mauricecheeks

u mean like... a business?

Trying to provide a service that is of value?

http://radar.net seems to be working fine and radar.com is something entirely different and dumb. They went with the .net because the .com was taken.

clever plug...

but i'm pretty sure they're aiming @ us with http://revvu.com

:-) i was wondering if anyone used better/different ones than CNet

probably making something cool that people like is necessary to get popular bloggers to write about you

scribd works well for people who are too lazy to start their own blog but want to say something publicly.

Do you want lazy people as primary customers? I don't know, but there will always be lazy people.

Thats awesome that he mentions Amazon & ebay as giants of Web 1.0 :-) http://revvu.com is gearing up for that scene.

Simply not displaying who rated you up or down (just like on here) is the first step towards that.

That is definitely something that has been a consideration since day one though. Epinioins was widely disqualified as a reputable source because people formed such "cartels" to take advantage of their paid review model.

Sure epinions would be a closer comparison to us, because we do allow user reviews.

Our approach though, is mostly to let people submit links to outside reviews. There will always be CNet & engadget (and these will be submitted), but what we're hoping for is a place to help people find reliable reviews from lesser known sites like audioholics, i4u, GSM arena, or the hundreds or thousands of tech blogs like digitalconsistency.com that pop up all the time.

Forming a user-driven centralized hub for consumer electronic reviews from all over the web.

Someone who's IQ is reasonably high will still say uninformed things. Also, IQ does not change with age... so a 14 year old with a high IQ would fit right into your "elite community" and immediately spoil the party due to their lack of maturity.

Why not just form a blacklist of "stupid IPs". Keep your input productive... or die.

:-) I'm glad this got posted on here. We are building a product review site & I was super tempted to leave a comment on techcrunch. Alas, our site isn't far enough along, nor is it prepared for that kind of attention.

PowerReviews/buzzillions has a pretty clever business model. Essentially its creating Sheep that $hit grass. It is a step beyond it's competition iNods, which is two steps beyond ViewScore, which are both only marginally more useful than just searching google to find reviews.

But what I (we) think would be a lot cooler, is building a community around and for this tech consumer market.

Our site ( http://revvu.com ) uses a user-driven model for centralizing consumer electronic reviews on the web. Users can submit reviews that they find, or blog, or want to share. Then the community can vote reviews up or down (based on value) per each individual product page. (sort of reddit style)

Votes on reviews effect the weight of ratings, forming a dynamic review score that reflects the opinion of the masses.

We just launched on Monday, so karma is not yet visible. Also, our social network aspect is not in place yet. That aspect will be the key to creating a strong community, creating an addicting user experience, and creating a way to share (read: show off) the things you own & are interested in.

I think PowerReviews is a cool concept, and will probably work for some retailers... but they (like everyone else in this space) don't get "it" yet. Aside from the arbitrary use of tagging, their site isn't really reflecting any of the advancements or evolutions of the way people use the internet today. They have found a business model that seems feasible and built an idea around it in a market that NEEDS improvement. What they lack is a carrot to attract users (those seeking reviews) to care, return, or get involved. Which might be fine for them, if thats not what they want. If thats the case though, suggesting that PowerReview (or buzzillions) "may get the market" doesn't sound very likely.

Anyway, we'd really appreciate feedback on our site. This is a very sharp community. We would certainly be interested to hear from, or chat with, anyone who has feedback/suggestions for us.

The company is an entity. It would be appropriate to use "we" more often that not. Use "I" when talking about yourself or yourself on behalf of the entity.

The same should be said for 2 or 3 person teams. Try to get in the habit of thinking about the company as an entity bigger than yourself.

The answer is yes. Apparently (as you already know) Google's employee intellectual property agreements say that they have the rights to anything developed while employed by Google. Read all the fine print and speak to a lawyer.

The short answer seems to be yes though.

"A duck can swim, walk and fly. But an eagle flies faster and more skillfully, fish are better swimmers and just about anything on legs can outrun a duck." In other words, ducks can do a lot of things but they are not experts in any of them. So, in your business, don't be a duck! "

Great analogy! I've gotten similar advice from a number of people. Must be worth something :-)

Thanks for your input.

I'm sure it would be nearly impossible to sell. ;-) Hence i volunteer to sell it myself. I'm sure it would be a huge undertaking because of things the hardware limitations & time it would take to update things... but once in place, it'd be well worth it for everyone involved.

yea i definitely want to see micro payments catch on. I've been ranting about this for months now. I think it is a much needed component of the new internet i want to see exist :-)

- revamp the music industry (big business is not invited)

- political social network (get people talking)

- revolutionize the structure of the internet (its a mess)

- introduce new airline software (I'd sell that myself)

If anyone wants to do any of these things feel free, because they need to be done. If you want to participate in my efforts to seem them happen in the future - maurice@revvu.com

I thought it'd be interesting to hear what project everyone wants to do next. Or just ideas for things they want to see happen in the future.

that seems considerably less random ;-)

2 things to keep in mind:

It is in the interest of seed funders to encourage you not to fund yourself with debt. They want to ride the gravy train if you succeed.

It is in your interest not to fund yourself with debt. All probability suggests that there is no gravy train for you, just debt.

We've got a projector (from Woot), so our nightly dvd/video game breaks are pretty awesome.

The Magic Lamp 'Goal setting for people who hate setting goals' - Keith Ellis

its not self help for slackers :-) its just a really good book about organizing your goals and seeing them through.

My lease runs out in June... maybe i can sleep there?

I think I understand from personal experience what he might be trying to describe in terms of not letting YC be your alpha / omega.

We applied to the Fall 06 YC round. I was in school and my co-founder had a job at a small software company. Really we just had a cool idea and wanted to do it. When we found out about YC we thought it was "perfect for us". We spent a week or two struggling over answering question just right. We had no product, and had not yet considered some of the questions the application was asking. As you may guess we got an email from YC in late October saying:

--- " We're sorry to say that we can't accept your proposal for funding. Please don't take it personally, because most of the proposals we rejected, we rejected for reasons having nothing to do with the quality of the applicants. For example, we were very reluctant to accept proposals with only one founder, because we think starting a startup is too much work for one person. We also rejected a lot of proposals simply because we couldn't understand them, or didn't understand the problem domain well enough to judge them, or because the project seemed too big to start on only three months of funding.

We realize this process is fraught with error. It's practically certain that groups we rejected will go on to create successful startups. If you do, we'd appreciate it if you'd send us an email making fun of us; we want to learn from our mistakes.

Thanks Y Combinator Staff" ---

We told ourselves that wasn't going to stop us.... but it sorta did for a while. I wasn't done with school, but was getting dream job offers, and my co-founder was enjoying his software development job. So we didn't do much for a few months. We just kept talking about our idea for Revvu.

In doing some soul searching though, I decided I had to turn down these job offers and stop wasting time in school. This is not the life I wanted. After talking to my co-founder we came to grips with the fact that... working regular jobs was the default. That was the easy way to go about life, but we wanted more than that. We are too creative and determined to be held back or stifled by the nuances of a "job".

In January I moved across the country to live with my co-founder and work full time on our project. Shortly after that we had a full business plan, and were testing our site in closed beta. As of this week we've launched publicly and are getting encouraging user feedback.

We are beginning to tap our network to find potential investors, so that we can grow the business significantly in the next 12 moths.

About a week ago my co-founder brought up YCombinator for the first time in months, and we decided to apply at the last minute. Not because we NEED the living expenses, we both have savings. Also, not because we need it to feel like we're doing something. We're already confident that we're doing something, and we'll peruse other sourced of funding if we don't get YC. We applied because we know we could benefit from the mentoring, the guidance, the connections, and i guess partially because not draining our bank accounts just to eat would be kinda nice.

If the author had good intentions, IMHO, we might be a model for what he was trying to communicate. We weren't ready before. We were sitting around waiting to hear back from YC in October, and nearly let our passion fade after not being accepted.

This time filling out the application didn't take long at all, because we actually knew our answers. This time we have a real plan for our business and legitimately strive towards success.

If we get YC... awesome, if not... thats fine too.

I hope many of you are in the same boat. I hope you're building something you believe is great, and nothing will stop you. Don't get discouraged. Don't let anything slow you down. The world is big enough for all of us to succeed.

-if you build it, they will come

I saw an incredible banner ad the other day:

"Click on these features to upgrade this Honda Civic" (picture of honda + some words to click on)

Each time you clicked a feature the Civic was being upgraded & transformed into a VW Rabbit.

It was GREAT!

danw - just wanted to let you know that video has been passed up the ladder :-)

I think Tiny Pictures is really happy with the UI of the mobile application for Radar. Its pretty slick... if you haven't seen it yet, you can see the CEO give a demo to Robert Scoble @ http://www.podtech.net/home/technology/2622/demo-of-photo-conversations-on-radarnet

This photoriver concept is definitely a cool of viewing pictures on the phone though.

(disclaimer: if u view my LinkedIn you'll see I currently work for radar)

Is this basically a repackaging of their existing affiliates program?

Either way - Amazon clearly doesn't get it. Their blog references blogs.inspions.net as an example of someone using the double underline for their new Context Links. Well not only is Thought Garage using no-underline ... the context links are completely irrelevant.

http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture2zz1.png

This is not more effective advertising, this is more Sucks.

Seth's idea is one that i'm sure a lot of people have thought of recently. I know i have a bunch of ideas written on scrap paper about it. I'm just glad to see someone might be doing something cool to circumvent the current college standard.

As much as i talk about college being a big fat waste of time and money, I generally enjoyed my time spent there. I had an awesome marketing job with one of the greatest companies/brands in the world and made some stellar contacts. It was the job offers halfway through college that showed me that the experience was worth MUCH more than the diploma. Finding out that jobs that "require" college degrees really just require proof that you are capable and determined was a great realization.

If you can demonstrate to a company that you have what it takes, waiting for you to finish your degree could be a waste of time for all parties involved.

So if your goal is to get a good job... it is entirely possible without a degree. Your friends and family may tell you otherwise, and very few people will encourage you to drop out to take a job... but it's your decision. Having a degree hardly dictates your happiness or success as a person.

I ended up leaving school after 3.5 years. Not to take a job, just because it was clearly a waste of my time. I wanted to focus on starting/building my company, and school was just getting in the way of that. Incidentally I found (sorta like Seth) a way that I could get my last semester's worth of credits from my university - so i'll still have that "all mighty piece of paper" in a couple months.

My suggestion to people usually is: Do what you want! Fitting the social norm is easy and will probably work out for you, but it might not be the best choice. If I were to go to college again, I'd study something that interested me as a person. Not something that I felt was a happy medium between interesting and a safe career path.

You should go to college to learn about something you think is cool & enjoy your time spent there. Study art or music, history of physics... something that will make you want to attend early morning class discussions. Get involved on campus, network with people, and use your free-time to read and figure out how you're going to make your mark. If you're just going to school to prepare for a job... rethink why you'd spend your time and money being lectured and quizzed on material from drab books who's curriculum is behind the times anyway. If you are planning to start a company, you'll know for yourself if college is important to you or not.

Sleep is a dumb waste of time.

Very little in life is free.

Today's internet clearly proves that.

Very few websites cost money, and very few websites are free of ads. These ads are a charge to users in the form of annoyance, inconvenience and spam. They ruin a site's layout and distract from valuable content.

Worst of all these ads are EXTREMELY far from being useful. I'm sure most of you have seen the abysmal figures of facebook's 0.04% click through rate. Even giants like facebook and myspace with their millions (or billions) of monthly page views aren't profitable based on traditional ad based business models.

Maybe paid sites are the way to go.

I know i'd be fine with the death of banner ads.

I predict the future holds one last method of advertising (pat.pend.) and then hopefully in a few years someone will be able to introduce a form of micro-payments that will actually catch on.