mjfern

How about a Watsi for children (and their families) that have to work in sweatshops to make ends meet? Anyone interested in exploring this further?

Some challenges:

- Verifying the children that you support through the Watsi-type program already work in this environment (or will soon have to) as a necessity to economically support their families.

- Ensuring that, once you donate money, the children are no longer working in this environment and instead are enrolled in school.

- Other potential pitfalls?

Looks like this post is being flagged. 55 points in 2 hours and it sits near the bottom.

I think this is a misuse of the flag button given HN guidelines. I don't see how this post is spam or offtopic: "If you think something is spam or offtopic, flag it by going to its page and clicking on the "flag" link."

I'm seeing this more and more on HN. The flag button is being used to "downvote" posts that present a point of view that some disagree with. I find this trend disturbing.

Derek, Congrats on the launch! Just curious why you decided to launch with 16 books instead of just one or two? This seems to run counter to the Lean Startup/MVP approach. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Thank you!

It's called gluten intolerance (or sensitivity), not "self-diagnosed wannabe celiac stuff" and last time I checked it affected something like 5% of the US population (some state the incidence rate is as high as ~20%).

Most people just live with the stomach discomfort because it's difficult to try a gluten-free diet. And dismissive comments like yours also aren't helpful in motivating people to experiment.

I lived with stomach issues for 30+ years, and after trying a myriad of solutions, from eliminating dairy to exercise, I finally tried eliminating gluten from my diet. That did the trick.

Who audits the numbers at U.S. hospitals?

If you're comfortable, can you please email me at michael@fernstrategy.com? Thanks.

The "best" stories page includes content about Gitmo, the Boston bombings, sleeping patterns, economics, India elitism, investment banks, etc.

Why is this post being flagged?

Thanks, Austin! Really appreciate the great feedback and support for Intigi.

Sounds great. Looking forward to hearing from you!

I'm another Intigi cofounder. Great point on the freemium approach.

The reason we haven't pulled the trigger on this to date is twofold. First, we're a bootstrapped startup and we've been cautious about our burn rate (e.g., scaling infrastructure before we've achieved product/market fit and a sustainable revenue model). Second, for some time our product wasn't fully self-service. We were concerned about the support issues that would come with a significant growth in our user base, especially free users, potentially outside our target market.

We've now progressed beyond these two issues, and will launch a freemium model soon, with 1 or 2 interests and cached results that are updated once or twice per day.

I'd appreciate any other feedback, and happy to answer questions by email at mjfern@intigi.com.

Disclaimer: I'm a cofounder at Intigi.

With https://intigi.com, we've done just this, intake content from both social (Twitter) and RSS feeds. With Twitter, we index the full text of any linked article and make the text fully searchable. The full text provides much more data for us to search and also is a great way of deduplicating content (i.e., Tweets linking to the same article).

We've also been working on a Google Reader replacement for the last two years: http://intigi.com. With Intigi, you can import your RSS feeds from Reader (via OPML) and then filter the feeds by your preferred keywords and social signals (e.g., shares via Twitter).

Intigi is a paid service, primarily targeted at marketers, but we do have a number of startups and founders using the product for content discovery and sharing. You can quickly share content you find to social media, a WordPress site, or to an RSS feed (e.g., to connect with IFTTT).

I'm one of the cofounders and happy to answer any questions about the service and would love any feedback, if you decide to give it a test spin. Please email me at mjfern(at)intigi.com.

I'm an n of 1. That said, I tried various diet changes (i.e., dairy free, vegetarian) and life changes (e.g., exercise) and none had a substantive effect. When I removed gluten from my diet the effects were dramatic. In addition, I do have gluten on a rare occasion and my old symptoms return. Is this a placebo effect? Perhaps, but then why didn't any of my other significant experiments have any meaningful impact?

Note, I'm not suggesting that anyone with stomach issues has gluten intolerance. But if you do have persistent and long term stomach issues it is one of many conditions that should be seriously considered. Based on personal experience and research on the issue gluten intolerance is not a fad and shouldn't be dismissed as such.

I had stomach issues for 32 years and tried everything to resolve the issue. I was tested for celiac, among other things, but the results came back negative. Finally I decided to try a gluten free diet. I threw away everything in my kitchen that contained gluten and started from scratch. The results were dramatic. Within about 7-10 days most of the issues dissipated and my stomach was 80-90% improved. Stomach issues no longer interfere with my life.

Do I miss eating bread, spaghetti, desserts, etc that contain gluten? Sure. But it's a small price to pay for not being uncomfortable for 8-10 hours a day. Besides, you can now find excellent gluten free products at trader joe's, whole foods, and just general grocery stores (even bread, spaghetti, that tastes like the real thing).

I'm not a doctor and take this advice with a grain of salt, but if you're experiencing persistent and long term stomach issues and you've been to a GI doctor and ruled out other causes (like celiac) then you might try a gluten free diet to assess whether you have gluten intolerance. It's a bit of a hassle at first, but the benefits are well worth it, should this solve your problems.

Great points on SKU counts and the long-tail. However, can you tell me the source of your financial data?

I had a quick look at Google Finance (Financials, Annual Data) and I see the following for 2012: Amazon's total operating expenses as a percentage of revenue was 98.2%. Costco's was 97.2%. Wal-mart's was 94.1%. Based on this data, you might argue that Amazon has a cost disadvantage relative to both Costco and Wal-mart. But before reaching any conclusions you would need to back out Amazon Web Services and the Kindle (from Amazon) [1].

As a quick and dirty analysis, we can back out the $2.909b Amazon invested in R&D in 2012. Note, neither Costco nor Wal-mart have a line item for R&D. In this case, Amazon's operating expenses as a percentage of revenue is 92%, or about 5% less than Costco's and 2% less than Wal-mart's. [2]

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[1] You might also want to back out Sam's Club from Wal-mart.

[2] Given Amazon has revenues that are just 11% of Wal-mart's, you could argue that Amazon's cost advantage will likely increase as it further scales revenue and operations.

Low margins, per se, isn't a strategy. Amazon is pursuing a cost advantage [1], and it's choosing to keep its prices very low, hence the low margins. With a cost advantage and low prices, Amazon gives away a lot of value to customers (instead of capturing a lot of value for itself in the form of profits). Its primary objective is to gain market share (i.e., both new customers and a greater portion of existing customers' everyday shopping). With an increase in market share, Amazon can further reduce its costs through economies of scale (i.e., spreading its fixed costs, such as infrastructure and R&D, over a greater number of customers served and products sold).

Amazon's cost advantage and low prices explains why most other online retailers have been unable to gain significant market share and why Amazon is posing an increasing threat to companies like Wal-mart, Target, and Costco.

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[1] I'd argue that Amazon is actually pursuing a dual advantage, both a cost and value advantage (at least for customers that favor convenience over impulse buying). The value advantage stems from the ability to shop at home, its product reviews, its excellent customer service, extensive selection, etc.

The porous New York Times paywall works because it effectively segments the market. [1]

The first segment consists of customers with a higher willingness to pay that aren't aware of the paywall workarounds or enjoy accessing the Times without futzing around. Who are these readers? Readers with high disposable income, older readers, and heavy readers.

The second segment consists of customers with a lower willingness to pay, who have identified the workarounds, and are willing to deal with the additional steps involved in bypassing the paywall. Who are these readers? Readers with lower disposable income, younger readers, and light readers.

The result of this segmentation is that the New York Times has been able to attract a significant number of online paying subscribers (segment 1), without decimating its overall readership figures (segment 1 + 2). By maintaining its overall readership figures, the New York Times has been able to preserve its online advertising revenue.

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[1] Since the product is nearly the same for both segments, aside from the steps involved in bypassing the paywall, you might consider this as an example of price discrimination.

Paul, Thanks very much for the comment. I wasn't suggesting that these advantages are the only reason why YC invests in HN. But these benefits are important enough to justify investment, even if we ignore the significant social benefits in bringing together hackers and founders.

By the way, I'd be very curious to know if you anticipated any of these benefits when you first launched HN or if HN was just an experiment (with using Arc), and these benefits emerged over time through serendipity.

One of the major reasons why OnLive struggled (and now failed) is because they launched their platform (20010) well after the launch of the XBox 360 (2005) and PS3 (2006).

Serious gamers, the early adopter market for OnLive, already had purchased an XBox 360 and/or PS3. Since OnLive, as far as I can tell, didn't have any compelling, exclusive titles, and provided a gaming experience that was inferior to alternatives, there was no reason for a serious gamer with a console to try (or switch to) this new platform.

OnLive needed to launch around the same time as the other consoles and deliver a superior experience, or an equivalent experience but at a lower price point (upfront and over time).

This is the article. Thanks so much Patrick! :)

> I prefer the plain android look, and dislike the various skins manufacturers have used (I really don't understand the "pee in the snow" model of skinning android to look and act horrible just so that the different manufacturers can make their mark on it - I'm pretty sure the majority of people tend to prefer plain android).

Tablet and smartphone manufacturers are doing this because they are trying to differentiate their devices. With the Android OS (along with Android apps) and the hardware converging to a dominant design (ARM-based processors, similar form factor), tablets will become commodities (Armdroid). Competitors will be forced to compete on price. Their margins will collapse.

This is what happened in the PC market. With the Wintel standard, PC manufacturers had little opportunity to differentiate their products. The OS and CPU are identical, as are the internal components and peripherals. What's left? The color of the case? Fingerprint readers? Ultimately, PC manufacturers were all forced to compete on price. As a result, while Intel and Microsoft earned margins in the double digits, PC manufacturers' margins were squeezed to the low single digits.

Yes, similar monetization strategy but dramatically lower cost structure...and "value" in this case is subjective.

By the way, I just looked at Google Trends and it now looks like HuffPo is driving 3-4x more traffic than WaPo. In 2008 it was much closer to parity.

> The Washington Post also does actual reporting...

So does the Huffington Post, but many of the writers are unpaid contributors.

> they actually produce something of value...

Tell this to readers and advertisers, who are voting with their time and $.

To survive, newspapers need to create significantly more value for readers and advertisers to drive demand and revenue, and lower their cost structures to about 10% of their historical levels. Any incremental steps, from pay walls to moderate layoffs, are totally inadequate to turn their fortunes around.

Let me explain.

The value proposition of most newspapers for both readers and advertisers pales in comparison to many new media options. For instance, who here gets their technology or sports news from a national or local newspaper? Who looks to newspapers for the latest stock market performance, restaurant reviews, or movie showtimes?

Since their value proposition is depressed, newspapers are attracting fewer readers (and subscription dollars) and, in turn, fewer advertising dollars.

And then you have typical newspapers' unwieldy cost structures. Many newspapers are still operating with staff levels that are multiples greater than their new media counterparts. I don't have any current examples, but during the 2008 elections the Huffington Post was driving as much online traffic as the Washington Post, with a headcount of about 6.25% (50 employees versus 800).

In short, lower value begets lower revenue, and if we assume a high cost structure, it's a downward spiral to oblivion.

It wasn't intentional. I ran out of room in the title (<180 chars). I just adjusted to include "Galaxy" to avoid any further confusion.

There's a lot of potential with personalization in marketing, helping customers find information and content that fits their specific interests.

Another marketing trend that also relates to creating dynamic, rich websites and the information/data explosion, is content curation. Content marketing has been around for a long time, in the form of white-papers, branded research reports, and so on, however marketers are now starting to use content curation to build rich, timely sites/pages for prospects and customers.

Two interesting examples are CMO.com, an Adobe initiative, and IQ by Intel (iq.intel.com). These follow other successes in content curation, from TechMeme to Daring Fireball. Yes, John Gruber presents a lot of original content, but curated articles and quotes are major components of the Daring Fireball experience.

If you combine content curation with personalization, you end up with something that's very interesting. Content curation yields enough content to serve the needs of a diverse audience, while personalization ensures the content you serve is uniquely relevant and valuable to each visitor.

We're working on a content curation platform at Intigi.com. And this article has me thinking that we need to find ways to personalize the curated content for different types of traffic. Food for thought...

I'm the author of the post. While I agree there is a risk of a flood of content, I have two counterpoints.

First, there are countermeasures. As a user on Google+ I'd quickly remove someone from my circles if they over-shared low quality content. Furthermore, Google+ can implement algorithms that affect the prominence of the content based on various quality factors. There's evidence that Facebook has such algorithms in place (1).

Second, the headwinds to gain share in a market with strong network effects outweighs the risk of a flood of content. Users already have a preference to use Facebook and Twitter given their network value (2). Any friction in sharing via Google+ just further encourages users to invest the bulk of their time and resources on these other platforms.

(1) http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/32124/Facebook-C...

(2) http://venturebeat.com/2012/02/28/google-plus-ghost-town/

Sorry, I meant to link to the article, not the comments. Can a moderator edit the link? Thanks in advance!

I posted this article to my blog back in 2010, "The End of x86?" - http://fernstrategy.com/2010/10/21/the-end-of-x86/. It's an analysis of how ARM is disrupting the x86 architecture (along with Intel).

For the last several decades the x86 architecture, with its major proponents Intel and AMD, have dominated the CPU market in personal computers (PC). Today, Intel and AMD control 80.4% and 11.52%, respectively, of the worldwide microprocessor market (iSuppli, 2010).

Despite the prevalence of x86, there are tell-tale signs that the x86 architecture is in the early stages of being disrupted. Drawing on work by Clayton Christensen, the classic signs of disruption are as follows:

1. The current technology is overshooting the needs of the mass market.

Due to a development trajectory that has followed in lockstep with Moore’s Law, and the emergence of cloud computing, the latest generation of x86 processors now exceed the performance needs of the majority of customers. Because many customers are content with older generation microprocessors, they are holding on to their computers for longer periods of time, or if purchasing new computers, are seeking out machines that contain lower performing and less expensive microprocessors.

2. A new technology emerges that excels on different dimensions of performance.

While the x86 architecture excels on processing power – the number of instructions handled within a given period of time – the ARM architecture excels at energy efficiency. According to Data Respons (datarespons.com, 2010), an “ARM-based system typically uses as little as 2 watts, whereas a fully optimized Intel Atom solution uses 5 or 6 watts.” The ARM architecture also has an advantage in form factor, enabling OEMs to design and produce smaller devices.

3. Because this new technology excels on a different dimension of performance, it initially attracts a new market segment.

While x86 is the mainstay technology in PCs, the ARM processor has gained significant market share in the embedded systems and mobile devices markets. ARM-based processors are used in more than 95% of mobile phones (InformationWeek, 2010). And the ARM architecture is now the main choice for deployments of Google’s Android and is the basis of Apple’s A4 system on a chip, which is used in the latest generation iPod Touch and Apple TV, as well as the iPhone 4 and iPad.

4. Once the new technology gains a foothold in a new market segment, further technology improvements enable it to move up-market, displacing the incumbent technology.

With its foothold in the embedded systems and mobile markets, ARM technology continues to improve. The latest generation ARM chip (the Cortex-A15) retains the energy efficiency of its predecessors, but has a clock speed of up to 2.5 GHz, making it competitive with Intel’s chips from the standpoint of processing power. As evidence of ARM’s move up-market, the startup Smooth-Stone recently raised $48m in venture funding to produce energy efficient, high performance chips based on ARM to be used in servers and data centers. I suspect we will begin seeing the ARM architecture in next generation latops, netbooks, and smartphones (e.g., A4 in a MacBook Air).

5. The new, disruptive technology looks financially unattractive to established companies, in part because they have a higher cost structure.

In 2009, Intel’s costs of sales and operating expenses were a combined $29.6 billion. In contrast, ARM Holdings, the company that develops and supports the ARM architecture, had total expenses (cost of sales and operating) of $259 million. Unlike Intel, ARM does not produce and manufacture chips; instead it licenses its technology to OEMs and other parties and the chips are often manufactured using a contract foundry (e.g., TSMC). Given ARM’s low cost structure, and the competition in the foundry market, “ARM offers a considerably cheaper total solution than the x86 architecture can at present…” (datarespons.com, 2010). Intel is loathe to follow ARM’s licensing model because it would reduce Intel’s revenues and profitability substantially.

In short, the ARM architecture appears to be in the early stages of disrupting x86, not just in the mobile and embedded systems markets, but also in the personal computer and server markets, the strongholds of Intel and AMD. This is evidenced in part by investors’ expectations for ARM’s, Intel’s and AMD’s future performance in microprocessor markets: today ARM Holdings has a price to earnings ratio of 77.93, while Intel and AMD have price to earnings ratios of 10.63 and 4.26, respectively.

For Intel and AMD to avoid being disrupted, they must offer customers a microprocessor with comparable (or better) processing power and energy efficiency relative to the latest generation ARM chips, and offer this product to customers at the same (or lower) price point relative to the ARM license plus the costs of manufacturing using a contract foundry. The Intel Atom is a strong move in this direction, but the Atom is facing resistance in the mobile market and emerging thin device markets (e.g., tablets) due to concerns about its energy efficiency, form factor, and price point.

The x86 architecture is supported by a massive ecosystem of suppliers (e.g., Applied Materials), customers (e.g., Dell), and complements (e.g., Microsoft Windows). If Intel and AMD are not able to fend off ARM, and the ARM architecture does displace x86, it would cause turbulence for a large number of companies.