AVC: The Word Bubble
avc.com
avc.com
When joe sixpack 'invests' his house in facebook's ipo, then borrows some money to invest in groupon's; that, my friends, is a bubble.
We'll be there in a couple of years, nobody can escape from that. The hype machines will be in full swing with ten posts per day on the front page feeding the frenzy, tv shows, newspapers headlines about the best initial day for an IPO since google, everybody making millions overnight and nobody wants to be left behind. We all know that feeling.
Then joe sixpack enters the party, and the bubble pops.
Of course, they've invested in many companies that didn't return on the investments.
Just because you don't believe they made a good investment decision, I would think it wise to respect their very good track record.
I just think as start-ups we shouldn't single out large investments as unreasonable until/unless they are proven so.
With the odds stacked against us already, it may be in our best interest to not be the naysayers of our own industry.
pedalpete's comment was mild and sensible. He has nothing to apologize for.
The difference is that today, thanks to the Internet, the people who were saying the Internet wasn't going to change everything have much more of a voice. The peaks and troughs are going to be less extreme, and the cycles will be longer. The little picture stuff we're getting better at understanding and predicting, while the big picture stuff just keeps getting more and more broken as society collapses in slow motion.
There is nothing we can do, fools will be fools. (I was in the fools pack too in early 2000)
If there is only one advice we can give to our family and friends is this: do not invest in hype. Plug your ears with wax or tie yourself to the mast to keep your sanity.
Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Living Social, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.
If/when they go public, we'll get to see how they're really doing.
And I think how they're doing will affect the rest of the startup industry.
Economists might argue that these poor investments will greatly affect the economy; after all there is a trickledown effect in every financial sector. But Keynes boom-and-bust cycle is not just some theory that can be eliminated with caution. The roots of the boom-and-bust cycle engraved within human nature, and unless we alter the behaviors of all the participants in the economy, and wipe out the concept of greed, preventing this cycle is almost impossible. Thus instead of preventing such cycle, why not let the true entrepreneurs take their innovation to the next level with the boost from the market, and give them the opportunity to change the world, and turn it into a better place? If the bubble can harness more innovation for the world, why is it a bad thing?
(this is the final passage from my blog @ http://milogao.tumblr.com/)
This is a off topic, for which I apologize, but the way his Etsy Mini is cut off there doesn't exactly highlight the wonderful design and programming prowess of Etsy. Or well, actually sad to say it does encapsulate their design skills very accurately. The Etsy mini has not been updated since 2006. Can you imagine? I guess the fact that one of Etsy's main investors puts that on his blog, with the right 25% cut off no less, and seems to think it looks fine explains a lot.
I assumed you thought it looked okay from how it was on your blog, as personally, I would have said "hmm, it doesn't fit". At this point in the story, I would go to the Etsy App Gallery and see if a helpful third party developer had one in a smaller size. On the other hand, if I was on the Board of Etsy, I'd probably get on Etsy IRC instead and tell one of the 70+ engineers there to make me one that fits.
If only every browser supported the 'zoom' CSS property, we could just apply zoom:80%. Then this one would fit fine... alas. Next we ponder what happened to the 'Super Etsy Mini', which died in creation with only the epitaph: "It was trying to do too much".
It's cool you're showing your Etsy stuff on your blog. There's still a huge mass of people who don't know about what is found on Etsy.
(The Etsy iframe that's being served is 368px wide, but your sidebar only has 300px available.)
otherwise we all cool
Great line.