shanedanger

gigantic surprise: you're "family" when it means sacrificing for the company, and you're a human sacrifice when the company needs to make its shareholders feel better about the economy.

So something is not an experiment unless you do it for 6 months? :)

Obviously you didn't read the whole thing; search for the word "placebo" and you'll find my discussion of it under the section called "Potential Weaknesses In The Data".

"the author grossly does not understand the medical tests he had done and misinterprets the data"

As the author himself, I can corroborate your statement that I don't understand medical tests as well as a trained physician. :) However, the point of the post was to present the data so others could interpret / draw conclusions. I gave my observations and perspective, but I made every attempt to indicate the potential weaknesses in my experiment. I do hope people don't lose miss the forest for the trees here.

The EGFR thing is regrettable. Thanks for pointing it out!

Respectfully, if your startup wants to be recognized as a thought leader, YOU should write and manage your own blog. Your brand is one of the only assets you have in the early days; don't water it down with a steady flow of mediocre blog posts by strangers. Your personal brand, expertise, and storytelling as a founder is the most compelling part of your company. This is why Jake wrote this blog post rather than having an automated writer from their network do it.

IMO content and automation never belong in the same sentence together, unless your only goal is to fill in SEO content of which you aren't particularly concerned about the quality. If you're a startup concerned with your image, I don't think you want to be in that game.

You can't automate quality. It's impossible develop high-quality media without constant, transparent communication and editorial oversight. Especially if you're trying to do it cheaply.

If you're a big-budget brand with that wants to trade out banner ads for thoughtful content marketing, hire an editor with real journalism experience, then hire (or contract) the best journalists you can afford, with the biggest social media followings. This is why Red Bull, American Express, and Gilt Groupe kill it with content marketing, meanwhile you and I have never clicked "Like" on an auto-generated blog post from a random startup. The only way you'll compete with media companies for content-share is by beating them at their game.

That can't happen "automatically."

We're a TechStars NYC class this year (Contently), and the program has been an amazing experience. Harvard has good and bad students; YC turns out great companies and duds alike (though not very often, for sure!). I'm sad that Melanie had a bad experience, but TBH it wasn't for lack of support in the program, or for lack of amazing mentors and networking experiences.

Reality TV is a pretty bogus misrepresentation of actual reality, anyway. I'm glad they didn't film our class!

Yeah, BetaBeat got a whole bunch of facts wrong anyway. Great reporting... not.

$3 million seed? I've never heard of that before...

It seems like it makes sense, and they probably expect you to be shopping around to other VCs (why put all eggs in one basket). But as far as "is it dick to shop around once you have an offer?" I'm not sure, as I've never raised capital before. I'm curious how long a VC would give you before you've got to say yes to an offer. Like, can you take a month to "think about it" while going around and pitching other people? Will they know that's what you're doing?

Moo is the only one who lets you print just 50 cards, with the exception of ONP who hasn't updated in the price search yet. If you search for other quantities you'll see plenty of others. :)

Have you seen the free "build your own" templates at VistaPrint? They're beyond horrible. I'd rather scrawl my email address on a napkin.

It's version 1.0, so feel free to make suggestions! V2.0 will be fully dynamic, filterable, and worldwide.

like 43things only with proof + making it a game. that's pretty sweet actually

Is there a good HN- or Digg-style gaming news site out there? Besides the big blogs like Kotaku and Gamesradar and stuff, I mean.

Makes me wish I lived in New Zealand... :)

fantastic point. i've been to both, and the difference is quite clear

holy smokes, chaosmachine, you just changed my world! (not being snarky either, I seriously never knew that in all my days of amateur photodoodling)

I think the difference in this case is around 40kb, haha.

you know what's similarly painful in nyc? apartment hunting. they eased that pain with brokers, and now at least you can find a place, even though it costs you a bit more.

someone needs to become a "broker" for engineers. find startups the talent they're looking for in exchange for x% of that talent's salary/equity/whatever.

this is a great freaking post. smart notes on all points.