The language around the industry has changed over the past year as institutional investors began to make up more of the loan buying volume-so the name changed from "P2P" to "Marketplace Lending"
23 karma · joined December 5, 2010
I really like Mention, since they also have a mobile app and the free tier does everything I want. We used it to hop into conversations on forums about car buying.
I agree with u/canatan01 that Moz is best for backlink tracking.
I am a little unclear what you mean by an advertising revenue model. There are two ways to implement this model: 1. Have dealers pay you to advertise their inventory on your site - similar to AutoTrader and traditional classified sites.
2. Run AdWords or some other advertisements on the site to earn money.
We had a true reverse auction platform where customers selected 3 identical/similar new/used vehicles and we initially pushed for a charge per car sold model (ie TrueCar). But many dealers had been turned off by TrueCar bad reputation and it's struggles with charging a similar brokering fee, so they weren't interested in AutoRef's service at all.
After that we went for a flat monthly fee but ultimately it was too little too late. So it's possible that your idea could work but we sure had a tough time implementing it.
TrueCar has always had a consistent revenue stream from its acquisition of Zag - which ran the car buying program for many car insurance company's, AAA, etc. This is a definite edge over a startup bootstrapping ad revenue.
Story about AutoRef: http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/like-a-carwoo-for-used-cars...
Disclosure: My professor at CMU runs the company.
Full disclosure (bizdev at autoref)
Full disclosure (bizdev at AutoRef)
But in Q? 2007, aka date of the first iPhone release, success was not imminent. All I am suggesting is that you compare apples to apples instead of apples to oranges. You have to look at the market at the time they released the iPhone.
Chart of Avg selling price of Apple products: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Screen-Shot...
Graph of iPhone activations by carrier: http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Screen-Shot...
From this information it is clear that the iPhone was not imminent threat to the iPod, at the time of its release. It took a full year for activations to pick up.
None of this takes into account, as I said earlier, the iPod was valuable to Apple because of the iTunes Music Store.
The iPhone was too expensive in its early stages to replace the iPod as a music player. Apple took an enormous risk with the iPhone.
I disagree with your point that the iPhone was clearly going to be more profitable than the iPod. Data plans were expensive and the speed of AT&Ts network at the time of original release was horrendous. These obstacles alone were enough to kill the iPhone. Dropping the price from $699 to $299 and now lower really drove the explosion in demand. The margins they made on the iPhone at this point, I imagine, would call your claim into question.
Additionally, the iPod was not a one dimensional device. Apple made its real money off of iTunes exclusivity. The first gen iPhone was an insanely expensive iPod at the time with the added cost of a data plan. Apple absolutely crushed it when they created the App Store. The App Store is what ultimately catapulted the iPhone's profit margins way past the iPod. The world would look very different if the iPhone had remained an internet enabled iPod and cell phone.
But I do not buy into his appeal to ancient Greek intellectual culture nor to his take-away that members of society today are..."the inheritors of a tradition not just older — but more humanistic, constructive, nuanced, dynamic, and perhaps just a little bit wiser — than we know."
Looking back on Greek history, we are subject to survivor bias that amplifies the culture's intellectual contributions. It is always difficult to ascertain the nuances of everyday life, consumption habits, etc. The types of people who would have written down this information were neither literate nor able to write, and those with the requisite resources were largely concerned with more interesting and valuable uses of their time. We have come a long way as a society with literacy rates etc. which democratize both access to knowledge and freedom of expression. Each generation has iteratively improved on these cultural building blocks. So, to say that we inherit traditions from a more nuanced, dynamic, humanistic time is provably wrong.
Democratizing knowledge leads to the formation of nuanced, dynamic, humanistic traditions. Just because the many outlets of human expression and creativity seem banal to us currently, doesn't make make them any less dynamic or humanistic than past traditions. We live in a time of unprecedented cultural growth.
Is this growth for the benefit of humanity?
No one has any idea, but with all things our cultural values and traditions will evolve in response to changing technology. We have a responsibility to future generations to constantly evaluate the tools we have and constantly revise them and envision new ones.
P.S. If this is unclear or someone has suggestions where I can refine a point, I would appreciate the input.
I don't have any personal experience that I can offer, but I recalled reading this article a few months ago and it might be of help.
India is in the same position. Cheating is of no consequence when they aren't enough schools to accomodate the population. And the disparity is not minor, it is catastrophic.
These middle income countries are all in a precarious position, so writing any one or all of them off is uneducated and foolish.
He has never told me how, but one day he left his job and started a small manufacturing business, partnering with the manager from his very first job who he had befriended.As soon as he could afford it, he took my mother and sister and moved to the United States.
I lived in Brazil for almost five years after grad school. My father passed away just last year, and I promised him to go back and look for entrepreneurs like him to fund with micro loans.
My father represents the entrepreneurial spirit that you claim is lacking in Brazil. I know that you are wrong when you say Brazilian culture cannot support a Silicon Valley.
Brazil doesn't suffer from novel and "culturally" inherent problems. You would never say that Brazil is culturally inferior to another country because that is bigotted and ridiculous. The country is suffering the same developing bottle necks that others have and continue to face. Look at where the country has come from, look at where it is now, and I implore you to actually compare Brazil to the other (B)RICS etc. since they offer the best contextual comparison.
The most incredible thing about Brazil is that despite the insurmountable odds whether it is the wheels of capitalism, passionate people, or government involvement - or perhaps a hybrid - Brazil is not lost.
Cynicism has its place too, but in an objective analysis of Brazil's prospects on the world stage, leave it out. I respect your experiences and what you have contributed, but the points of information you have provided are without the global context necessary to understand Brazil's place.
Will Rio offer the world the next Silicon Valley? Only time will tell, but its clear to me that it has a damn good shot.
The advent of Rio as host for the olympics is further evidence of restructuring that the Brazilian government has achieved. And despite the inevitable cost of the infrastructure development outweighing short term gains, the long term gains (see Shanghai Expo 2010) will catapult Rio into the same stratosphere as an India or a China.
On entrepreneurship, I'll be honest I am not up on details, but there have been significant articles about particularly financial start ups, which confirm the rapid evolution Brazil is undergoing.