rrbrambley

However, I do not think it's sad in any way. In my book, entertainment is is useful.

"It is not clear that Verizon can differentiate between limited and unlimited plans through this interface — it might just look for a tethering plan flag. This could mean a free for all with unlimited users, tethering as they please."

I'm not sure if they're being extremely optimistic here, or I simply don't understand what the author is saying. Free for all with unlimited users? There might be some sort of technical problem to solve to prevent unlimited users from tethering, but my guess is that Verizon will do whatever it takes to force us to pay, if they can.

I agree with the idea that a startup's vision is subject to the shifts in technology around it. And for the same reasons that you point out, I agree that it does not make sense for all tech startups to be thinking too far ahead. However, you could also argue that the sudden shifts in technology happen because there are companies whose vision is BIG and executed as planned. Some companies are just more susceptible to technology changes because they're building on platforms that are susceptible to those changes.

But no, I have yet to build a successful company, so who am I to act like I know? :)

It is true that requiring real names reduces the amount of unwanted noise and can thus result in a higher quality discussion, but some people are just a lot more worried than others about their reputation with their peers. Lack of anonymity will cause you to second guess yourself a lot more before clicking the reply button.

And yes, you are right. I am admittedly ignorant to the nuances and history of publishing, and am thus probably neglecting to look at this from different angles.

It's not that I'm surprised that Apple would do this. I am just shocked that the definition of "book" could change in front of everyone's eyes and the common person will ignore it because they enjoy Apple's "magical" devices.

I was a little mislead by the title being "the average person donated 7.66$" rather than "of people who donated, the average donation was $7.66," i.e. the average user did not actually donate money. Nevertheless, this was a high price to pay in a day and age when people avoid paying $0.99 for the most entertaining and useful apps.

I have not yet downloaded the app (I am about to), but I am very appreciative of the decision to not put ads in the app. I am a strong believer that the ad-supported model must be broken, and I believe the way this will happen will be via true usefulness and content depth (with which money can come from in-app purchases, etc.).

That's what I used to believe their business was.

Now, it's clear that an iBook is not a book. It is a digital material sold to people who like to consume content via their pretty and pricy devices. I agree that Apple makes it fun to consume content their way. And I'm sure that for the most part, people can still mostly absorb all the same knowledge that they would from a traditional paper book. But, this content has to be approved and modified to be consumed and therefor, it is not a book.

So the reason I am not comfortable with all this is for the reason I stated above. I was essentially tricked into believing they were selling books. Now that probably sounds extreme. But, the truth is that I am an educated "tech person" who looks at this stuff every day, and I did not think about this problem until now. The people they are trying to sell to are those in education, who are going to be raising and educating young people by reading these iBooks. When I was a kid, we were taught that books were magical and that the more we read, the more open our minds would become. In elementary school, we made us sing songs about books to make reading seem more fun and appealing.

If schools are adopting this form of content, then they are telling young people that the best way to learn things is via a model that is filtered (simply to increase Apple's profits).

I've grown to accept Apple's App Store policies for the sake of keeping app quality high. However, when it comes to distributing content that people actually use to learn new things and enrich their lives, there is absolutely no room for this type of policy. To anyone who is selling their books via Apple: GTFO right now.

The new approach to "demo day" that nReduce is going for will hopefully be something that helps entrepreneurs get exposure in a more meaningful way. If it's done right, I could see it as a serious AngelList alternative; they seem to be interested in building tools that let developers show off their skills on a micro/functional way. This is much more appealing than a system that relies more heavily on getting attention through mutual friends and connections.

Having said that, I'm still kind of wary about the 10 startup demo day approach that is based on "investor rating" of the companies, mostly because it's not really clear what that means. Other people questioned the potential for investors to be more inclined to care about specific types/markets of startups, and I think that's a valid concern. However, I think that since they're planning on making it a monthly thing, it could potentially make it a lot easier for niche startups who have a solid product to get some real attention.

Couldn't agree more. It's easier than ever to get games in the hands of eager/bored people via mobile and Facebook, and companies are thus capitalizing on these users by building shallow experiences while optimizing for revenues instead of fun.

Additionally, I think more game devs need to speak out against the "evil" design. I hear a lot of tech-savvy people talking about this stuff verbally, but is the common person really aware of the amount of time that is spent trying to engineer them into being addicted? I realize that as developers, we don't necessarily benefit from spending a lot more time building something just to end up making less money, but the line needs to be drawn somewhere.

My experience: The application process was very painful due to bugs in the application. After spending hours filling out the application and getting our video recorded correctly, there was a PHP error on the last page of the application, which effectively deleted all of our application answers. I hit the back button, and poof, all fields empty. I should have known that there was a reason for the message on the previous pages that said something to the effect of "If you get errors, email info@angelpad.org". So we emailed AngelPad.

A few days later, we still hadn't received a response. Luckily, we had most of our answers in text files and chat logs, so we didn't have to completely rewrite everything, but it was nevertheless very frustrating. Again, the application failed on the last page, with some PHP crap printed at the top.

A couple days later, I saw a tweet from AngelPad, reminding people to apply, so I responded immediately and asked if the errors had been fixed, mentioning that I also emailed. No response. Nothing.

So yeah, a day or two later, I re-pasted all our answers into the form and it worked. Finally.

I realize that AngelPad is probably receiving a ton of emails and tweets directed at them, and they obviously cannot respond to everyone. However, it's really discouraging as a pre-launch, unfunded startup to have such a bad experience after spending a day of your time answering questions, knowing that there's already only a tiny chance that you'll ever even hear back. Honestly, my co-founder and I actually had a long discussion about submitting this application – we actually kind of fought about whether we should be spending our time doing such a thing, rather than working on our product. When I eventually convinced him that we should apply, everything went wrong.

Sorry for the rant, I just had to get that off my chest. If you're applying, save your answers frequently.

BTW, the classic X-Men arcade game is free in the Amazon Appstore today. Unfortunately, if you're going to try to play on an Android phone, it's going to drive you crazy.

No shirtless club dancing. No dumbasses.

I'm not saying this would paint a more accurate picture for viewers, but I'd definitely be interested in watching it. Call me crazy?

One nit-picky non-technical thing – the first thing I see is the h2 with "Manage your own Restaurants Website." You need an apostrophe in there... and maybe you should think about changing the capitalization scheme. Dunno, I'm probably the exception, but when I visit a website and see bad spelling or grammar, I immediately am turned off.

What he seems to miss here is that some of the best businesses produce a consumable product after experiencing a problem first-hand and then deciding to go build a solution. If the narrative is clear from the beginning, then the part where "it actually starts working" will come much sooner.