wanderboy

They used to provide videos where they would re-create popular blogs (Scoble's, for instance) in less than an hour using the Squarespace platform. At the end of the videos, the original blogs and the Squarespace creations would be virtually indistinguishable. I always thought that was one of the most creative ways I've seen a Web publishing company demonstrate the functionality of its product while hard selling it at the same time, and it doesn't surprise me that Accel would be interested in this team.

What if the users are like me, though, and just avoid going to the restaurant Web site from the phone because we are aware how bad the "usual" experience is.

I'm not expressing this clearly, but consider this analogy: If for ten years a neighborhood in town is "bad", has a high crime rate, routinely plays host to gang wars, et cetera, building a state-of-the-art gated community and community playground in that area won't attract new visitors for a LONG time until that old reputation runs its course.

One of your selling points is that there's "no marketing required." I don't know how you feel about this, but I think that's a losing strategy for a project like this.

This is one menu that presents the type of problem I'm talking about. The line that worries me is "All entrees come with salad bar," which reflects on every entree. From my perspective, the easiest way to incorporate data like this would be to include it underneath the extended explanation of the menu item.

PS Steven - I want to set up a phone call with you or something. I'm working on something that is literally one step away from what you are. follow me on Twitter (@nate) or e-mail me at nchastain at gmail.com and let me know if you've got some time free some time next week. I'm still in the development stage and won't have a product out for at least a month.

I'm working on a similar project, and one thing I'd like to point out is that menus are not always simple databases. There are several menus that have paragraphs of information that relates to several menu items rather than just one. How are you planning on translating that information to a mobile application, if at all? I'm trying to find a good example of this "paragraph of extraneous info" from menus in a Google Search - I'll get back to you when I can.

I judge "start-ups" (really a Web app) in this case by a few metrics, but the first test is always this: does this start-up solve a problem? I don't think it does. Anyone who wants to create a top ten list can do it from any blogging platform and several other sites that do exactly what this one does.

Likewise, the accompanying logo doesn't provide any insight into what your service does. What does reflected text tell me about your service? What does that odd, semi-rectangular polygon tell me about your service?

I read your FAQ: I don't think you should market it as a search engine, but rather as a social RSS reader. More people will be familiar with using RSS readers to get news than using search engines to do so.

Like I said, I think you created an interesting product, but I wanted to give you some food for thought.

PS Isn't the social news reader market fairly saturated? What, besides billing yourself as "spam-free" (in the FAQ) can you do to differentiate yourself?

Digg was at its best, IMO, when it focused only on the tech industry. Now that I can specify whose news I want to follow, I think any Digg user can create a niche Digg experience that harkens bark to that first version.

People are undervaluing what Digg is doing here - it's creating what I think is the best RSS reader available. Rather than subscribing to Mashable's RSS, TechCrunch's RSS and RWW's RSS, I have friends with similar taste adding content to "MY NEWS." Each one of these stories is something interesting enough to merit submission, whereas in a traditional RSS reader 1/10 of the TechCrunch posts would be one of those "Jason Calacanis: the Attention Whore" type of posts that Arrington publishes.

In short, Digg doesn't need power users, and its redesign is going to bring a lot of users back who liked the tech-centric Digg of old.