A billion dollar software tech company is founded every three months in the U.S.
blog.minming.net
blog.minming.net
Given the text blurring is a form of cloaking (showing one thing to the search engine, nothing to people who come in from a search) I think search engines should viciously rank them down too. And I don't care if there is some "easy" way to get around the blur (like the "scroll down" for expertsexchange or whatever it was), it's not obvious and it just pollutes the search results. Get rid of it. That said, as was mentioned elsewhere on HN recently, Stackoverflow needs a place for more meta questions to be moved rather than deleted as you can occasionally get a useful one that isn't just rehashing things we've seen 1000 times.
[1]http://www.quora.com/Programming-Languages/In-laymans-terms-...
Also FYI, most major search engines have "secret" IPs from which they crawl websites using normal user agents (ex: Chrome, Firefox, etc). They then compare the results to the results from their main crawlers to detect the type of cloaking you referred to.
.. except, of course, that the googlebot just reads the HTML. The CSS3 blur only causes problems when you try to read the site visually, via a browser.
> They also aren't doing any tricks to hide the full response in the HTML.
Yes, that's why the googlebot can read it.
I don't know why you're bothering to argue that this isn't cloaking. It most assuredly is.
cloak
verb
conceal, hide, cover, veil, shroud, mask, obscure, cloudSo it's not cloaking, it's just bad and annoying.
Missing ones include: Vancl, Youku, Renren, Wonga, Bazaarvoice, Conduit, Klarna, nicira, Homeaway, Workday, Changyou, ServiceNow, Splunk, Ocado, Giant, Guidewire, DealerTrack, SuccessFactors, SourceFire, ArcSight, Popcap, Yandex, Betfair, ZipCar, Baidu, ExactTarget, etc.
The company I work for delivers food to people, but we're very much a software company in that we couldn't possibly compete with the huge players in this market without smart software which lets us run it with the minimum of people. I'm fairly sure ZipCar are the same - there are many car hire organisations, but not that many which can get by without having to rent premises and huge numbers of people to look after car keys and signing in and out.
What people don't seem to get about both Quora and Google+ is that they are networks not based around the people you just randomly happen to know - but instead around the people and things that you are actually interested in. There's a huge difference between the two.
They are interest-based social networks and are essentially pulling niche, technical, specific forums, specific blogs, and just general chatter into one mainstream and real time feed - away from the pseudonym driven, trolling, harsh, fractured, and separate niche areas that we currently have in many areas (Yes I know both Twitter/YouTube began like this - but they have slowly become things you put on your business card/real business use and are based upon).
Quora should not be underestimated as a SV centric bubbletastic startup - although it often appears that way. But then again, so did Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, and even YouTube.
Quora is where you go to hang out with people who actually share your interests (and not just a zip code), talk about the things that you really care about (not about who was the most drunk on the weekend) and just generally talk shop about the world, with the added benefit of a centralized repository where content bubbles up everyday (kind of like YouTube's subscriptions feature). No more refreshing pages :D.
Quora is like the Hacker News for everything else that doesn't already have its own Hacker News with really, really, freaking good UI, addictive game mechanics and really good content filtering.
Quora should not be underestimated. And neither should Google+.
I don't have much of an opinion on Quora and want it to succeed, but your claims seem rather... grandiose. From what I've seen Quora fairs well in very specific situations (where it has a large userbase of people knowledgeable in that specific niche) and then it's mediocre everywhere else. I've never thought "this is the future" while using Quora.
Do you have any examples of Quora that show the potential you talk about? I guess it can be argued "If Quora has a large userbase that are knowledgable in every niche then it will take over the world!" but that sort of argument can extend to almost any service. I see Stackexchange as the biggest competitor to Quora and in my experience Stackexchange is fairing much better (both in users and interfaces, I'd much rather ask a question on a SE site vs. Quora, for example).
You don't go to StackExchange to hang out - you go there to ask answer/ask questions. It's like Wikipedia.
On extrapolations:
All large future extrapolations appear, by definition, to be grandiose. If they weren't - well then it would be bloody well bleeding obvious what was about to happen then wouldn't it :D - and it would go without me having to say so.
> Quora fairs well in very specific situations (where it has a large userbase of people knowledgeable in that specific niche) and then it's mediocre everywhere else.
Same with anything else. This is a truism.
The only thing I can say to people is this:
Whenever people tell you to look into something that appears curious - try it for 2 weeks and make your own judgement.
You mean the Psuedonym feature. I participate on various stackexchanges with different aliases (sometimes on the same stackexchange) because I don't want anyone to be able to profile me.
I don't contribute on Quora, even though I have a lot to contribute.
You're welcome to try to figure out what line of business I am in, which company, etc. There are a few posts I made on several stack exchanges which would give my competitors a big advantage while competing for a client.
If they only knew it was me.
Can you give an example?
Basically, you want to be known to people who you have opportunities to win-win interactions with (aligned interests), and avoid being known to people who could exploit you to your disadvantage (opposed interests).
Depending on what you want to optimize for, or what kind of interactions you feel are prevalent, having a consistent identity will help or hinder you. Of course, it's not a binary choice.
You don't go to StackExchange to hang out - you go there
to ask answer/ask questions. It's like Wikipedia.
Whenever people tell you to look into something that
appears curious - try it for 2 weeks and make your own
judgement.
Perhaps there is a feature or section of the site I'm not aware of? As I mentioned, some sort of example on Quora or Quora being this fascinating and valuable community experience would be great, because I just can't find it.
This difference made Quora less of a Q+A site and more of an interesting news, facts and opinions site to him.
If profit were the only things that mattered then Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google could never have gotten off the ground. Those things hemorrhaged cash for years.
It's how startups work. They are risky. They are unlikely to succeed. They often look like complete jokes.
And that's why you have to watch them carefully. Because it's the stuff you don't notice that really gets you.
For me personally most people that know of me know me by my username (citricsquid) and wouldn't be able to tell you my real name, so if I appear on a website as "Samuel Ryan" they're not going to have a clue who I am and would gain a lot more value if I was displayed under the identity they know me as (citricsquid).
The reason Facebook uses real names is just because it's how people are known in real life, Facebook exists as an extension of real life and so using real names is the sensible decision that provides most value to users.
It doesn't matter what you call yourself. What matters is whether you build a history, integrity and value around that name.
Real names work for facebook. That does not mean that pseudonyms do not work for others.
Quora may be a great company, but is it worth that much?
Facebook existed before, on millions of forums, blogs, websites and various accounts. But what changed everything was using real names. It was the real names and social proof that changed everything from something a bunch of nerds used (like IRC/various chat services/various forums) - to something everyone needed to be on and used daily.
Reddit/HN will remain non-mainstream for the foreseeable future.
Websites using pseudonyms use karma, upvotes etc. as social proof.
My point with mainstream was not views. My point with mainstream was that it will become something normal people could potentially use.
I like to think of reddit/StackExchange as the mid point between the completely disparate forums and a Facebook like interest based real-name social network.
They are like IRC.
When your website has that many uniques, and its subculture has been referenced by mainstream brands, TV shows, and continually shows up in real life (I just saw a local pizza shop that used an Advice Animal on a sandwich board outside), you are mainstream. When the President of the United States holds a Q&A session on your site, you are mainstream. When the internal drama of your website makes it onto the NYTimes and CNN, you are mainstream.
It's grown far, far beyond the internet-nerd stronghold it was a few years ago. Hell, at this point my humanities major friends are on Reddit, even if they don't comment.
Compare with Quora - which has made few inroads to any community besides "Silicon Valley Insider". The vast majority of content there is still about the tech industry and startups, and even on other topics the vast majority of commenters have tech industry/startup backgrounds. Mainstream? Really?
It may be that in the future a real-name-driven community will take the crown from Reddit as biggest community on the internet, but that's a long way from today, and I seriously doubt it will come in the form of Quora.
Shit, I just visited my Quora profile and one of the top 3 questions in my feed is "Quora Employees: Are Kah Seng Tay and Kah Keng Tay related?". This community is self-absorbed and self-referential in ways that even Reddit can't match.
Do you work there or own shares there.
Quora is just an expertexchange clone, deal with it.
At the very least, there is a strong case for keeping anonymity around, because this leads to good discussions about subjects that can't be discussed under real names - for one reason or the other. This is why I don't see reddit displaced in the near or medium term.
I'm not sure if this refutes your point, though. But real names make people keep their mouth shut in situations that might put them in a bad light, or might come back to bite them in the ass. How can you be sure that this isn't something that will limit Quora as well? Like I said, I'm not sure if I disagree with you. But the advangates of real-world online identities don't seem as obvious to me as you claim.
Have you been to Reddit lately? Pseudonyms has brought out the worst in many people, mostly because they know it's not attached to a reputation.
"No one wants their real names attached to their opinions on the internet"
Why? If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
There are a lot of reasons people want to stay anonymous that has nothing to do with cowardice, and that's why I cited the RealID case, because it sprouted a lot of conversation on why we prefer to remain unknown and separate our real selves from other personas. The [wonderful] acceptance speech Lana Wachowski gave last month during the Human Rights Campaign Awards went into why both her and her brother preferred staying out of the spotlight, but what it specifically meant to her as someone that was susceptible to unwanted attention and criticisms. As a woman, I can relate, and that's why I am so adamant about this issue.
> Why? If you really can't stand behind your opinion, what's the point in having it in the first place?
This is a really naive way of looking at opinions. They change. People grow. Why do people post anonymously to begin with? To avoid witch hunts by people that don't believe what they do, potentially dangerous people who are willing to trace that name to your workplace, your address or even just use your likeness to propagate lies. How many services are there to de-rank unsavory Google results under your name? It's truly better to be safe than sorry.
What's the point of knowing something most people don't or of having a belief, unless the credit for it can be connected to your address or mother's maiden name?
I don't understand this sentiment at all. When I'm complimented for something that I've said anonymously from someone who has chosen to remain anonymous - I'm happy that I could help someone, or that I made someone smile. It doesn't matter who that someone is, and it doesn't matter whether they know where I work, or where my sister works.
In fact, I would prefer that they not know any of that stuff. I'm not sure why people don't understand pen names, why they are useful, and why they always have been.
If you can't stand behind your vote by writing your real name directly on your ballot, what's the point in voting in the first place?
Your identity and standing behind your opinion have no correlation, just like they don't when you vote. History shows that unnecessarily joining them has dangerous consequences, however.
It's been my experience that communication quality has more to do with initial culture, growth rate, and ability to inculcate newcomers to social norms than with naming policies. Of course, the need to grow a community slowly to maintain social norms conflicts with the imperative placed on VC-funded companies to grow as fast as possible.
Social proof is important where social proof is important. But there are plenty of areas where it has very little meaning or value.
Or on Github or SE or your email address.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020483130457659...
Don't argue that its because of intelligence, perhaps I think they are even better in this.
Yes perhaps its leadership.
When I say 'market' I mean top down know-your-customers and investors and partners intimately. Leverage the local connections etc.
Yes perhaps its local.
You need to keep the date in mind when reading this though. More recent years will over-represent fast growers, underrepresent slow growers and include more speculative valuations (ie some companies will eventually exist the list).
Give 2010 another few years and it could be a completely different list. The 1998 list OTOH will probably stay pretty much the same.
I found this page for navigating the subject material: https://www.quora.com/directory/
Is it just me, or is this a rather opaque view of the content? For example, the "B" section for topics doesn't have "bicycles", but it does have "Bizplay - Black Magic Design". I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/19/vc-investing-soars-22-perce...
997 of these where Internet companies.
With a more intricate list this could provide some neat data. Most successful time of year to start your company, synchronous business tactics used by those companies, I'm sure there's more.
Also, I noticed that most if not all of these companies are Silicon Valley startups. Maybe the frequency of billion dollar companies will increase if the list includes companies world wide.
Or to put it another way, how many billion dollar software companies are there whose value hasn't been created substantially by the markets alone?
If you want companies that have justified their valuation based on past profits, you will need to go to older dates.
eg 1998: OpenTable, Google, Rackspace, PayPal.
Seems like the author missed a couple... so maybe Ron Conway was right after all. :-)