DanielN

This is pretty off topic but it interested me so I thought I would share:

This video more than anything got me interested in socialcam (of which I had never heard of before), so I did a little reading and decided to sign up for updates to the product. After I signed up the page refreshed and informed me I was ranked last (4000 and something) on their list because I hadn't gotten anyone else to sign up yet. Instantly my competitive juices started flowing and I wanted to get higher up on the list.

It just struck me as a really original interesting way to encourage sign ups (presumably for eventual beta testers).

(also you can help my ranking if you click here: http://socialcam.com/?referred_by=BEA3CDhw )

Oh, if only this were true. In fact, the exact opposite is a serious concern for the spread of the internet in the third world.

A key characteristic used in defining genocide is the use of popular media to carry out orders. I don't mean the use of propaganda, but the use of new media forms to carry out orders of genocide. In Rwanda and Bosnia radio was used to this effect.

Unfortunately I can't find it now but there was an article (either in the Atlantic or economist) suggesting this idea.

Yep, as I understand it at least, it's the standard for self posts (no url). It makes it easier to differentiate.

Hm. I don't mean to start a political argument but I'm not sure I agree with this sentiment. I completely see how starting a company can be justified as helping people by providing jobs. But I don't know how reasonable it is to say that starting a tech company will help impoverished people.

It was on Reddit earlier. That may be where the confusion is coming from.

Feature request: Notify me when I enter a location that uses the service.

It's just as easy to forget about punch cards on your phone as it is to forget about them in your wallet.

This looks like a great product. I can't wait for you to expand your venues.

Well, given I have a very limited understanding of their business model, but I would think qik being the main system for video calling on Android would have some effect on them. But again, I have every limited understanding of this so it might be off base.

So maybe someone can enlighten me on this: Isn't the biggest winner in this deal not Skype, but in fact Apple Facetime?

That's the point. You build up traction in the surrounding area to break into the campuses where there is competition. (again this is just speculation)

They pretty clearly are in some form of stealth mode. My guess, from looking at their site is that they have some competitors. Go through the schools enabled and there are some pretty glaring omissions. Quite a few very large state schools that are not listed while very small schools surrounding them are included (look at California, Missouri, Florida and Georgia).

This is just speculation, but it would be my guess that they are either dealing with a few smaller competitors or one big one.

This is what I was thinking. I don't know about Japanese, but sentence structure in mandarin is pretty much reversed from what it is in romance languages. And so much of character meaning is based on context that outside of common phrases it might be nearly impossible.

On the other hand, an English to Chinese translator might be more doable, and might also be more commercially profitable.

Have you guy's explored at all how difficult mandarin translations will be? If it is possible this would be a huge market for you.

I disagree. There is a comment higher up suggesting that this app could change the way people live their lives. I read this and it occurred to me that this was likely true. With the caveats if they market it correctly, if they handle competition correctly, if they expand and the proper pace, etc.

The creators will likely see a payoff from this whether or not they do any of these things correctly. But the magnitude of that payoff is entirely dependent on those ifs and the difference between executing correctly and not is humongous.

Can anyone explain to me how they get user screen resolutions?

My recommendation would be that asking for advice in this form is not productive. This is talked about in "Art of the Start". He essentially says that when you present a new idea to people in mass everyone is just going to tell you why it won't work, and that you should ignore all this.

Obviously it is natural and probably helpful on some level to ask people what they think of your idea, but you should be a lot more selective in whose opinion you care about.

While I don't really know anything about this market it sounds like an abstractly interesting idea. But like I said that really isn't important. My suggestion would be to find 3 people you are pretty confident will love this idea (friends of yours on the maps forum) and ask them why it sucks. Then find 3 people who you're pretty sure will hate this idea and ask them why it rocks. Really you just want to pick these people's brains asking very specific questions. Keep doing this until you have refined the idea enough (and have a strong enough grasp of its market potential) that you are ready to take the next step (whatever that may be).

Oh and if this first step takes you more than a week, you're doing it wrong.

Because I'm an idiot and meant conspicuous. I'll be editing that now.

Seems to comply pretty well with this http://www.vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/

Notice the conspicuous absence of China, Russia and Brazil.

No offense to Stallman, but isn't it the definition of anti-social to be at a dinner table and proceed to play with everyone else's utensils disregarding their desire to use them for, you know, eating?

Isn't that what Hulu is to some extent. I guess it's different forms of media (tv vs. movies) so one could convince themselves that they don't compete, but this seems in the same vain to me.

I can't really fathom why anyone would care what his reasons are. He wants to give away several billion to improve education and eradicate disease and poverty, and beyond that reasons really shouldn't matter.

Carnegie's philosophy on wealth (mentioned in the article) is not a terrible philosophy to live your life by both in the realm of philanthropy and in most other aspects of life.

Thanks, that is exactly what I was looking for. I'm somewhat surprised this isn't a larger topic in web design. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Not meaning to be obnoxious but do you, or anyone else, have any suggested reading material on this and similar topics as they apply to web development?

Thanks.

This is a really good point. They talk about this in "A Beautiful Mind". It was a big divider between places like Harvard and Princeton, and places like MIT and Carnegie Mellon. The latter would take in Jews and other immigrant populations. This pissed off Nash (an undergrad from CM and a Phd at Princeton) to no end.

It's worth noting that MIT didn't really become an academically prestigious institution until the 1940-50's. Before the second world war it was largely a Engineering and technical college and certainly wasn't one of the top 10 institutions in the country.

More specifically, at the time of this exam the school was only ~8 years old and engineering wasn't considered the prestigious career it is today.

The round up of federal funding in the 1940's and 50's is really interesting to read about as it completely transformed the school and in a broader sense transformed higher education in the US as a whole.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Massachusetts_In...

This is some of the best and most simplistic advertising and pr I've seen in a while. I've heard of mix panel probably 50 times but this was the first time I clicked through your website to see what you guys are all about.

Nice product by the way.

I'm not sure I understand the impetus for articles like this. It's the same as the articles arguing why Taiwan's education system is better than the US' or arguing that Canada's healthcare system is better.

Certainly it is valuable and important to understand foreign policy systems and lessons can be learned from these observations. But it is equally important to remember that they are foreign systems. I am yet to be presented with an example of a foreign system that would directly transport to the US and be equally successful.

The US has problems in healthcare, in education and possibly in its economic systems, but non of it is a result (at least in my opinion) of picking the wrong policy system. Largely the policy systems countries choose are based on the demographic, values, economic values, etc. Germany's economic systems work for Germany because they are build for Germany.

I recognize that this article is not directly making the argument that the US should convert to a German style trade and employment system, but it implied multiple times. I would appreciate articles like this much more if they focused more on exploring the system for itself and less time comparing it to the system in the US.

Having said all that, Germany's co-determination system, as described in the article, is an interesting concept. I guess the down side would be a fear of causing separation between the interests of labor leaders and labor workers.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment here that the presentation is a little overly drawn out and meandering, but the end point in spot on.

I recently took the advice to contact entrepreneurs I was interested in working with on the advice of a friend. The response was overwhelmingly positive and generous.

I emailed the founders of two companies I've been following for a while (one a former YC company) simply introducing myself and asking for advice on what I should do to put myself in a position so that they might want to hire me in the future.

The response I got from both was more than overwhelming. One responded to my first email within an hour with detailed explanations of what I should be doing and what I can do in the future. Furthermore, he responded to each of my follow up questions almost instantly after receiving them.

The second responded offering to set up a skype call in the next couple of weeks to talk over my questions with me more thoroughly.

These are both guys whom I have to assume are insanely busy and get far more important emails than random cold calls every day.

I feel like a lot of people don't take approaches like this and don't reach out to people because they have the same assumptions I did. I guess all I can say is, never underestimate the generosity and outgoingness of the entrepreneurial community.

uh, its a great movie, but I don't remember it being very feel good. I mostly remember it being depressing. That scene toward the end where one of the kids is playing ball with his father is heartbreaking.

I don't know. Isn't this a subsystem that hides the flaws.

Writing the article exposes some flaws but even then, most professors who read this aren't going to be able to pick out of a line up which of their students have used such services.

"Maybe you can't appreciate this now, but the summer of 2003 was the biggest turning point that independent music has ever had."

This has always struck me as interesting point from a music fan's perspective. It seems like the confluence of a lot of factor's led to expansion of independent music around this time.

2001, 2002 was around when cable and DSL prices started to drop outside of major cities. The opening of Itunes. And seemingly a lot of big time independent artists began to jump to major labels (or made major releases from smaller labels) and released very successful albums. Death Cab for Cutie, The Shines, and Modest Mouse off the top of my head.

Just an interesting phenomena I've always been curious about. This article was eye opening as to what one of the key forces in this move might have been.