Having been involved with some on-line "gaming" companies, I know that there are strict criteria differentiating games of chance from games of skill, and the former are highly regulated. If Sony is making a game where it's possible to win/earn actual money, and if Sony is going to profit from this, they're going to have a hard time:
Preventing people from hacking/gaming the system.
Making sure it's all skill and not chance.
I'll wager that this is a fiasco. Oops, I mean I suspect it will be. No gambling allowed on Slashdot...
[quote]
The more important job is to make it look and feel cool so that you want one if your friend got one.
[/quote]
There are a lot of posts on this story (I selected a random one to reply to) regarding design and how you have to (I paraphrase) design something hip and cool that people will like.
The genius of Apple is that they did NOT design hip and cool: they designed something incredibly useful and different looking, and then managed to MAKE it hip and cool.
Until somebody out-markets Apple, "hip and cool" is defined by the iPod, i.e. white with a circle on the front.
Actually, I do see a change. And this applies to rules about paper, email, and now IM retention as well.
All that currently happens is that companies avoid putting anything potentially incriminating in writing. "Call me about this," the email says. So companies spend huge amounts of money ensuring "compliance" with retention laws, plus they are unable to get all the efficiency out of communications technologies that are possible because they still end up having the important conversations in person, and we still can't prove anything in court. What's next? Require companies to record and save all phone calls? The ultimate step will be when we don't allow people to have off-record conversations:
CEO: "What do you think, Phil?"
CFO: "I don't think the [FLUUUUUUUSSSSSHHHHH] shareholders will suspect a [ZIIIIP!] thing."
Retention requirements are a huge ball-and-chain for companies without fully addressing the problem they are intended to solve.
Only an industry association would provide such a bizzarely indistinguisable range of answers. Gee, I actually want my data to last 32.7 years, but that's not one of the choices. What do I do?
BSA survey: "How often would you like to re-license software? A. Every year. B. Every 11 months. C. Every 10 months."
Not only that, but the poster obviously didn't read very carefully: these illegal alien kids are NOT getting Federal Funding. That's the whole point; despite their hard work and success there are still no funding options for them.
Maybe he didn't get funding because he didn't read the application forms carefully, either.
...yet Slashdot passed on an opportunity to have something like this for themselves.
The IBM researcher who created this software, Martin Wattenberg, also wrote some really cool tools for visualizing and navigating Slashdot threads. He said he would be happy to let Slashdot use them for free so I made an intro but the/. guys never followed up.
I bought at $16 (well, 8 with the split) and still have it. I decided to buy because I meet with CTOs/CIOs for a living, and go to tech conferences, and in '03 I started noticing that not only were a lot of techies using Macs, but when I asked them about it their eyes lit up and they raved about the machine. Then I heard the founder/CEO of Intuit talk about how great the Mac was during a public speech. So I loaded up on Apple. (I didn't factor in the iPod; got lucky I guess.)
Rather than sell at a certain price I've decided to sell when Newsweek runs a cover article about the "Unstopple Apple Juggernaut" or something like that. I figure when Newsweek clues in the party is about over.
I wonder if it's laminated or solid wood. If the latter, he could have some problems with expansion/contraction as the wood moves with humidity changes.
I think a more fair analogy would be: what if you waited until somebody got famous who had a name that wasn't anything like yours, then bought a domain name with their name and used it to sell vi@gra?
It's not like this guy's name is "Padraic iTunes" and he's been using the site to post pictures of his kid, iPaddy. He's obviously just a parasite on Apple's marketing efforts.
In lots of these domain fights it's easy to side with the little guy, but this is pretty blatant squatting. Rather than use a simple formula like "corporation == bad, unknown person == good" let's try using our brains a little on a case-by-case basis.
I wrote a contract with my buddy that says full rights to the music on any of his CDs I rip automatically transfer to me. That overrides the label's ownership, right?
Anyone want some free music? I'll just give it all to Creative Commons now.
Gosh, maybe you're right. I suppose all those ridiculously rich VCs got their money either through luck or because our economic system rewards morons.
Look, I'm in the same boat of feeling bitter that a bunch of MBAs who aren't nearly as "smart" as I am, at least in the areas that I tend to value (mostly involving stuff the stuff that makes me a good programmer) but labeling them all morons is hyperbolic and, well, moronic. Besides the fact that I've met some VC who, frankly, startled me with their intelligence. (Most of them techies-turned-invesetors, however.)
By the way, your comment about "in excess of x10" illustrates the fact that you're basing your opinions on popular mythology and not any real knowledge.
No, it's more like saying "How to have a baby" rather than "How to have a person". A startup is just a subcategory of business. Starting a startup may be repetitively redundant, but it's not inaccurate.
"How to start a development team" would be more analagous to "How to write a chapter".
Your other sweeping generalizations were: "Investors are a bad idea." "You're better off doing it yourself." "VC dollars are the most expensive you will find." and "This is a load of crap."
You most certainly did say something almost precisely like that. I strongly suspect you didn't mean to say that, but you did.
The basis of some valid points here; I particularly agree with #1. Integrity is underrated. But a lot of indefensible generalizations.
For example, "VCs are morons" is rather sweeping. Obviously there are some staggeringly intelligent VCs out there. Perhaps you meant, "VCs are terrible investors", but that is of course also true only some of the time. Likewise "You are better off not taking their money..." etc. is hyperbolic. However:
A lot of people jumped into the VC game starting in the late 90's who don't know what they are doing, so do your own due diligence. Many VC are former entrepreneurs/operators and can help you a lot. The best single thing you can do when choosing a VC is to ask for names and phone numbers for CEOs of ALL their investments of the last few years. Don't let the VC pick them for you; pick a few yourself and ask them what they think of the VC. Seriously...if you don't do this you're crazy.
VCs are there to make money, not to make you rich. Hopefully those objectives will align but they don't always. For example, VCs will often negotiate for preferred stock so that if things go bad they get their money first. The entrepreneur thinks, "Hah! Even the worst case scenario in my business plan isn't THAT bad..." and signs the deal. Two years later, pain, anger, resentment, and knee-jerk posts to Slashdot. Lesson: go in with your eyes open.
Raise money slowly. Raise just enough to get to the next milestone which gives you a much higher value, then raise just enough to get to the next milestone. This will both preserve your own equity and keep you focused. And try not to let any one investor get a controlling stake.
And, by the way, the fact that 90% (is that all?) of startups fail does not mean you are "certain" to fail the first 9 times. You may hit a home run with your first company.
This is such a typical comment from a technologist. "I'm a genius, really I am, but those $@%# VC wouldn't give me any money."
Take your favorite examples of successful technology companies...Apple, Microsoft, HP, Google, etc....now remove Microsoft because Bill had family money (plus all the money he saved on tuition by dropping out of Harvard) and you'll realize they got by on a shoestring until they had some great products. Then they found it easy to raise money.
And of course the inverse examples abound: companies that raised tons of money with nothing but an idea that sounded good, and they ended up wasting the whole thing and going bust.
Not to be terribly prejudicial, but that would make a little more sense. I mean, those SCA guys are just weeeeeeeeird.
No, seriously, it has always struck me as rather odd that guys who sit around and collaboratively make up stories, be it about dragons or spaceships or spies, are considered weird, and yet guys who sit around memorizing and arguing passionately about statistics for rich athletes who they've never met and never will is considered perfectly normal. The athletes may be real but it's still fantasy to live vicariously through them. I think going out and PLAYING sports with my buddies is better than either, but for some reason being a sports fanatic is normal and RPGing is strange. I don't get it.
You mean "of course" only in the sense that Slashdotters will all ask about Asterisk, right? Not that any consumers, business people, analysts, or journalists will ask that question....
Slashdot Mirror
- Preventing people from hacking/gaming the system.
- Making sure it's all skill and not chance.
I'll wager that this is a fiasco. Oops, I mean I suspect it will be. No gambling allowed on Slashdot...The more important job is to make it look and feel cool so that you want one if your friend got one. [/quote]
There are a lot of posts on this story (I selected a random one to reply to) regarding design and how you have to (I paraphrase) design something hip and cool that people will like.
The genius of Apple is that they did NOT design hip and cool: they designed something incredibly useful and different looking, and then managed to MAKE it hip and cool.
Until somebody out-markets Apple, "hip and cool" is defined by the iPod, i.e. white with a circle on the front.
Oh, right, this is Slashdot. My mistake.
All that currently happens is that companies avoid putting anything potentially incriminating in writing. "Call me about this," the email says. So companies spend huge amounts of money ensuring "compliance" with retention laws, plus they are unable to get all the efficiency out of communications technologies that are possible because they still end up having the important conversations in person, and we still can't prove anything in court. What's next? Require companies to record and save all phone calls? The ultimate step will be when we don't allow people to have off-record conversations:
CEO: "What do you think, Phil?"
CFO: "I don't think the [FLUUUUUUUSSSSSHHHHH] shareholders will suspect a [ZIIIIP!] thing."
Retention requirements are a huge ball-and-chain for companies without fully addressing the problem they are intended to solve.
BSA survey: "How often would you like to re-license software? A. Every year. B. Every 11 months. C. Every 10 months."
Maybe he didn't get funding because he didn't read the application forms carefully, either.
The IBM researcher who created this software, Martin Wattenberg, also wrote some really cool tools for visualizing and navigating Slashdot threads. He said he would be happy to let Slashdot use them for free so I made an intro but the /. guys never followed up.
Rather than sell at a certain price I've decided to sell when Newsweek runs a cover article about the "Unstopple Apple Juggernaut" or something like that. I figure when Newsweek clues in the party is about over.
I wonder if it's laminated or solid wood. If the latter, he could have some problems with expansion/contraction as the wood moves with humidity changes.
It's not like this guy's name is "Padraic iTunes" and he's been using the site to post pictures of his kid, iPaddy. He's obviously just a parasite on Apple's marketing efforts.
In lots of these domain fights it's easy to side with the little guy, but this is pretty blatant squatting. Rather than use a simple formula like "corporation == bad, unknown person == good" let's try using our brains a little on a case-by-case basis.
Anyone want some free music? I'll just give it all to Creative Commons now.
..."circling the wagons"?
Look, I'm in the same boat of feeling bitter that a bunch of MBAs who aren't nearly as "smart" as I am, at least in the areas that I tend to value (mostly involving stuff the stuff that makes me a good programmer) but labeling them all morons is hyperbolic and, well, moronic. Besides the fact that I've met some VC who, frankly, startled me with their intelligence. (Most of them techies-turned-invesetors, however.)
By the way, your comment about "in excess of x10" illustrates the fact that you're basing your opinions on popular mythology and not any real knowledge.
And I always thought you were just a cartoon character, Wally.
"How to start a development team" would be more analagous to "How to write a chapter".
If you respond "Ok, that's one, name another..." I will, but technically one example makes me right and you wrong.
For example, "VCs are morons" is rather sweeping. Obviously there are some staggeringly intelligent VCs out there. Perhaps you meant, "VCs are terrible investors", but that is of course also true only some of the time. Likewise "You are better off not taking their money..." etc. is hyperbolic. However:
- A lot of people jumped into the VC game starting in the late 90's who don't know what they are doing, so do your own due diligence. Many VC are former entrepreneurs/operators and can help you a lot. The best single thing you can do when choosing a VC is to ask for names and phone numbers for CEOs of ALL their investments of the last few years. Don't let the VC pick them for you; pick a few yourself and ask them what they think of the VC. Seriously...if you don't do this you're crazy.
- VCs are there to make money, not to make you rich. Hopefully those objectives will align but they don't always. For example, VCs will often negotiate for preferred stock so that if things go bad they get their money first. The entrepreneur thinks, "Hah! Even the worst case scenario in my business plan isn't THAT bad..." and signs the deal. Two years later, pain, anger, resentment, and knee-jerk posts to Slashdot. Lesson: go in with your eyes open.
- Raise money slowly. Raise just enough to get to the next milestone which gives you a much higher value, then raise just enough to get to the next milestone. This will both preserve your own equity and keep you focused. And try not to let any one investor get a controlling stake.
And, by the way, the fact that 90% (is that all?) of startups fail does not mean you are "certain" to fail the first 9 times. You may hit a home run with your first company.Take your favorite examples of successful technology companies...Apple, Microsoft, HP, Google, etc....now remove Microsoft because Bill had family money (plus all the money he saved on tuition by dropping out of Harvard) and you'll realize they got by on a shoestring until they had some great products. Then they found it easy to raise money.
And of course the inverse examples abound: companies that raised tons of money with nothing but an idea that sounded good, and they ended up wasting the whole thing and going bust.
That's what I was thinking. Wouldn't it be funny if the whole SCO debacle really had been engineered by MSFT?
That comes with a great visual.
No, seriously, it has always struck me as rather odd that guys who sit around and collaboratively make up stories, be it about dragons or spaceships or spies, are considered weird, and yet guys who sit around memorizing and arguing passionately about statistics for rich athletes who they've never met and never will is considered perfectly normal. The athletes may be real but it's still fantasy to live vicariously through them. I think going out and PLAYING sports with my buddies is better than either, but for some reason being a sports fanatic is normal and RPGing is strange. I don't get it.
You mean "of course" only in the sense that Slashdotters will all ask about Asterisk, right? Not that any consumers, business people, analysts, or journalists will ask that question....
I just clicked on "View Source" to find the missing link. As it were. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/28/downloads_ price_rises/