I'd love to see more ideas around PG's list of things he'd like to fund being presented instead of yet another "social collaboration because what else is there?" startup.
We make social games.
a social data request and fulfillment system
adding social data
leveraging social media
identify active social networkers
Infoharmoni visualizes the real-time social web
social sports (and soon pop culture) betting applications
We make social games. We launch faster, iterate faster, and use metrics better.
"Use metrics better"? I guess that one wasn't crafted with consumers in mind.
In so many words. I trust their second sentence is relevant and makes more sense to investors, but I imagined it being their slogan. "Gamador: We launch faster, iterate faster, and use metrics better" just sounds humorous (hence the giggling). To me, as a Joe-average user, it sounds more like That Guy from Futurama than "we make a lot of really addicting games".
That is exactly right. These descriptions were written for investors.
"How will this software get my users laid" should be on the minds of anyone writing social software (and these days, almost all software is social software).
They're not using "social" as a buzzword indicating a passing fad. They're using it because, as JWZ points out, that's part of what software is today.
get on the train or get off it. social, realtime, location etc. are the new technologies of this generation.
Why don't you just wait and see how they do?
I'm more disappointed; I don't really feel twitter and like applications really add any value in the long term. Their sphere of influence barely extends outside of a very vocal and visible extended SV community.
I respect and value both YC and all your applicants. Everything I've seen highlights the enormous amount of intelligence, creativity, and 'shutzpah' that you all have.
Because of that, I find it very disturbing that a lot of your collective effort goes into problems that are 1) barely issues for 90% of computer users and 2) are insular to SV and the particularities of that community.
There are a whole host of areas where YC and those it funds can make huge inroads. I just find it disappointing that I see one or two offerings to 80% of the market while the majority of funded focus on the 20% - albeit a very investor friendly 20%, perhaps making my disappointed grow - that an insular community has dictated to be the "trend".
ADDED: I'm your typical customer. It's views like mine you should be listening to, not discarding. If I say "Meh, no value add" your response should not be "You simply don't understand how wonderful we are". That's a failure in your message delivery.
In 2000, everyone thought they were an Amazon. A boatload of people were wrong about that.