Cool, but what's Shake Shack?
3,969 karma · joined September 17, 2007
Just a thought.
Since I left DC, I've not run into Luc much except for on Twitter and e-mail.
For example, he says:
*
Consider the following assertions:
- Count Dracula is a Vampire
- Count Dracula lives in Transylvania
- Transylvania is a region of Romania
- Vampires are not real
*
Note the last part: There is simply no way to cleanly separate fact from fiction. Usually statements that start off as "there is simply no way" are wrong and this one is no exception. This and many of the other objections he raised can be addressed by using the right ontologies in combination with techniques like fuzzy logic and webs of trust.
Also, one of his big arguments is that the Semantic Web will never work because the data will always incomplete. He characterizes the Semantic Web as assuming a simple world in which all information is known. This is completely false though, as the Semantic Web standards have specifically been architected with the Open World Assumption in mind.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_World_Assumption
That's a pretty fundamental thing to get wrong if you're going to try to talk intelligently about these issues.
http://toohardtopronounce.com/2008/2/7/the-three-must-have-r...
Does that even make sense? Man, people are drinking some serious Haterade today.
While I agree that Twitter should theoretically have all their scaling problems solved by now, slamming Blaine Cook to that extent seems a bit gratuitous. Cook and his team were among the first to tackle the problem of scaling a Rails application to handle such massive traffic spikes. I don't know that it's fair to discount the level to which their team has solved its architectural problems.
1. Development. Introduce microframeworks designed for rapid development of small footprint apps. Tackle initial product design issues with viral applications.
2. Integration. Show the students how to (1) integrate their apps with Facebook and other services and (2) bridge their small apps to larger legacy apps and other web-based services.
3. Monetization. Here you can cover metrics, user feedback, virality, etc, etc.
All that aside, the whole point of the talk was that one can live very well off one's web application even if it's only moderately successful. I think the example he gave was 2,000 small business users at $40/month ~= $1,000,000/year in gross revenue. Or 400 users at the same rate if you don't mind only grossing $200,000 a year.
His argument was that you don't need to stress about investors, 12-hour days, and viral loops as long as you're willing to "settle" for a pleasant, financially viable, and capital efficient business with a niche of users who really appreciate your approach to solving their problems. That's the irony of making fun of an app in this thread for only having several hundred users.
You probably would enjoy the video; I certainly did.
(Incidentally, GitHub and Lighthouse didn't require massive capital investments [1] and I'm pretty sure that they're hosted "for free" on Engine Yard. Having a few hundred users would practically guarantee that they're cashflow positive.)
[1] http://www.akitaonrails.com/2008/4/21/chatting-with-chris-wa...
Oh, the sarcasm! Perhaps if you'd actually watched the talk before commenting on it, you'd have gotten the point and wouldn't be so unknowingly ironic. ;)