jwesley

How do you say "Tip people $20 and they will sometimes give you what you want." in 2000 words or more?

Dumb like a fox. That CEO probably issued himself several million worth of stock options.

This post is stolen from this site: http://vectortuts.com/articles/20-weird-logos-that-work-and-...

Having received the results of this article, I have ordered a printing of the internet.

Thank you. This is why I often skip straight to the comments.

The purpose of the comment was not to be cynical, but to poke a hole in the logic of the article. Humans like to believe we can explain everything, so when we cannot predict the success of startups, we look at already successful startups, analyze their history, and create a story for why they became successful while others did not.

In reality this narrative we create is not a product of facts, but a story we use to make the world seem more understandable than it really is. This concept is discussed in The Black Swan by Nicholas Taleb.

I guess my point is, if you want to start a company you should do it because you have faith in your ability to provide value and execute on entrepreneurial opportunities, not because a few companies that started with bad ideas managed to succeed.

Interesting, but I was hoping this story would deal more with psychic abilities. Headline should read: "Brain-Damaged Man Doesn't Know He Can See"

Journalists, always over promising...

The misleading aspect you mentioned is exactly what irks me about the book. It is a fantasy being sold to every person working a dull job. The glorification of the no-work, jetsetting lifestyle is misleading as well. To have a profession and be a member of a community should be a source joy and accomplishment, not something to run away from. I think most people would find traveling the world alone, constantly indulging fantasies, would become boring and meaningless after a few months.

This is a great interview question. The point isn't the actual answer, but the way an interviewee responds. It's a mind game to see how the person will react. Will they deny weakness? Will they confess a horrendous flaw? It reveals a lot of character. Plus it is just plain fun to ask people ridiculous questions with no correct answer.

Can't we all just proclaim in unison that The 4 Hour Work Week is crap and never mention Timothy Ferriss again?

Yes, but too bad no one ever writes blog posts about the millions of bad ideas that just turn into other bad ideas. That's the narrative bias in action.

Twitter users alone is a small sample, but I think there are other anecdotal samples that support (but can't prove) the author's hypothesis. I can't remember anyone talking about PlentyOfFish, and this includes people who have tried multiple dating sites. Compete, Alexa, Google Trends and other traffic estimators also show Match having higher traffic. The only statistics showing PlentyOfFish as bigger than Match are the comScore numbers quoted by Mashable.

It's also important to remember that Markus Frind was accused of overstating the PlentyOfFish traffic levels to generate buzz years ago when the site first became popular. Although the post went off into a satirical conspiracy, there could still be something fishy going on.

Stop respecting the predictions of economists. It is a social science that pretends to be a hard science, with disastrous results. Can anyone justify the efficient market hypothesis after the current crisis? This is all explained very well in The Black Swan.

I thought this blog post sucked until I came across the phrase "If you take a play from P Diddy’s biography..."

Digg has always been overrated. People voting on news stories was never a great business and the quality of the user base has significantly deteriorated over time. The smart people have moved on and the site is dominated by spammers and trolls. No legitimate brand is interested in being associated with that level of maturity, so Digg is stuck with bottom of the barrel advertising.

I just wonder how they blew through so much cash. All the new features have sucked. I guess it all goes to biz dev guys...

On the bright side, maybe the founders will silently pass into obscurity.

I think that's just the result of people not closely examining the page and leaving a box checked, vs. deliberately checking it. Requiring users to do anything will almost always have a lower conversion rate than requiring them to do nothing.

My startup idea is a web app that automatically generates startup ideas by randomly combining various inputs. I think this would be approximately as effective as throwing out ideas here and asking people to vote on them.

All the big tech blogs now suck. Except for Uncov.com, which rocks, and they aren't big. Actually I like Valleywag too, just because they're the only ones not circle jerking with the others.

Valleywag does have more integrity than TC. At least they post honest reviews of companies, instead of fluffing up miserable companies. For an example of this, check out the coverage TC (and nearly every other tech blog) gave to Mahalo Answers. Lame service, yet they are out there touting like an innovation because Mike and JC are friends and business partners.

Automated DMs are wack. Most of the ones I get are not spammy, but the impersonal nature just makes it tacky and self serving. The people doing it think they are helping themselves with word-of-mouth by appearing interested in new followers, but when people realize the message is automated it has the opposite effect.

I think retail companies becoming more media oriented will be a big trend. Rather than buying ads on popular blogs, why not hire a talented writer and turn your own website into a media platform? For the cost one person's salary you could potentially develop a amazing community around your industry and product offerings. Makes a lot more sense than trying to buy attention one click at a time.

Turning vague scientific studies into overpromising articles is a habit many writers find hard to change.

Very cool. I am not a hacker, but offered up my online marketing skills.

Let me guess, you just watched Zeitgeist Movie? Great flick.

Because if we eliminated credit, how would the banks be able to charge ridiculous interest and enrich top ranking exectutives, who would then line the pockets of top ranking government officials, who used to be top ranking executives. The entire ponzi scheme err social order breaks down.

What were you expecting from a cartoonist?

So without doing any research, you arbitrarily take the opposite position and demand that more research be done? Feels like a non sequitur...

I refused to clickthrough to this link after noticing it's a page from AynRand.org. Most overrated writer of all time. Back to the gold standard! Free market rules all!

Wait, you said you've read The 4 Hour Work Week, WTF else do you need to know? Get some brain supplements and get out on them thar internets!

In all seriousness though, most businesses require a lot more work than a job. If you don't want to work just find a super easy job (government maybe?) and do as little as possible.

Seriously, where is the Mac version? These are all your evangelists Google!