newchimedes

I'm really curious to know why did Kickstarter get traction when there were other similar sites doing the same thing before them? If memory serves me right there was at least one other company one with the exact model, but that one fizzled out.

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I found the name of the company. It was called Fundable. Here's where the founder of the company states how he laid the groundwork down for Kickstarter to succeed. To say he's bitter is putting it mildly...

"I cannot tell you how painful it is to watch 5 assholes take your idea and run with it and not even give you credit. I hate all 5 of them for that. If I see them, I may punch each one of them in the face."

Here's the link: http://groups.google.com/group/barcampla/msg/8c636525d0415fb...

Great job with Tout. As someone who has emailed a lot of people it's nice to have the ability to have templates for different groups of people. I watched the video and was curious if there is a way to bulk message again a pre-defined a group of people. For example let's say I messaged the "bloggers" group about a product launch. Then 3 months later we do a big update and I want to message them again.. can I just message that group with a different email? Without something like Tout the process is pretty annoying (going through individual email address and crafting a message and then sending off)

It's actually quite interesting. I didn't know about these guys, but was thinking through this idea a few weeks ago. My version was called "Money Drop". I concluded that technology was cool,but I couldn't think of a compelling reason to use this application, except for 2 cases. 1) Drug dealers and 2) Kidnappers.

Say I just kidnapped your dog and I'm holding it ransom. I email you and tell you to MoneyDrop $100 at the local mall. Once I see the money has been "dropped" I go there and collect it with my smart phone app. Why would this be useful? It's harder to figure out who picked it up since you are in a public space and are just clicking a "pickup" button. Win-win!

Rebecca Black is the gift that keeps on giving. Here's another business idea...get kids parents to spend $2000 and then produce their kid's music videos.

While vision is important I do agree with the article how sometimes you discover the vision by doing small things. Facebook I don't believe was any more visionary when they first started. It first started as a knockoff of hotornot (if memory serves me correct). But by doing that project he realized and got on to the path that would lead to Facebook.

As much as I would like to wake up one day with THE billion dollar idea... I don't think that's how it happens. I think for most people it's about doing things and adjusting as you get more data to figure out what direction to go. But if you don't start and worry instead about chasing after the huge problem to solve...you might just end up waiting too long and passing on opportunities.

Definitely an interesting concept, have you talked with any merchants? Curious to see how easy/hard it is to convince to use a new tool...

I feel like the leader board that yelp uses to track how much people are drinking I would think encourages more drinking. Cause you know once you got a leader board you have to become "mayor". I've seen this effect with portable breathalyzers...how drunk can you get!

I've decided that i'm going to tell people at tech events and investors that I'm building "a hundred dollar company". And then I'll have my almost as smooth as JT co-founder jump in and say "you know what's better than a hundred? a THOUSAND!" Of course all of this will be said with a complete straight face. Just want to see the reaction.

Just curious to see, just how profitable are you? Are you saying you launched the app without rewards at first and were making money from day 1? If so that's impressive.

It's a great interview. I really liked his thoughts on monetization. It's common sense of course, but it's a refreshing reminder on how we should approach business models.

QUOTE: You need to have a fundamental proposition that the people who are paying are dying to pay. You can't coax people to pay for something they don't want to pay for.

You know where the real business is? Not building web apps, but providing extreme startup challenges. People pay you money to participate in coding and building apps in extreme conditions. Heck, you could probably pitch this as a reality show.

If you like Startup Bus, you'll LOVE... * Startup Canoe - Each team get's a canoe and is placed on the river. First one to build an app and finish the river course is the winner... * Startup Skydiving - Build a startup before you hit the ground * Startup Standing - You must build a startup without sitting down. If you sit down, you lose

I tell you guys, this is the Billion dollar idea...

I didn't hear about this case. I can understand the parents of the kids featured in the video being upset, but charging him with child pornography I think is way too much. Even this part is ludicrous, "While out on bond, he is restricted from having contact with children or performing music."

I don't understand why a judge would grant those conditions. "You edited a video to make it look like you were singing an adult song to children. From now on you are forbidden to contact children or sing any more songs."

Definitely a knee jerk reaction. I hope for his sake he can raise some money to mount a case against this. I think the courts need to decide stuff like this...about time they got with this thing called the "Internet".

I don't know if this will work as well in the United States. I think the majority of people are more pre-occupied by more important issues like who should win American Idol, the cast of Jersey shore, what shoes Kim Kardashian recommends. Americans have no time for political expression...

I'm surprised this didn't get more points. It's an interesting study. Not surprising the findings, but nice to see it written down and documented.

I'm probably in the minority, but I don't know think badgeville will be as big as people think it will be. Sure it's kind of cool to earn little badges and unlock achievements, but it seems too gimmicky for me. Right now people are trying to "game-ify" everything like it's a magical pill that makes everything boring super exciting and addictive that people can't stop. They say the whole point of adding these features is to drive user engagement up on the site...or to focus users on the tasks that website owners want. If that was the case as a website owner I'd give out badges and virtual prizes for clicking on ads. "You just unlocked the ad clicker badge!"

Aside from that it seems silly after a while when the make the barrier so low to gaining badges and achievements. Once you start rewarding every little thing it starts becoming less meaningful. It's kind of like getting those Certificate of Participation awards at a science fair. Sure you got an award, but you just had to show up.

Next thing you know badgeville will try to expand into human behavior...creating achievements, points, and badges for every day human things. Stuff like Showering 5 Days in a row badge, Nose Picker badge, and Poop Twice a Day badge... Now that I think about it THAT actually might be more fun.

Definitely an interesting case study and the first time I had heard about CampusNetwork. I didn't understand what Goldberg motivation for taking down his high school social network was...

From the article: "In the meantime, Goldberg had launched a social network for high schools called Friendex. But he says he killed the project after a month at the request of Zuckerberg and the Facebook team. "They made me feel really bad for having launched it," he says. "So I took it down." Facebook soon expanded to high schools."

How did Facebook make him feel bad? Why would he feel bad either? Seems like FB at the time wasn't in high school so it would make sense to try to make a play there...more importantly considering how facebook started...they should be the last people to make people feel bad to starting a competing service...

i like the idea, but do have a few reservations/questions. I am thinking about using this for my family (cousins, aunts, etc...). Is there only one group owner? Or can there be multiple owners/admins? I'm thinking like how yahoo groups works where different users do have different permissions. Also can anyone add photos to an existing album? So let's say we all attend a family wedding and we each have photos, can they all upload to that same album? Or does it not do that...couldn't tell from the demo group.

Other than that I like the idea and fact that this type of system helps facilitate more conversation than a traditional "group" site.

It's looks like a cool service. I'm really curious to see how it does...keep us posted, have you decided how you plan to market the service? Press releases, book clubs, etc?

Wasn't a big fan of this post. it would have been more interesting if he showed some examples of his three sentence replies to actual emails. 3 sentence emails sound great in theory, but really after a while if you are sending such short responses you are just an email mass producing factory.

I've been on the receiving end of some short/terse emails and I have to say that my impression is not positive. I understand people are busy, but when I read short replies to emails that don't make sense it doesn't make me feel special at all :(