goronbjorn

Ah! Had no idea. Guess the point is true twice over then. What a quietly great company.

this is how HBO started streaming, by buying what MLB had built

I think you might be referring to Disney/Disney+ and BAMTech → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Streaming_Services

(Super helpful answer by the way!!)

There's an app for Mac/iOS ($4.99) called WhiteNoise that does a similar thing. It also has a really extensive library of new sounds you can add: http://www.tmsoft.com/white-noise/

Jane > all three

Maybe I've read too many Paul Graham essays, but this felt like a book-centric explanation of "Make something people want".

The stats from comscore show how heavily skewed toward the younger demographic Snapchat is: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Bv3CIHgCYAEF0P0.jpg:large

Got it:

Snapchat Fetches $10 Billion Valuation

Kleiner Perkins Investment Gives the Messaging Services a Shot in the Arm

Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers has agreed to invest in Snapchat Inc., an ephemeral messaging service, at close to a $10 billion valuation, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Snapchat, which has talked to several potential investors in recent months, is in the process of raising a large investment round that would make it one of the most valuable private, tech startups despite virtually no revenue.

The venture-capital firm committed to invest up to $20 million in May, one person added.

At least one strategic investor has also committed to invest in the round, which isn't yet closed, two of the people said.

A spokeswoman for Kleiner Perkins wasn't immediately available for comment. A Snapchat spokeswoman said: "The valuation of our business and our capital requirements are the least exciting aspects of supporting the Snapchat community. We have no further comment at this time."

Snapchat's valuation, at about $2 billion last year, has soared even as the startup lacks a clear business model. Investors see potential to make money from the millions of teenagers and college students on the three-year-old app, a group that is highly coveted by advertisers and increasingly difficult to reach through traditional media like television and magazines.

New capital could help Snapchat gear up for its first foray into advertising, expected later this year. The company has held talks with media companies and advertisers in recent weeks about a new content service called Snapchat Discovery, a person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month. The service that would let users read daily editions of publications, video clips and ads by holding down a finger on the screen, like they do with photos and other messages on the app before disappearing.

(╯ಠ_ಠ）╯︵ s||ɐʍʎɐd

Anyone have the text of the article?

They had already built a pretty full-featured beta that was used by many when they raised funding. It was not "pre-launch" in the way Color was.

The implications of this are pretty interesting. People will only use software that solves actual problems they have. Software development is now more accessible to more people because of all these frameworks and tools. It only follows that the people most familiar with actual problems will be able to create the most used software, and those people aren't necessarily going to be software engineers by trade. The question "How long before we have a billion-dollar acquisition offer for a one-engineer startup?" is crazy, but likely not too far in the future, but even more interestingly, "How long before we have a billion-dollar acquisition offer for a zero-engineer startup?" might not be that far off either.

If there was an HN equivalent of Reddit Gold, you'd get it for this.

Stop wasting your time with blog posts like this and just read Behind the Cloud: http://smile.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-...

I can hear the sound of Yahoo! getting its Alibaba money ready…

The New York-based startup is competing in the same space as expense report software such as Concur and Expensify. Abacus founders Omar Qari, Ted Power, and Joshua Halickman say their service differentiates by making it easy for managers approve expenses in real-time through its app, instead of in batches at their desks.

This just isn't true. You can approve expenses through Concur's app: https://www.concur.com/en-us/mobile

me neither

They do support code blocks: https://medium.com/help-center/128f049a7ad (just search the page for "Code block")

Blog posts about PSD to HTML are not dead.

here's a working alternative: https://view-api.box.com/view/ada33341d065424b9082b629e81a7c...

If you don't want to download the PDF: https://view-api.box.com/view/1cdbcb3a1a944ab1becab0506d11fb...

What merit is there in rooting for failure for failure's sake?

You must be new to Hacker News…

Imagine where you'd be forced to go if HN didn't exist, for example.

Outside, maybe?

Here is a version with no problems (I used the Box View API): https://view-api.box.com/view/VoRxuIIQel26CLNAgt8KskrQxgUpwD...

It's got nothing to do with survivor bias, it's just logic. The original commenter is effectively saying 'if A, therefore B'. I just listed several cases of 'A' where 'B' did not result. Therefore 'If A, therefore B' is not true.

Their service is trivial, and can't scale.

Google in 1998: "Their service is trivial, and can't scale."

Linkedin in 2003: "Their service is trivial, and can't scale."

Facebook in 2004: "Their service is trivial, and can't scale."

Twitter in 2007: "Their service is trivial, and can't scale."

I have been witness to a number of startups who went Android first and found success.

Can you cite some examples?

This is purely ad hominem and doesn't actually refute any of the author's arguments.

Bigger companies get criticized all of the time for not being innovative or trying risky things.

When they actually do try something risky and it doesn't work out (e.g. Twitter Music), they get crucified for shutting it down, even though in all likelihood it's the right thing to do.

Can't win, it seems.

Minor editorial note: SFO is the airport, SF is the normal abbreviation for the city.

I know past years have been recoded, but I'm just looking for confirmation. I know a lot of people who got an invite but are on the fence because of this question (not because the event isn't great, but because travel is expensive).

Even though they pivoted to calendar app, I still loved their search functionality. It was the fastest, most relevant search I'd ever used and was genuinely useful. Cheers to Apple on the great acquisition.