tomazstolfa

I'm the co-founder of Layer.

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Parse was acquired by Facebook and unfortunately did not make the cut despite being a great asset for developers. One of the reasons is Facebook's shift in focus, but I'm sure there are others. I love Parse and I'm a big fan of Ilya and the team.

Layer is independent, backed by strong investors, and focusing on growing revenue. The product, unlike Parse, is very vertically specialized on something very hard to do well in house. Layer is providing value that customers recognize and are willing to pay for. Unlike Parse, Layer powers messaging in both new and established products with large user bases like Hinge, Trunk Club (Nordstrom), and many others.

Happy to answer any questions - t@layer.com

Did you invest in Stripe (or start a similar company)?

It obviously was a difficult bet - young founders, powerful incumbents - plenty of risk and unknowns.

That said, I believe a good seed investor will spend a lot of time with the founders and the team before pulling the trigger. You'd be surprised at how few investors actually do that.

Layer -- San Francisco, CA

We’re looking for talented and driven engineers to help us build Layer, the open communications layer for the Internet. Layer enables app developers to easily build secure, scalable messaging, voice and video features into any app. We're tackling problems you won't find anywhere else, and we're obsessed with doing it right. A few of our high priority roles are:

* Senior Software Engineer

* Dev Ops Engineer

* Software Tech Lead

For more information and our full list of openings, visit: https://layer.com/jobs#positions

I think they shouldn't. Simplicity is the key of Povio and they are doing an amazing job at keeping it minimal ;)

been using this since the start and the evolution of the product is just amazing. The team is doing a wonderful job at simplifying everything around a very good core experience.

I hardly open Instagram these days and don't use Snapchat, but have been using Povio 5+ times/day over the last year.

Yes, it is in the roadmap. Let's nail mobile first ;)

The Layer UI kit will be open-source from day one. The SDK and protocol will be opened up soon after.

Like mentioned in our presentation today - we are on a mission to make communications better for everyone, and we firmly believe that open is a better option. A bit more about Layer: https://layer.com/introducing-layer

Thanks, this is great feedback! Please get in touch with us, we'd love to chat more - hello@layer.com

At Layer we will always offer a free tier for low volume products, and only charge once an app gets meaningful traction.

We are here to help apps built on top of Layer win.

that's some great insight! thanks for this.

Yep. Apparently a fix is on the way.

http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=157613

Seen this when it was still very rough. Huge progress so far. Keep it up.

Hm, not exactly.

I've posted this because the post provides an insight into a non-transparent way of pricing and I thought it might be an interesting conversation starter on HN.

All these comments seem to show the topic is interesting enough.

Although I did not get to hang out with you enough, I have to say that Ljubljana's tech, art and "good people" scene benefited a lot from your stay.

Keep it up Sam and Brooke.

+1

Google results get a new dimension. Same for Reddit.

Thanks! I've replaced the video with this one to avoid the auto-play issue.

I agree with you. The embed does not have a non-autoplay option.

Sorry, I was writing this on the go. You are obviously right.

Thanks for reporting. Will fix.

Running WP, with wp-svbtle twisted a bit.

Will fix the sidebar on mobile.

The extra 5 miles are derived from the strength of the team (and each individual member).

If everyone else is marching at 20 miles/day, we still need to march a bit faster to win, but not too fast to burn out and crash.

Great!

I've been a beta tester of Stairway.

Can't emphasize enough how fast the product evolved into a must have. No more "I didn't promise/say that.'

We just wanted to share the approach and thoughts behind our mobile app. Comments and feedback are welcome.

Thanks. I am aware of Maslow's Hierachy of Needs, but I wanted to approach the problem from the economic theory perspective.

It is indeed a quite complicated problem and one blog post is not going to explain the matter fully :)

Providing pleasure can only be achieved after a basic need has been met and you have the resources to easily afford that solution.

Here is the challenge - why would someone buy Evian or San Pellegrino when they can buy a gallon of "normal" water for a fraction of the price?

Thanks Rob, means a lot.

wrote this a while ago. might be relevant for the debate - http://www.funkykaraoke.com/2010/10/on-facetime.html

Thanks Jure, appreciated.

Thanks!