arielm

Yes, but you’d be surprised how many candidates either get too nervous or are too shy to do most of these.

Phone interviews are hard to begin with but you also have a lot of flexibility so it’s less stressful, but in-person interviews with real programming on a computer can put many into a really stressed state.

I (founder) actually love hearing these types of questions because they convey actual interest.

However, by no means am I saying ask for the sake of asking because I’ll read through that and will probably try to turn it into a conversation you’d be expected to participate in ;)

As a founder who sits in on all interviews I agree, but also believe that every question/answer is an opportunity to show more personality — on either side — and as such welcome it.

I’m glad Twitter is changing things up. Technically this means doubling everything (database, cache, etc) which I imagine was an undertaking.

But...

Is this really what’s preventing Twitter from growing? I don’t think so.

I use twitter for both personal and company reasons and I can see how it’d help the latter. I don’t see how it helps the former. To me, the whole purpose of the feed is to get the “gist”. 280 characters is wayyy more than that.

I wish they spent their efforts on improving/building useful things (including better targeting for ads) or bring back the tweet counts.

So congrats, but to me it’s a sign things aren’t chirping anymore.

Throwing my two cents here - as an employer who also happens to be technical I don’t like working with recruiters for the simple reason that most of them aren’t qualified to asses the kind of talent I’m looking for most times. They are good at parsing through resumes.

However, keep in mind this guy is recruiting for internships, so I assume he’s not the most experienced recruiter on the team.

P.S. - I personally believe in reading the audience, which in this case meant not digging deeper into technical terms but just adding “experience with Linux and Unix systems” to the resume as the recruiter suggested. But... only if you really _can_ answer questions about either/both during an interview.

Do we really need another Twitter like platform that’s based around the idea of “rewards”? Wasn’t app.net enough?

Oh, but blockchain...

I think that’s a terrible oversimplification...

I think requiring a more thought out business plan (ie. one that includes steps to turn profit within some timeframe).

Some investors I’ve met do this and do it well, while still investing in ideas that may not seem all there upfront.

I think the “problem” here isn’t one big problem with a single process (VCs throwing money on bad ideas), but rather a combination of issues that together result in so much failure.

There’s a lot of venture money out there, and like some other comments mentioned it needs to _do_ something - and that’s good. We as founders and consumers want to see that money do something. But...

It needs to do something meaningful. I believe that responsibility lies in the hands of those that give it. Bad ideas are merely potential opportunities, but bad business plans, founders with short term vision, and lack of discipline make this into a real problem.

So many companies can prove their model without big money. Yet, because investors are hoping for a home run those founders jump right into the deep end.

I don’t want to say getting money needs to be harder, because ultimately that could slow down innovation. I do however believe investors need to raise the bar for founders.

I believe reddit does something like that where they include only a portion of a thread with a big “view full thread” button.

I think that’s a good idea, but I fear some users won’t realize there’s more or may not understand the abrupt change in layout/design/etc.

I get why this needs to exist, but it feels more complicated than it should be and that sort of “magical” decision that’s based on ML is going to confuse both web developers and web users. It might be worth it, but I don’t think it is just yet.

On a side note though, it seems Apple is doubling down on making decisions for its users. This is one example, another is do not disturb when driving. These sort of features make a lot of assumption and use complex logic to decide for users, even when the users don’t need that. I think that’s concerning.

I'm pretty sure the reason only some of the currency symbols aren't correct has to do with the database.

If you think about it, the item names are most likely coming from a database that just might not be in the right encoding (latin1 is still the default in MySQL I think). The symbols that do work are probably hard coded into the receipt's template, and hence don't have this problem.

Why a shop owner would store the price and currency symbol in an item's description is beyond me, but having worked in the POS world and seeing what shop owners do with their items I'd definitely believe it.

I feel that way too, but I think that's because many founders are opting for funding too early and build their entire operation on money they don't have.

When they're funded it's great, but when investors who are expecting some multiple quickly pull out it's game over.

I'm not sure if that's the case here, this is just a general thought about early shutdowns.

This take comparison charts to a whole new level. I wonder if this was meant for iOS users to try and persuade their friends to switch.

I don't see it being so persuasive standalone.

It was inevitable :)

On a side note, as anyone who ran .NET/IIS in production knows, when the 500 page has an error (couldn't reach the session store, ran out of disk space, etc.) this would be shown with no way to remove it.

It made for so many unpleasant Saturday evenings...

I completely agree. These questions should be the ones you ask before starting any kind of business, and regardless of your pricing.

It's really hard to convert a user that's already using a competing service just on price because they're probably already used to it, too the time to set it up, etc.

If you give them a little improvement it'd be as hard, but if you give them something they just can't get anywhere else you might have a chance. At that point the lower price isn't necessarily even a consideration but rather just a nice to have for them and probably a growth challenge for you because you'd be undercutting the revenue potential of a feature no one else has.

On a side note - price is what many founders believe potential consumers base their entire decisions on. While that's true for some products, it doesn't mean that it is for you. It's always best to figure out how to reach users first, then experiment with pricing.

Another important thing - when you want something you should ask for it. So many times I didn't ask because I _thought_ it wouldn't happen...

The concept of an ads company blocking "some" ads that _it_ decides aren't good for users sounds a bit like google blocking its competitors, doesn't it?

Very true, learned-from-experience type advice. Some banks my not really get the need and ask a bunch of questions, but in my experience they were more excited for the opportunity to charge more credit card fees :)

I think the _idea_ of a honeypot page is great because it gives you a chance to re-engage with a potential user (not necessarily customer).

There's obviously more than one way to style it, but just like every good marketing how you present it should fit your product/brand.

Personally, I think the page should talk more about the "why" you should pay this guy (who works hard on it, bla bla bla) and less about scaring you into paying, because most people who know what a crack is aren't really scared away by the mention of malware.

In short - highlight what Twitter is really good at, which is delivering bits of fleeting information and working in commerce.

The long version - ads are great, but they cause a misalignment between the service users are happy with and the services necessary to monetize. In addition (not instead), id bring payments into the platform so goods can be discovered and purchased directly through the feed without the user having to leave the platform.

This would require quite a few changes throughout, but when they all come together I believe it'll bring the platform much closer to a Facebook-like status, where users spend more time on the platform as opposed to it being a "starting point" to finding interesting links.

I think it's a nice idea and probably fits the use case of some small blogs, but for anything that's more serious you'd want much more than just unique visitors and referrers.

If you have a website that is making you money (saas service, blog with ads, etc), these two basic metrics mean very little. Segmentation, conversion funnels, device/os info, etc are necessities.

Basic web server log analysis stopped being mainstream in the early 2000s, and I see no reason to bring it back.

I don't think you have to look at drug dealers to know most of the items on that list... good product, the need for innovation, and ultimately the goal of making money are all somewhat common sense in the business world.

I think that without knowing the y-axis of that chart it's hard to judge whether it's really not worth it to even be listed.

Mac apps are more niche than their mobile counterparts. Why is a discussion for a different time, but _selling_ niche products is very different than freemium or even paid mobile apps.

If sales are low on a daily basis I'd say the downloads came from users who knew what they wanted and just needed a way to get it, which is what I suspect is happening.

I'm not trying to defend the Mac App Store here, obviously it leaves a lot to be desired as it related to discovery. I'm not sure if we can blame Apple for that or not though. Desktop app stores never really took off with steam being the only exception. And steam isn't for apps.

The only real advantage I see the MAS could have is credibility when it gets to subscriptions. Let's see how Apple will handle that.

I think this is a great new addition to AWS. Amazon's pace of releasing new things is just astounding.

As an API provider I'm pretty excited to find out how this works and whether the AWS marketplace is really ready for 3rd party services.

Having tried mashape a couple of months ago I like the idea but found their implementation a bit cumbersome and confusing. I hope Amazon's approach will be simpler.

The law is there to protect consumers. How does this protect consumers?

If you enable lower quality apps and increased competition?

By "it" I meant the original article. I assume this misunderstanding is why this response was downvoted :|

You understand you're describing the App Store, right?

Apple reviews every app, there's no malware/spyware, apps are sandboxed.

Sounds like whoever wrote it doesn't know too much about the App Store as a consumer or developer.

The truth is that as right now, ~78% of apps in the App Store are free to download/play. The remaining ~22% that are paid stack around the $0.99 price point, which is the lowest possible price tier for a paid app.

I don't see how this "monopoly" is raising prices...

Opening the store in a way like the one being described would result in malware and low quality apps. It'd add clutter and an incredible amount of noise (aka. Competition) hurting developers and consumer.

It's a lose lose situation IMO.

If you need proof just look at Android. Lots of stores, low quality apps, and a very fragmented way for developers to monetize.

The copyright on the site says 2016. The internet has been around for too long for a hardcoded copyright notice...

You're forgetting that by the time app.net came up twitter was already "the" platform for this sort of stuff. App.net didn't improve on the model in any way. No awesome features, no additional value. It tried to compete with a service that's already used by millions with terrible branding (starting with the name) and a pricing model that's good for SaaS companies (because they work with business that use the solution to make money) with consumers (who don't).

Having a business model is nice. Having the right business model is essential. Twitter has a business model now, and while it isn't ideal it's in line with their type of product/company and if you scroll through some of the other comments this model isn't all that bad.

Twitter can improve it, but that's a story for a different thread.