skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
#1 is a bit off. As a result of the huge variety of handsets available the mobile industry has very strict adherence to standards. JavaME is available on most handsets providing a consistent platform for use accross hundreds of devices. WAP has been an established mobile web standard since the late 90s and is consistently supported. There are dozens of different mobile browsers and they all work. Theres a lot less cross browser compatability trouble than with desktops even with more browsers!

There are two main problems with mobile currently: device UI and carriers. Here in the EU at least carriers are openning up and encouraging users to try data services. Many now offer monthly flat rate data packages, such as Three who bundle skype, slingbox, etc with the package. T-Mobile even has a "well never charge you more than Â£1 a day for your data access" for pay as you go users. The operators now understand that they can make money from being mobile payment providers, identity solutions, ad brokers, etc instead of just charging huge ammounts for data.

So things are looking up. It may be 5-10 years before mobile web and apps are as mature as the desktop is now but there is so much potential thats it shouldnt be dissmissed so quickly.
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I do agree that the technology startup biz is a lot like music biz where startups have to impress VCs in order to become super-companies. Some startups prefer to do it on their own, much akin to independent labels. Comparing PG to a label boss however is a far stretch.
mobile programming requires a new mindset
45% of Europeans watch TV online
Karma and all sorts of voting in general have a flaw: they reflect Average Joe's opinion unless, of course, you have a narrow social/professional group as your user base. The broader your group the lesser are standards of your social website unfortunately. Wasn't it one of Reddit's lessons?

That's why I think there are two types of winners in this game: those with good implicit ranking mechanisms (Google, Flickr) and those with good human moderation (Slashdot). Those based on explicit voting are taking the risk of being taken down by broad and unfocused masses.
Somewhat unrelated, but I'm looking to share an summer apt in mountain view... If anyone's interested shoot me an email. "first name"@bluwiki.com
Physical Size Does Not Guarantee Success; What Matters Is Mental Size'
I oppose the authors assertions because
1. PG wrote a lisp book, practically invented Bayesian spam filtering, and is working on a new programming language. How much more hacker cred does he need?
2. Unlike record companies YC doesn't own the IP of the companies they fund, as far as I know. In the music biz it's common place for the record company to own publishing rights to your material.
I have a lease until August 31, but after that, it would be really cool to move into a house with other startup founders.
Your point about Digg is wrong, I think. It wasn't just the infamous encryption key. Digg was already known for inconsistent and at times unjustified moderation and many such stories went unnoticed for that reason - they were quickly removed. The HD-DVD was just a tipping point - for many perhaps only subconsciously.

And this explains my point: Digg has never been honest and that eventually paid off.
An excellent put-down of vendor lock-in. For the good of the industry, I hope he's right, and the standards-based web continues (for the most part, i.e. overlooking multimedia) to thump vendor-specific solutions.

However, MSFT has a much greater ability than either Adobe or Sun to cram things down the user's throat. They have their 'update' services, their ability to bundle, and their presence on the desktop with which to nag. This could help them w/ Silverlight market penetration, a prerequisite for making that platform a competitor to the standards-based web .
I think the top post on this thread makes it more balanced. Think of pg as an independent label(like sub-pop or Dischord) founder and it all fits well.
I have worked in J2ME games development for two years and I can say that #1 is not off at all. There is no way around testing your application on all possible phones, because they all come with the weirdest bugs. For an example of what to expect: on some phones, PNG images show up broken if they are structured in a certain way (ie pixel dimensions not an even number or dimensions of image exceed screen size). Some method calls just crash the phone. Persistence might take forever or not work at all. Starting the application might take forever - on some phones it is slow if you load lots of small files, on other phones it is slow if you load fewer big files.

And it IS a pain to adapt to all possible screen sizes - granted, it might be a problem of designing the application, but as I was working on games, the design was often based on fixed size images. Especially as font support is crap with J2ME. Maybe flash for mobiles does a better job, haven't tried it.

Another thing that used to suck with J2ME: there is no standard for text entry, so it is difficult to integrate text entry nicely into your application. The only standard way is to switch to a blank screen that supports your phones text entry method, so you can't integrate it into your design.

Another problem, which I currently face: even if you know what phones you support, how can your customer know? Phones are usually not labeled with their technical name, so if you say "Nokia 6230i supported", it might mean nothing to your customer.

I wouldn't say it is impossible to make money with mobile applications, though. It seems also the price for mobile networking is falling.

Edit: the mobile games company I was working for was and is very successful and also in the meantime was bought by a big international entertainment company (think the Coca Cola of Entertainment). When I was there it was a 7 people company, so I think it qualifies as a successful startup (I think now they have 50 employees).
Show the number of responses to my posts/comments next to my name, let's say: mojuba (44/120), where 120 is the total number of messages in all threads I'm involved in. This will give me a chance to know if someone replied in a thread I started by just looking at the number. What I'm doing instead is I'm checking my "comments" page regularly, from top to bottom to see if anyone replied to me.

I saw this feature on other social sites, it works pretty well.
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Shouldn't it be possible to somehow educate the users as to what phones to buy if they are interested in mobile applications? Probably atm it is a catch-22 as there are few useful applications so people don't worry too much about their phones capabilities.

Most adverts about phones don't even mention Java capability, it tends to take some detective work to discover a phones capabilities for development. Whereas having developed for mobile phones, there are some models I would definitely commend against.
Plus handests have different proprietary apis for the more advanced stuff in j2me. Certainly as soon as you start trying to do anything 'interesting' it becomes a nightmare and there is a lot of space to improve. Mobile widgets might prove to be a good solution.

I forgot another problem: uncertainty about monetization. Theres no proven way to make money on mobile yet. Do you go ad supported? Sell to operators, device makers or users? Charge micropayments or subscriptions? It's hard to pitch a mobile startup when you dont know how you're going to make money from it!
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More drool-worthy love from BlackBerry
People dont see mobile as something to run apps on. They see them as fashion accessories. They want a pretty handset that comes for free with their contract. This is why many have a RAZR despite it having one of the worst mobile UIs I have encountered and very poor support for apps. Heck, even I bought bought one for the way it looked despite being a developer who should have known better!

Perhaps if you could market a 'myspace' phone or a youtube handset it might work? A phone with tight integration between the device UI and popular web apps. This looks like more of a marketing problem than a technical one.
Totally agree - also I am not aware of any essays written by music industry bosses encouraging you to start a band. They would be more likely to tell you that you don't compare to mainstream act xyz, so you better get lost.

In fact I suppose PGs essays would make good reading for forming bands, too - isn't a band a kind of startup as well?
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"The survey also found that 45% of Europenas expect to be making video calls via their home TVs by 2012."

Will there still be TVs by 2012???
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After all this time, this is the first I've thought of the slashdot/digg and reddit/delicious comparison. Unfortunately, reddit is more digg and less 'delicious-like' nowadays.
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You definitely speak the truth. I think where the issues really show is when you try using the optional APIs, such as MMAPI. There is no requirement for specific codec support for example, which is a nightmare when trying to develop media applications in J2ME. You literally have to test on all devices or go through a beta program with a bunch of users with different phones and simply see if it breaks or not. For a small startup like us, its probably the only feasible way.

As far as UI differences, there are some good tools to help with that. You might want to check out J2ME Polish. On devices that will support it, you can get much more consistent and predictable results with how things will look on screen across platforms. I'm really impressed. Be aware though that if you dont plan on opening up your source code you'll have to pay a $1000+ license fee.

For these incompatibility reasons I'm actually drawn more to Windows Mobile.. I hate just about everything related to MSFT, but at least when you develop for Windows Mobile via VS2005 you get predictable results. What you see is what you are going to get and that is very valuable to a developer.
Did your mother influence your entrepreneurial spirit?
Here in germany several companies are making good money with mobile phones. Usually the payment is all through "premium SMS", which can cost up to 5. So you can sell an application for 5 by having the user send an SMS to a certain number (you can also make it a monthly charge of 5, if you are lucky). Not sure how it works in the US. A huge share of the 5 goes to the operator, I think at least 40%, but it still works.

I think there is room for Ad Support for mobile devices - is anybody even doing it yet? One could start a company focussing on that - making interesting applications available for "free" might also give the whole business a boost.

At the moment it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids. I don't think there even is a portal to check for serious applications. The mobile games portals have some serious applications at times, but I don't think the target audience is likely to stumble upon them there.
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Just read this post from Guy Kawasaki:

http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2007/05/just_in_time_fo.html

It got me thinking about my mother and the sacrifices she made in bearing us and bringing us up. Looking back, I definitely can see how she influenced me and helped give me the confidence to seek adventure and take risks.

For example, one time I decided to experiment with cooking and decided to make a dish concocted of orange-wedges, cheese, lemon juice, and some other random ingredients. My dad was concerned that I would waste the food (he was right) but my mother insisted that I be able to try it out for myself. It was the most disgusting food ever! I tried to eat as much of it as I could, but it was a good lesson that cheese and oranges aren't a great combination!

As I look back, I can remember countless examples of her encouragement to pursue new ventures (even when it was obvious I would fail). I can't recall her ever expressing doubt that I would succeed. And I guess she was right if you look at failure as a success in learning.

Anyway, thanks Mama! Happy Mother's Day!
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"The survey did not ask where the respondents obtained the content, ignoring the reality that many were possibly downloading television shows from Bittorrent or similar services."

To me, it sound like a good idea not to ask that, if you want honest responses.
Yes, just as there are still newspapers in 2007. These things die very, very slowly.
I guess people in Europe want to see the new US shows before they get to Europe and if they get to Europe.
Video From Jimmy Wales Press Prank (Mr 10 questions)
Talk about a leading indicator.
I agree, I can't remember the last time I actually looked at the reddit homepage, but I still read programming.reddit quite often.
Yahoo! Pipes Adds Geo Data Support
it has a very bad reputation where I live because mostly the industry was ripping of kids

Same here in the UK. There are a lot of companies tricking kids into premium subscription services for ringtones, etc.

Perhaps there is an oppertunity for a mobile marketplace/portal for applications? I think there are plenty of these for games, but are there any for apps? If the portal handled distribution, easy installation, etc it could work.
I updated the YCArrows script to handle downvotes on comments. Its still at the above story's link if you're interested.
So maybe the article doesn't enlighten those of you with extensive knowledge of the technology/market, but it did a great job of answering my basic questions.

I can think of about a million cool cell-phone apps, none of which exist yet. Conversely, there are about 10x as many web apps as I would ever need. There must be reasons why this is so...if it's not the ones listed here, what are they?
How Digg could have avoided a community revolt at Demand Satisfaction!
How many YC companies have been working on mobile startups?
I'm curious, how many YC companies have been working on mobile apps and how have they done? Also is anyone else on news.YC working on mobile apps/web?
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I find myself thinking more about J2ME applications lately, but for a while I was also expecting that eventually PDAs would dominate the market. So same as you, I was more drawn to Windows Mobile, although I don't have any experience with it. Another option would be to go "web based", if prices for networking continue to fall (in Germany I think you can get a Flatrate for 25 now - still too much for, say, an occasional gamer, but perhaps feasible for serious applications).

As for APIs, of course over time working with the devices one also builds a set of abstractions, so that it gets easier and easier to support multiple phones for future developments.
Business in its crystal purity: he talks about leading the industry by innovating for just one reason: to make more money and to help "partners" do the same. Like if it were the only thing left on Earth to do for the rest of your life. And the fact that Microsoft actually does innovate, it does drive the industry and never surrenders no matter what, is frustrating. It sounds like a real proof that all that matters is money.
loopt, textpayme, heysan, the guys building the open source language for mobile apps - 4 so far. Any more?
GOOGLE: This NDA never existed - Valleywag
The key objective is to develop an solution that would either generate revenue or save time and money for the user. If you cover that in your app, your group got a winner. Remember the key is to develop solutions not "stuff". An old economy rule for consultants. Be a problem solver.
How to market your Web 2.0 application in Europe?
I work on Hecl (http://www.hecl.org), but as an open source project. I think a language is not the best idea for a startup, as it's something that can gobble massive quantities of time and brainpower[1]. Their (tsumobi) idea for downloadable apps is good, though.

I think it's a fascinating space, in any case. Sooner or later people are going to start getting it right. I wrote up some notes on what I think "getting it right" means right now:

http://journal.dedasys.com/articles/2007/05/03/cell-phone-software-the-right-path

[1] I seem to recall reading about a certain well-known individual who has a neat idea for a language that still hasn't seen the light of day after years, although it's rumored to power some kind of news site.
Step 1: Have a version in the native language of the countries you target.
There was a post earlier on YC about IPTV revolution ( http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=18996 ) happening in Europe. It seems to be ahead of the US in terms of marketing of the IPTV medium. This should obviously mean something -

1. Broadband is seriously ubiquitous, at least where it matters

2. TV shows in Europe are boring

3. People are inherently more lazy, this would mean most users are passive

4. IPTV companies/providers have done a better job marketing the medium

5. Internet activity is increasing for all Web segments in Europe. This could be attributed to 1.

The economics behind this statistic could be debatable. It could be one of many reasons, but there is reason to believe that, that 'reason' could be good enough to consider marketing aggressively in Europe.

Based on these possible inferences, how do you think one should market their Web 2.0 company in Europe? Or should the product/service be such that it doesn't require any special marketing effort in Europe?

Any thoughts on this one?
There is a related there here - http://news.ycombinator.com/comments?id=19061 , you can down vote me for this comment. I thought there was added value in linking the two threads.
Folders are a good tool, but once you create more than one level in your hierarchy, you are lost and you end up searching documents by text patterns. Still, a single level folder system works, especially if all folders somehow fit your screen so that you can see all at once.

Leaving only search/tagging is an extreme and I think developers will eventually come to the idea of one-level folder system combined with optional tagging (i.e. you tag only if a word can't be found in the document but you feel it's relevant).
So is it time to proclaim Google dead? :)
Why is YCombinator is unable to log me in? Every time I need to open a new account
Microsoft Acquires Mobile Advertising Pioneer ScreenTonic, Gets Into Mobile Ad Space in a Big Way
I dunno about the undergraduates thing; if they have a killer demo, I think they'd still get in (though they'd probably need to be willing to take a leave of absence if the company has the capacity to succeed at the end of the program). But it also reduces the frustration that everyone feels (including other groups) when one group fails to launch due to lack of commitment to building a company.

Besides that, the number of applicants has sky-rocketed, and they can't take everyone. Having a demo just makes it clear what you're trying to build and that you have the capacity to build it.
Maybe I should have posted a disclaimer about the intended audience.

1) This was written from a social perspective, not an engineering perspective. If you are looking at it from the point of view of the engineer, a lot of these wouldn't make sense or would seem trivial.

2) This was written for two kids in a garage, not huge corporations. Certainly if you throw enough resources into mobile you can create some cool stuff, but for two college kids to try it would be like launching a home-by-christmas offensive of Russia.
Franchise deals, not viral growth, helped StubHub compete against Ticketmaster (then they got bought by eBay).
I should have noticed this was written by the person posting it here :( Wasn't trying to bash your blog, you bring up good points for developers new to cell phones to consider.
I like to think of Google as entering its third stage.
Stage 1: "Do No Evil."
Stage 2: "Spend Previously Earned Goodwill on Evil."
Stage 3: "Do Less Evil Than Microsoft."
Odds of succeeding in mobile software market are extremely low. You have a better chance of winning a state lottery than seeing your company create a mobile soft product that gains wide acceptance. If you're a startup thinking about going into that area, don't! One of the rules of startups should be: "Thou shall not waste time trying to write mobile software apps". But, alas, every month, some people jump into it and some investors who should know better fund them.

Even with all the VC money, recent history is full of startups that tried and failed in mobile soft market. Successes are almost non-existent and those that are still alive, are zombies. Stay away from walled gardens... you cannot win. You cannot rule somone else's sandbox. The networks are their property and they hold all the keys. Even if you win the lotto and you enter their network, they can boot you and lock you out anytime they wish. And they will.

More here: http://opengardensblog.futuretext.com/archives/2006/06/opengardens_wal.html
Must learn #3.
From what we could tell from our brief interview, the YC gang didn't seem very enthusiastic about installed cell phone apps. They cited the amount of capital required to strike deals with the carriers as one of the negatives for small startups. I'm sure they know from first hand experience if this is the case or not so I wont debate that. My opinion though is that users will install apps anyway if they want them, regardless of what their contract says.
I need I'm In Like With You invite... nicholas.s.barnes at gmail

thx!
In my admittedly old fashioned view, the killer app for phones is talk, and the competition is too entrenched :).
Nice, this resource is also useful for team members wearing multiple hats, and they need something quick to come up to speed, and also offers a holistic perspective to marketing/branding. .
I've never heard anyone refer to BSD/Solaris/OSX as Linux
Tides are changing though. Take a look at VoIP and Wi-Fi equipped cell phones. The combination scares the HELL out of the carriers. But market pressures are leaving them no choice but to accept this is what users want.

Then there's WiMAX and the other "last mile" broadband initiatives. Carriers are no longer the only ones who hold the key.

Its not a matter of if mobile devices will be the viable application development platform, its a matter of when and how. Startups attacking these issues and their investors are not wasting their time.
I would have to agree. I can deal with a laptop in a pinch, but it slows me down considerably.
Alexa offers new paid services - alrighty then!
if you're using nvidia like me, then it's as simple as adding a couple of lines to your xorg congfig
With all that money you would think Google would pay for their talent to earn their MBA and stay with the company to add increased value in the future... At least thats the attitude where I currently work
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