Mibbit (axod's startup) video featured on Google Code Blog | Hacker News Reader

Mibbit (axod's startup) video featured on Google Code Blog

google-code-updates.blogspot.com

76 pointsabstractbill36 comments

Hehe thanks guys, it was quite fun to do, not so much seeing myself say "erm" quite so much (This is after I edited out several 'erm's).

FYI The video was put together with screenflow and iMovie.

If you use some of the Google APIs I'd definitely recommend putting something together and submitting it, especially ideas of what APIs they should do, improvements they could make. They really listen to the users.

I like axod. I don't follow his story in any way, but what I like about his product is that it offers actual value, there's no barrage of marketing, there's no incessant self profiling, there are no blog posts where he praises himself by describing how he did things right.

He's the underdog guy that one roots for, the real deal, the one that focuses on his product, and not on his selling.

Axods ability to give this impression in just a few articles about him and his product should be a model for startups who want to stay genuine.

His startup may be great, but unfortunately, to me, he tainted himself as a credible well-meaning business person when in my opinion he used YC as a platform to promote his bigoted anti-Gay views on California's Proposition 8. I'm guilty too of talking about non-tech stuff on YC, but that's only part of the issue; the disturbing thing is to see someone using their position in this community in a way that promotes denying certain people their rights. I'll be downmodded for being off topic, no doubt, but somebody has to speak up about this.

I don't recall him using YC as a platform to promote his views. Everyone's entitled to make comments on a story without it being considered "abusing a platform".

I probably spend more time than most having heated arguments with axod on IRC, and I enjoy these. It's a mark of civilisation to be able to discuss viewpoints other than yours.

As they say, diplomacy is about talking (constructively) to your enemies, not your friends. Arguments are about discussing topics (constructively) with people who disagree with you, not with people who agree with you.

Edit: For the record I strenuously disagree with axod on that topic as on many others. In fact, I'm giving him a bollocking for it on #startups right now.

I don't get what's with all the down modding. There's nothing wrong with refusing to do business with someone because of their personal views (even if their personal views don't affect my interaction with them).

It's effectively just a boycott.

Personally, I would rather have a civilized discussion on most issues - but if you really want to boycott that is your right.

It just belongs elsewhere... it's a toxic subject.

Fair enough.

People are more complex than you give them credit for. Axod is an ace coder, a smart business guy, a talented musician, a great dad... and yes, dead wrong about prop-8.

I wouldn't be so quick to write-off someone for a single flaw. We all have them.

He's dead wrong about a bunch of other stuff too..

But then, so's every great person, no?

Heh thanks ;)

Just to clarify though (I think this argument is along the lines of politics/religion/etc - no one ever changes their viewpoint)... Thought I'd state my case though since people seem to think I'm 'wrong' ;)

   * I am 100% for equal rights for all.
   * I would rather they call it something else
     we have waiter and waitress to determine the sex, why not marriage and <insert_other_word_here>?
   * I don't feel strongly enough about it to actually vote on it - either way.
   * If I was gay, I wouldn't really care enough about it either to push for a change from the status quo.
     IMHO There are more important things that need fixing in the world.

If people truly think it's a cause worth fighting for, then go for it. Hope it brings them happiness.

I'm not wrong though, I'm just a person with an opinion.

Your text stretched out the screen. :-( (EDIT: Thanks!)

I disagree with you, but I'm sure you don't want this to turn into a debate. I care more that you've created a great service, which you have. However: if you weren't allowed to marry the person you were in love with, I think you'd feel differently. You're married right now, no? Wouldn't it suck if you'd been banned from marrying her?

In his defense, he doesn't seem to care if they're married, he'd just prefer it was called something else.

I campaigned against 8 in my area, but I think that if we're going to argue against its supporters, we ought to at least argue against what they're actually saying. :-)

Yeah, and there's a separate argument for that, but this isn't the place to argue it. This is the place to congratulate him on his incredible site.

It's funny how technical people reason about social issues the same way we do about technology. Maybe marriage is the wrong thing to call it, but unfortunately insisting in that detail places you in a very bad company: people for what that's not a matter of names, that doesn't want equal rights and many of them in fact would hang homosexuals if they could.

BTW, congratulations for the video!

axod's too shy to post his own good news, but even bigger (in my opinion) news: mibbit will become the default irc:// handler in Firefox. I have to admit that irc:// links are pretty rare, now, mostly due to how unreliably they work. Big usability win for Firefox.

See http://informationisart.com/stas/mibbit-as-an-irc-protocol-h...

Good work mibbit, axod.

congrats axod!

getting into firefox is huge.

we (http://www.amahi.org) use it to help our user community better and we saw a bump in the number of people using our channel for support, questions or just plain cheering us up, when we started using mibbit.

while i am here, a suggestion: we do very consistently see that sending PMs to users (most of them are fairly new to irc) that use mibbit is nearly impossible for them to see in the default skin. not enough visual variation or attention to catch their eye. liven it up a little :)

kudos otherwise!

Wow, congrats, that is a lot of extra advertising dollars that will be coming in.

Congratulations axod! Mibbit is easy to use, and I rely on it when I'm out and about with no irc client. It's a credit to you - keep up the great work :)

Congrats axod!

how does mibbit make money?

I recall axod saying he made revenue from the contextual text ads above irc rooms. They change depending on what the room is about/talking about so they are actually pretty relevant.

I am in the advertising biz, and I have a really hard time believing this.

What part do you not believe? :/

Hi - text ads are about end user conversion. Otherwise it is just click fraud. People clicking have to buy something in the end. I have a hard time believing that IRC channels have a good enough conversion to pay for bandwidth and salaries.

I'm seeing that this is a longer conversation, but consider this simple example. Facebook ad rates have dropped significantly from their early days. When people are communicating in an application (which is all Facebook really is), they are not in the mood to buy/convert. So, if you are receiving income, great, but I doubt it will be sustainable. Take a look at the ads you get and see if you get re-buys.

Anyways, please don't take this as harsh. This is probably one of the hardest problems for a publisher to solve. Twitter is just trying to figure it out right now.

I think Twitter has larger problems. They have an open API which leaves little room to monetize.

"People clicking have to buy something in the end"

That's never been true. You have ads for brand awareness, signups, ad arbitrage, etc etc.

I believe the ads above GMail are pretty lucrative... also people on webchat are often trying to buy something.

  >> "Hey, what book should I get to learn javascript"
  >> "Hi what's a good webhost"

And that's not including the massive areas of non-tech IRC communities.

"Anyways, please don't take this as harsh."

hehe it's ok, I've been making money off online advertising since 1999. I'm 90% sure I know what I'm doing ;)

Ah - twitter raised $30+ million.. Is that is what you mean by larger problems :-)

Regarding CPC. People have to buy something is the VAST majority of the txt ad market. There is near ZERO brand awareness in that market. If an advertiser is buying txt ads on IRC and hoping for conversion, I would be really, really surprised that they re-buy. (aka - you are getting filled by a network)

Your example text tells me how you are really getting revenue. You are using context for affiliate deals. That actually might be viable.

Re: since 1999... cool, what sites were you involved with before?

>> "Ah - twitter raised $30+ million.. Is that is what you mean by larger problems :-)"

Sure, that's a pretty risky position to be in IMHO. Now they either have to suddenly be insanely profitable, or get bought for a lot, or raise more money. You have to have balls of steel to play that game.

Boulder, since Mibbit is using Adsense to serve ads, he should always have some ads showing up for whatever keyword the chat room is talking about, simply because Adsense ads are generally keyword targeted. An advertiser would have to specifically exclude Mibbit.com from showing their ads in their Adwords account, and they would only do that if they are wasting their money on Mibbit.com

But the fact is, Mibbit has been around for a while, and it is STILL serving text ads from Google - no exclusion.

I think axod should work on selling display advertising directly.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. I know about the GMail ads from Google's internal point of view. They wish they were as lucrative as you think.

Care to share more? I would love to know how much money they are making.

Well, I don't have the exact numbers... but the main message was that the revenue in comparison to other ad channels was insignificant (!).

This is hardly surprising given the massive scale of adsense (content and search networks).

It doesn't mean it's not a large absolute number though.

It is not a large number, and they do have a lot of inventory. The ads are just not as effective. Also, 3rd parties (aka you and me) do not get these ads, nor would we get the great pricing that google does.

So, to be clear, this is the fringe.

I didn't know you could use Adsense for such real-time dynamic content on a webpage. Doesn't the G crawler have to come around and index a webpage n hours later?

so axod - which sites were you rocking since 99? :-)

Advertising!

We keep telling him advertising doesn't work, but apparently he's breaking even already, so the evidence seems to be against us.

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