brandonkm

Seems like a 'perfect storm' was brewing between BitTorrent and their investors. My guess is Accel and Co. got a bit nervous about allocating $17 million to a file sharing site.

They started out "between a rock and a hard place". I'd say thats probably the primary reason.

This is unfortunate as I hadn't heard of mixwit until just now.

I think he brings up a very good point about acquisitions and yahoo. However, many questions need to be answered before yahoo can move forward with any sort of acquisition based strategy. Does yahoo have the cash to buy up relevant companies that will help them in the long run? Will these companies even want yahoo stock if offered? What does yahoo's board think about this?

Right now it seems that yahoo is dealing with the fallout from all those layoffs and finding a new CEO. As good a strategy as it might be, I don't see yahoo rapidly acquiring companies right now or even in the near future.

I think that a startups Core Values are pretty important and say quite a bit about that particular company. Whether these values are stated or a given is a direct extension of the "company culture" thats at that particular startup. Core Values can vary widely, but I think it's pretty universal that most hackers are looking for a fun place to work and interesting/challenging things to work on. If a startup isn't offering at least that, then no list of positive character traits paraded as "Core Values" can save them

Exactly. I always just say "I work in web development". That about sums it up.

I wouldn't say game over just yet, there is still much to be determined in this space and with this recent technology.

I first thought the same thing also, but looking at it more objectively we have to see how users adopt native client.

So much for cross browser accessibility. At the end of the day its his site and he can choose which browsers he wants to ignore, but I think even ignoring that 4% who use IE is a big mistake.

And its not like 'daring fireball' would be all that difficult to make IE render correctly anyways.

I doubt it, given how weak his argument that twitter is going to die based on perceived reasons like "its like high school" and "people just collect followers" make me wonder if this guy really knows what he's talking about or is he just going for a shock title. I just think if we're writing articles called "twitter is going to die" and giving reasons to support that based on the social interaction aspects of the site (like you stated), then better reasons should be stated. Contrary to his argument, i'm sure twitter is not like "high school" to millions of users, and people are not just "making" or "collecting" friends but rather tapping into their interests and networks to stay updated on things in real time. I've seen similar arguments made for myspace, but twitter is a fundamentally different type of social site, so the "collecting followers" argument dosn't hold up as well here.

Interesting how the author completely dodged around twitters lack of revenue problem. As of right now, twitter is having no trouble keeping afloat and will possibly have a revenue model in a couple years. When twitter makes money it won't "die" for quite some time, if twitter fails to make money, it will carry along like it always has, propelled by its first mover status and the hype it's created throughout all the years. I say this while setting the "its like high school" and "everyone just collects followers" arguments aside. Those seem to be hyperbole reasons to justify an argument that has no tangible bearing on twitters actual situation and status as a company and as a service.

Interesting idea, very unique, and even though I use fedora and osx I would rock one.

I really like to have mixes on, so I like http://www.mixriot.com for electronic/dance music.

A lot of times I wonder if the so called experts really are experts.

Will be interesting to see what six apart does after this transaction. Seems like Pownce was always a "me too" web app that got some hype from being an idea of Kevin Rose. Its still a cool and useful app, just never had the critical mass to overtake twitter or become a real force in the micro blogging space. Despite this Pownce was a solid django web app, and its always good to see those out there.

Also, posting any internship opportunities would be greatly appreciated as well.

Seems like the engineer in the comments section summed it up the best. You were probably really close to getting the job, but a few to many mistakes tipped it against you.

Surely thats the case. I don't think snagging an iPhone commercial puts you ahead of facebook or myspace in the mobile space. I don't even really think you can compare the two.

I'm genuinely curious to see how the Obama administration will use the web. If his campaign is any indication, the whitehouse tech game will no doubt be cutting edge.

Michael Crichton was nothing short of a legend. RIP. Thoughts and prayers go out to his family.

I don't think there was really any doubt that Obama was going to win. Over this election season we witnessed the best and most technologically advanced campaign ever. Not only on the ground game level, but on all levels. Cheers to President Obama for running an excellent campaign.

Great story. I'm sure quite a bit of other startups and applicants can relate to your situation and its always great hearing about the lead up to getting funded by YC.

I was very dissatisfied when I used blueprint for a recent project. For a grid based layout i've found YUI grids to be a lot better.

I think both the new MacBook and the MacBook pro are great. Aesthetically Apple nailed it. The increased graphics capacity will no doubt be a hit with the graphic design and production crowd. The screen looks mint and the trackpad will no doubt probably become standard on all mac laptops from now on. Seems everyone is always wanting that "something more" but for someone who was holding out from buying a MacBook because I knew new ones were on the horizon, these are excellent.

...but i'm not a PC.

oh well, still pretty decent commercials and any response to the mac guy ads is better than nothing.

Can't wait for the cool personal life bits about the new plane him and larry brought, or the trip to outer space him and his buddies are about to go on, or how no one will ever make an algorithm better than the google search one.

Advertising revenues on social networks have historically been pretty poor.

I think what O'Reilly was getting at was people forming their startups that essentially chase the latest trends in what now amounts to a bubble. He makes a valid argument and we could all be looking back at what he said in the future and only realize then just how spot on he was.

After seeing this second ad in this new microsoft ad campaign i'm definitely looking forward to the next installment. These are pretty funny and entertaining.

All things considered I think a lot of us are overanalyzing these ads. This is a $300 million ad account with crispin + porter + bogusky arguably one of the best ad agencies around. The size of this account ensures that this campaign will stretch over a year or more. I think the overall messege they are going for is fun. Microsoft isn't going to try to win this in the "cool and hip" area, so they are going for the "fun and useful". After this campaign runs for awhile you may have people looking at their pcs as fun ("I can play all my games on a pc but not a mac") and useful ("wow! pcs are everywhere, I know how to use a computer thats everywhere"). While I myself tend to overanylyze the underlying messages with these ads, I have to remember in doing so that just yesterday my mom was talking about how funny the shoe ad was and couldn't wait to check out the new one, so for the average consumer these ads will hit their target over time.

One of the co-founders of facebook is the head of the obama campaign website. That article was both funny and enlightening at the same time.

Its hard to pinpoint exactly where touch screen technology is going because its now branching out in so many directions at once. I would say the companies at the forefront of consumer touch technology: microsoft, apple, htc, samsung, and soon to be nokia will all have the largest say in these matters. After which the startups that take advantage of and build their applications on this technology will have some control over where things are headed as well.

I think the ad is rather brilliant. The whole "wtf" vibe is what they were going for. You have to always remember that this ad and the followup ads are part of a much larger campaign that is basically going to be a saga of microsoft advertising. Think of this as one of the first few pages in a chapter within a long book.

I guess i'd define "capable" as having the best browser experience ever experienced on a cell phone. The competition may have java and flash, but the competition also dosn't have the touch based technology combined with the the design aesthetics that the iphone has. So when I mention "capable" and they use "the internet", you can say in a sense that they are talking about the iphone internet experience thats unique to that device even without the java and flash.