tmekjian

Wow, I could definitely see this happening. Could Mayer and Sandberg really team up again at Facebook? I could see this as being the tipping point for them.

Fully agree with this valuation. They are similar to Groupon in that they actually have REVENUE! When you talk about the "bubble" it is really referring to the astronomical valuations of companies that have no current revenue and no long term model of making money other than "advertising."

Im still very confused by instagram. What do they do that others dont? They announced a partnership with foursquare to provide photos to checkins a month ago. So you now need two apps to do what facebook does natively? And then you realize that less than 2 million people use these apps as opposed to the 600 million that use facebook?

I know that silicon valley has gone crazy for instagram, I guess I just dont see the need for a company that simply adds "filters" to your photos (of course only those taken on an iphone).

What happens when Apple says, "hey this filter thing is really cool, lets add it to our camera app" (just like they did with HDR)

Wael's friends have repeatedly said that he in fact was not apprehended. They asked that this story please stop running because it was "hurting the rescue efforts." Apparently there are photos and video of the man who was arrested and they claim the photos are not him.

It is crazy to think that Latitude launched 2 years ago and took this long to get around to check ins. Google has always said that Latitude was supposed to tell people where you "recently were" not necessarily where you are at the exact moment. Maybe two years ago we were not quite ready from a privacy standpoint to broadcast to the world where we are at the moment. But assuming that Google has had this functionality ready to go for 2 years it is crazy that they sat beside and watched Foursquare/Gowalla/Facebook dominate the check-in space. With millions and millions of android phones now out there, this has the potential to seriously disrupt the above mentioned services.

I'm actually really surprised that they haven't swallowed up DropBox. It seems like they see how close they are coming to just providing the "GDrive" but they want to provide access to it only through their existing products. Really it is a smart business move.

As a graduate from a "big name" university I would say I am a little biased but honestly it depends on a few things but ultimately comes down to one principle: You will get out of school what you want.

In that I mean, there are people who go to "big name" schools and make ZERO connections and take off after 4 years wondering why they took on 100k in debt. Then there are people who go to small schools (like my wife) who meet lots of great people in their field who eventually will be a great resource for them (eg, my wife now works at Google). She has zero debt and works beside graduates of top schools from around the country.

Now personally, I think that she is the exception and not the rule. The biggest advantage of going to a big name school is that it lets you get your foot in the door. You never have to "hide" the fact that you went to a small school, and there will inevitably be times that you fill out an application and wish that you could put down Stanford/MIT/Univ. of Michigan

Good luck in your decision. Remember that you will probably adjust your career path during college and that a school that offers an overall brilliant student body and faculty will only help you down the road.

I think this is fantastic. Whether it is this $150k or the great number of startups that are getting huge funding early on, it all means one thing... it is GREAT for business and competition.

I've heard from quite a few people who say this is a negative thing and they say it defeats the idea of being a startup. My question is, why do you HAVE to start in a garage? Why do you HAVE to eat Ramen noodles for 2 years? At the end of the day, being a startup is about having a creative team and being innovative.

This is a great step forward and if it helps a few more teams create a killer product then we all win.