That was it. After telling him that didn't fix it, I got no response. :\
There is no way this product will ever ship. Greg, what are you even going to do with 150k or even 250k or 1mm? You already burned up almost a million bucks on this exact same idea when I was working for you and it was a huge waste because of your terrible execution and stubborn reluctance to seek or take any advice from anyone whatsoever.
The market has judged you and found you lacking. Cede your resources to a more efficient actor in the market and go home.
The integration process was really easy. You just include the iAd framework and then add ADBannerView objects wherever you want them. The ADBannerViews work like pretty much any other view with the exception that they must be a certain size. There are callbacks for when the banner loads to fail and if these are called we display our house ad instead of the iAd.
This is true, and a good point. One thing we do need, however, is to take the opinion of prominent economists with a little bit more salt. I remember when invoking the name Greenspan among those interested in economics was like invoking the Name of the Lord - there was no higher authority. Now good ol' Al is getting hung out to dry and, in my opinion, trying to shunt blame away from himself as much as possible.
There shouldn't be a cult of celebrity in any science, economics least of all. This is what the NYT author should have argued against rather than economics in general. Before Farve went to play for Minnesota, how many Packers fans do you think would have bet against his prediction in the Texas vs. Alabama game if it was a very public prediction? The line in Wisconsin would be outrageously off as bookies bumped it more and more away from Farve's prediction. Go to Vegas and it's probably a lot closer to the money. This decision distortion is a real problem that is wreaking real havoc on our system of exchange.
As in any genre there is a wide range of talent and musical ability among rap artists. The record industry is really good at printing one hit wonders and then burning them up. Those are probably the guys who are making the songs you are referring to. This is not unique to rap, it happens in pop, alternative, rock and roll, heavy metal and any other genre. I could easily say "metal is just screaming" or "alternative is all the same crappy guitar chords" and I would be kind of half right some of the time.
If you take a look at some of the more accomplished artists with staying power you will discover thoughtful lyrics and complicated music. Jay Z has been getting more and more musical over time. The American Gangster soundtrack was an explosion of funky horns and beats that really set the tone of the album to that of the film. Death of Autotune doesn't have an electronic note on the track. This is not to mention the vast pool of talent in the underground hip hop and rap scene, which is something you should really investigate if you are going to give the genre an honest examination.
If you don't care for rap music that's fine, but saying "it all sounds the same" just makes it obvious you don't ever listen to rap music. What would you think of me if I said all classical music sounds the same?
Often it does all sound the same, because the same producers are used on everyone's album. In the early 2000s, 50% of what was on the radio, hip hop or otherwise, sounded like it was either produced by the Neptunes or Timbaland.
It seems that Doubletwist is doing just that, and I think that hthey're going through iTunes' api, so it seems to just work from version to version. Either that or they're doing a fine just keeping up to date on things.
This doesn't seem like an outlandish bet to me. It seems to me that Facebook has, up to this point, spent much more time and energy on their core product rather than improving advertisements. Six months ago the ads were totally worthless, now I notice they are beginning to tailor their ads to my interests and my group of friends. If they continue optimizing the ads those revenues should increase.
There is also a virtually untapped market on Facebook for virtual objects. The gift system does exist, but I feel needs improvement. Social networking sites in Asia make the bulk of their money off of this feature, not ads. If FB beefs up this aspect of their business I think 2 billion by 2014 is a reasonable goal.
All that being said, the sentiment that "he is selling something" seems reasonable. They could be ramping up for an IPO or, more likely, going for another round of private investments to fuel growth.
So, at a daily reach of 2/3rd of googles they have managed to score about 10% of googles income.
I don't see facebook getting several times the size of google and I don't see how they could possibly get close to the clickrates / cpms that google is getting for their traffic.
It doesn't get much more targeted than search traffic, facebooks citizens revolt whenever the company tries to pull in a direction where they can monetize the traffic better.
'Facebooks' come and go, geocities, myspace and so on...
To my feeling they're already over their top, but then again I could be mistaken, which will cost $100 :)
For FB to make that 2 billion (that's a lot of dough) on their users they'd have to become roughly 10 times their current size at the same conversion rates, so they'd have to have a reach of 200%, which is impossible.
I think they'll top out somewhere in the 600 to 800 million range and then they'll either stay there or they'll be upstaged by someone with a better idea.
I wouldn't bet either way, but remember that profit isn't a linear progression. Right now, Facebook's not making much money per user. If they figure out a way to convince its average user to pay for something, suddenly they'll be in for a shitload of cash.
I dunno if they'll find something like that, but it's not something to be instantly ruled out.
'Facebooks' come and go, geocities, myspace and so on...
True, but at one point that was true of search engines, too. Sometimes the music stops and a winner plants their seat in the most profitable position.
Many of the entrants so far have been happy to follow the strategy Mark Cuban recently outlined in his anti-freemium post. "More importantly, when you see your BlackSwan company appear and you know they will kick your ass, rather than ramping up to try to compete, get out. Sell." There's much to recommend that strategy, especially if you'd rather own an NBA franchise than a web company.
But Facebook has plenty of Nth generation advisors and investors who want to escape the flame-out/sell-out cycle and go for the Google-sized enduring win -- Andreesen among them. That changes the questions:
Is there a niche for a universal, well-tended social/identity network platform? (I think yes.)
Will one gorilla dominate that market? (I think yes, it has many of the same network-effects and natural-monopoly aspects as search or operating systems.)
Can the Facebook team avoid the nightclub-like fad boom-and-bust cycle? (I think probably; they're certainly wise to the problem and building defenses like crazy.)
Will being the de facto monopolist in this market involve massive new revenue streams (beyond advertising) that can now only be imagined? (I also think yes. Distrust and fraud are the biggest drains on internet value creation; a trust-network anchored in real-world relationships is the ultimate countermeasure.)
The utility of computer labs is huge, there's no doubt about that.
What really surprises me is that only six out of over three thousand freshman ran Linux. Weak sauce! I guess coming from Carnegie Mellon University I'm used to a higher level of techno-centrism.
