marcin

URL shorteners provide one of the two values.

- short link that is easier to share/doesn't break in the process (when you send it via email, need to copy-paste on your mobile or just want a cleaner FB message

- tracking that will give the poster insight on the number of clicks and other performance indicators of the message

No one in their right mind would use 302 redirect, because you then loose things like Twitter share counts, or card implementation.

There is an odd case of someone using the shortener for marketing purposes (I do it for my product), but it usually will be a by-product of something deeper that offers value to the user. And, as many of those services are free (as your referred Pocket), it's a small price to pay for an otherwise great product IMO.

Product/tech teams raise that concern (logic being that anything could happen within JS) - in my opinion it's more of a product/engineering/marketing conflict than any real logic/evidence behind it.

Not excluding current clients is a common problem, which is actually technical. Retargeting requires tags placed in multiple places (homepage, blog, marketing automation, and yes - product). Placing retargeting pixels on product pages is often seen as risky, detrimental to product performance or your clients data. I believe the upside from being able to distinguish between clients and prospects outweighs the risk factors (which are quite superficial to be honest). There are other ways to exclude current clients such as custom interactions and landing pages, but that's a longer story.

Frequency and time capping are actually a common sense in retargeting. Having said that, current tools are not great at it as it's hard to do proper cohort campaign/analysis. We're addressing it with both time and impression caps, as well as cookie lifetime. Retargeting people on leisure sites or in times when they're usually in 'downtime' mode can also be a problem, which is why precise insight into individual placements is necessary.

I actually did run comparison test for our client - regular product retargeting (a site that is very heavy on educational material) vs content retargeting (specific landing pages with content). The engagement level on content were off the charts (up to 90% download rate, TOS, Bounce Rate). So educating works far better. Only trouble is, you need email, which 95% of visitors are not ready to give you on first hit - that's why retargeting works so well here.

With the Youtube audience, this could nicely turn into new stream of live shows/reality TV where everyone can participate.

Any plans on having beginners tracks for people not fluent in coding and soldering?

Besides possible fake 'credibility' boosts this may impact your Edgerank etc. thus acting like social media SEO booster. I think some external services evaluate their rankings on number of likes as well.

Just wanted to add, that this hack was verified for external links and pages - it's still to be tested whether it could be applied to FB comments, pages or apps.

Quite interesting how the way British sport had it's turnaround is similar to building of the startup ecosystem worldwide: investment in institutions and infrastructure, various stages of money distribution, ruthless focus on what works ('no up-round for you babe') and doubling down on the winners. I wonder if you truly can manage the country like that.

If you think about business plans as frameworks for evaluating the viability of a business, there are new formal tools, like Business Model Generation that serve exactly the same purpose (evaluating the current viability of the business in a structured way) but more aligned with web reality (fast time to market, pivots, extreme competition).

There is a previous post mentioned (by Mark Suster http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2011/08/15/why-you-need-t...) but I felt like this one adds more color to the approach.

It's true that UK banking system is totally wrong (which is interesting, considering that they invented modern banking). There are multiple regulations that make bankers life hard, most prominent being the anti-money-laundering regulation. Generally a completely useless regulation that doesn't protect the financial system in any way (but that's a different story). This system can be hacked though. Normally it will take a foreigner a couple weeks (if not months) to set up a business bank account. But if you will set up a personal account with that bank first, and follow up with setting up the business account later - no problems and instant service. Lesson learned - you need to know your way around, and there's plenty of people that will help you (other startups). You have to consider that London is the financial capital of the world (or used to be), hence the number of fraud and cheating is enormous. They need some ways to structure it, otherwise it would all collapse. Also, if opening a bank account is something that can kill the startup, please - what will you do when US competitors actually take notice of you?

Warsaw (Poland)

Front-end developer (HTML+CSS on Python). LinkFindr helps people use their social networks to drive business much like Facebook helped Ivy League students leverage their friendships to get laid. We integrate 4 networks, index thousands of contacts and evaluate connections based on real interaction - then we help people find the right introductions to desired contacts.

More info about us, and how to get in touch at http://linkfindr.com/linkfindr/default/about

This piece particurarly reflects the tech startup world:

"You can quit if you want to. Or you can stick with it until you get lucky.

The are no easy answers. No quickie fixes. No direct paths to success.

No one is forcing you to do this. You have to love it, and to believe in yourself. Even when you fail.

Especially when you fail.

If you aren't failing, you aren't trying hard enough.

And if you aren't trying hard, it's going to take a lot longer to get lucky." Everyone say ROVIO and a hundred others.

One more proof that startups are for people that are into the experience. Not the money, not the credit, just the fun of doing it. If you're about calculating your percentage, figuring out if your're getting paid the largest sum of money around or have the best title - talk to the recruiters of big cos.

Nice polarising title, but: 1. You're not getting screwed, you are making a choice, which is driven by market factors like your alternatives, expected utility from the job etc. 2. The numbers given are quite extreme - if the guy is really worth 100k I find it hard to believe that he would be offered 50k and only 1%. Also his option stake could raise with more responsibility given, this is just the initial negotiation point as I see it. 3. It only makes sense in the Valley or US.

Adblock? Please. POP / IMAP - valid points. But this is slightly different - it's a product they designed from scratch, control the UX etc. Still - no business model.

The thing is - with the new interface, that is perfectly accessible through the browser AND makes sure your offline is in-sync why would people carry on using the regular version?

Yes, but as you said yourself it is local (targeted). Also, those ads usually have very precise call to action and very often are connected with current offer/sale/etc. They're also specific to US - very hard to find anywhere else in the world.

Good point. Also worth comparing startups to regular SMBs, who don't do national TV advertising but rather focus on local listings, niche magazines and outdoor. There is a tool for every marketing job, which for a startup might mean sponsoring a meetup of early adopters, then releasing some shwag, doing PR or advertorials, and ending in harvesting demand via search. Otherwise, when you perceive advertising as a hammer, everything starts looking like a nail.

Great work - a bit of a 'form over function', but it at least got me till the end (which few how-tos do).

As much as I'd always rather have a designer that does HTML on the team (for the sake of quick and agile adaptation), vs someone doing just photoshop, I believe that a good analogy would be architecture. Architects have fairly good understanding of specifics of various materials, their performance as well as associated costs. Still all projects are always reviewed by a 'construction engineer' who converts the architectural vision to workable implementation (that is then on passed to production teams). Taking that example to the online world - designers should understand all of the mechanisms that they will use in the design, and communicate their vision to someone that will implement it. They do not need to actually code it, because following that logic - being a product manager for LinkFindr (and CEO, and business person etc..) I should never allow any designer to spoil my vision with her artistic view, and just storify, mockup, PSD and then code it myself. It takes trust and good communication to split up work in the team, but as Ford proved a couple years ago - when you're running at scale, there is no other way.

Deck is doing that somehow (caching ad impressions at least) - so it is an addressable issue. However - this app works both in online and offline mode, so my point was not really touching the offline ad problem - thanks for pointing it out.

Gmail is clearly more of a beta than a functional product (namely attachements don't seem to work), but the biggest question/implication of this change I see is evaporation of any business model (as in 'the ads are gone').

Besides that - I like the UI a lot, but for any offline access to make sens it has to be rock solid (which this obviously isn't).

So let's have a laugh :) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2899691

I suppose the downvote was from you - thanks

what resolution? drop me a line at grodzicki on gmail

so sorry to disappoint you

Sorry, we suck in design (as the rest of the site undoubtedly shows) :)