skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
I was trying to spark conversation along a different line of dialog, but maybe I have been misunderstood. Yes, this new ad system is a great idea - instant feedback and better, more specific targeting for individual websites and viewers, and any ad/marketing group should love it. Yet a certain amount of unpredictability remains, especially for ad click-through rates, and it is this that I wanted to follow.

Right now, it is relatively easy for a company to sign up for an online advertising service with some minimal guaranteed ad views. From that companies can project future earnings based on their click through and purchase rates, even if their ads are terrible, and nobody except for 0.1% click, they at least have a base line for money coming in that is fairly reliable. This system, however bad for the end users experience, is extremely helpful for the businesses planning and forecasting. Now, the CFO can say, 'We're going to have at least this much money!', and Net Ops groups can say, 'Well that means we'll probably need this much bandwidth!', and the entire business can some-what get along.

Then, Adpinion steps in. Suddenly, Advertising/Marketing can't predict how much, or even if, they'll be able to meet previous projections, projections are useless at this point. Now the CFO can't say if the company will be able to meet market predictions, and the Net Ops guys will be in the dark about if they'll suddenly be crushed by users' bandwidth requests or that they've over allocated bandwidth and they're now stuck with some fat pipes that are just getting spam messages. Well, this is all a little dire, but the point is that Adpinion can create contentions in a business.

Ah! But here is what I wanted to follow through on - even if Adpinion can create unpredictability in long running advertising strategies, the real win here would be for a one-two punch with traditional online advertising venues. A business could market test half their advertising revenue, find what works and then send it through traditional online ad streams. Now that business can up their average click rate by quickly market testing ads, and they can make their advertising team hungry and on-edge about what how well that day/week/months' ad scheme performed. And this is where Adpinion wins, for me. From an overall business perspective, outside of a localized ad/marketing department, it would provide such a benefit to any company that they would be senseless not to use it.
Wise point. I've been in a startup before [PS: As early employee; I can see how things can get even more emotional with founders], and I have seen and participated in spectacular clashes. I have also observed first hand, in not for profit projects, how important is to have the right chemistry in a team.
a chess timer should work well.

work vs. not work.
One reason RescueTime looks really cool because it's passive. It seems passive products (Last.FM, targeted ads, RescueTime, etc) instead of active products (Every application that only performs its functions only when you interact with it) could become pretty big. Targeted advertisement is a huge success story.
Thanks for the advice.

If you mean doing contract/consulting work, I'm not interesting in that at this point. As for close interaction with customers, I can't agree more. I learned that lesson the hard way as an user interface programmer for a persistent online game. We got most of our feedback on the game forums, and game players are very opinionated customers. It was so much better to talk directly to them rather than being mediated by game designers. And definitely better than implementing in a vacuum only to find out later that what you did is not what they wanted.
Back to the Future of the Web
10 years from now what will we look back on as important to the web? That's what we asked 16 top designers, developers and entrepreneurs. Read what they had to say.
Careless Obfuscation Can Lose You Business
The Del.icio.us Lesson: Is your system useful to someone even if nobody else uses it?
What's PG always say..? Something along the lines of, "If competition springs up around what you're doing, you're doing the right thing"?
Heh.. Good luck. Network effect that strong seems almost impossible to break. Come to think of it, does anyone know of any examples where strong network effect was broken, and how? Not just in the online world, either (although it seems network effect in the offline world is only broken through war).
Thanks. I hope to learn more than way more than one new thing every day.
David Heinemeier Hansson says No to Use of Rails Logo
It's great that there's some movement in this market. I used to keep a work log of all the little problems I ran into so I could remember how I fixed them and analyze my effectiveness. From there I started doing full spreadsheet time logs, but it's just plain difficult to keep up. Technology that makes this unobtrusive is very much needed -- I considered making a Google widget just for my own use but it was clearly unproductive to do so!
While I think this is good advice, there is still the problem that if users don't see much data on your site, then they will assume it's not good and/or trustworthy and leave.
One big issue in going head-to-head with ebay is that you can't ignore software patents the way you would in most web projects.
This is a great way to monitor your personal work rhythm but plain nasty when your boss is the one checking the charts and micromanaging.
I have a couple ideas, and plenty to do until I really want more.
I do have the luxury of not having to earn an income for some time. I have as much experience in working for a company as I want to have at this point. What I want right now is focus, and that I can't borrow. After a couple months, I'll probably want a cofounder and advice from others who have been there.

I do have a couple ideas but they are too implementation heavy, and I don't want to commit for so long before having tried lighter alternatives first.

Finally, I really feel I have some homework to do before I ask anyone for their money and attention.

Thanks for the comments and the encouragement!
This is kinda why we built RescueTime. We found the stopwatch solution to be awkward and, if you fail to remember to turn it on or off, it's VERY hard to recover that information.

I've done the time management exercise (the manual log) and found it to be incredibly useful. Just the act of paying attention made me more productive. But (like 99.9% of the people who try) I stopped keeping a log-- it was just too much damn work. :-)

So I guess we're trying to take the work out of it.
Startupoholic - a video podcast about startups
What patents would be a problem then? I think there is real legroom for a product that ignores the eBay sweetharts (super-resellers) and focusses more on the individual occasional sellers that use common sense and trust to make a transaction.
We totally agree. Rescuetime is combating Big Brother in a few ways:

1) It's hard to install without someone knowing.
2) You can pause the data collector at any time.
3) If you're clever enough you can edit your data before it leaves your machine.

In short, we're making it EASY TO CHEAT. Hell, I'll publish a GUIDE to cheating at RescueTime.

We're also going to make it against ToS to use as an individual scrutiny tool. We think this level of individual scrutiny is a crappy way to manage people-- we refuse to be a part of that.
Interview with Seedcamp founder Saul Klein 
We recently reported on the launch of Seedcamp, a VC-backed project that will provide a shot in the arm to Europe's technology startups.
I agree-- blow off the education part of this. Learn by doing (and taking 20 minute every day to read the very best blogs).

Screw fundamentals (sounds like you already have a decent base, anyway) -- just build something that someone wants to use/buy (preferably find a co-founder who you can brainstorm ideas with-- find a co-founder when you already have an idea is sometimes more challenging).
Lazy people can be web 2.0 users too!
why not? What strong patents does ebay have?
The trick is I'm setting my path up so it's motivating in itself. I'm doing what I most want to do. I like learning, I like programming, and I like making useful stuff. I can afford doing just that for a couple years, and even if nothing much comes out of it, it will have been worth it.

You have a point, though, and I'll watch out for motivation lows. Thanks for the heads up.
Network effect that strong seems almost impossible to break.

You're right about that. Having a better model doesn't work unless you can convince a critical mass of people to use your system.

It reminds me of the story of the Arizona Stock Exchange (http://www.businessweek.com/1997/09/b3516129.htm), which was (theoretically, anyway) better for trading than the NYSE, but failed because they couldn't convince enough brokerages to leave the NYSE and use AZX instead.
You ARE getting trolled. This guy managed the development of linebuzz.com (had you heard of it? I hadn't) and knocks advice from a previous program manager of excel (software that is on nearly every computer on the planet) and owner of a successful software company for the last several. You may hate Microsoft's marketing, but the fact of the matter is that in the early 90's they had great software teams filled with world class programmers. The linebuzz guy is knocking THEIR boss who led what is arguably one of Microsoft's best products.
The headline reads "CEO Libraries Reveal Keys to Success." That suggests to me that the keys are in the library...
Lazy people or people who hate needless effort?
As for fundamentals, this is a better account of what I mean:

But if you're like me, you're not looking for one more trick, rather you're looking for a way of synthesizing what you already know, and building a rich framework onto which you can add new learning over a career.

(From Norvig's review of SICP at Amazon.)

This is not an objection to your advice. I will consider doing what you guys say.
It's best to use either a constant simple log or an occasional detailed log: I occasionally note nearly everything I do during a single day, so I know how I use my time. But most days I use a brutally simple time-log: one sheet of paper, divided into two sides. One side gets a tick-mark every time I do something I'd normally procrastinate on; one side gets a mark every time I procrastinate instead.

That's as complicated as it needs to be (but I have a pretty simple job).
JumpBox redefines server software by making it easy to throw away
Joel isn't an advocate of "plan everything out on paper." It's more about discipline and attacking a problem as effectively as possible.

It's true that his advice does tend towards shrink-wrapped software, where it's not so easy to just go in and fix something after you've had real users testing it. But what you describe is closer to what he'd call "hallway usability testing." That doesn't rule out a spec as a valuable component of the development process.

Anyway, the test for the value of a spec really shouldn't be taken after just 4 months.
People jumping into consulting also don't realize the costs of:

-Self employment taxes
-Business expenses
-Vacation (3 weeks a year)
-Holidays (1 week per year)
-Sick Time (1 week per year)
-Errands (a few times a week)
-Bench time (all of the time between projects)

You run the numbers and $60/hr starts to feel pretty freakin' ugly.

(note: I was a consultant and built a 20 person consulting biz... And then sold it. I'll never be an hourly consultant again, if I can swing it).
I think the question we should be asking is: how can _my_ app be on those kids' computer (assuming they have internet)? Obviously, it would need to be in their language...
I like "Sorry" actually. It may help raise awareness of how annoying and intrusive bad ads are. "Ok, bye" would be appropriate if it was a friend of yours showing you the ad rather than a faceless corporation.
It's time for the mice to put the bell on the cat.
auctomatic.com anyone?
Quite amusing that the interviewer mentions this article in the interview...

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/361373/will-the-geeks...
But it's not that simple. Startups are always measured against their competitors. So even if the 1/(1-n) shows that it is a net gain for me, it may be an overall loss if my competitors make deals that are worth significantly more for them.
This is not such a great idea, but it probably can be tweaked.

First, it needs some automated targeting. Does anyone know how AdSense targets ads? I bet the ad ends up on the pages that would be returned from a Google query containing the keywords. The better pagerank, the more expensive the ad. I do not have in mind a good algorithm for adpinion, but they should figure something out - Google's targeting is really good..

Second, upclicking doesn't matter and the button is not even needed. The only way the user indicates he likes the ad should be to click through.

Third, do not just count votes. Implement the best open recommendation algorithm from Netflix prize contest instead.

Downclicking that hides the ad is good and useful.
Break is really the wrong word for it. Strong networks by definition simply can't be broken. But, a network can be dwarfed or subsumed no matter how strong it is, and a network may weaken over time if the facilities that bind it together are made obsolete. A weakened network may disintegrate suddenly.

One example: Everquest. Its network-effect was dwarfed by World of Warcraft, and the gameplay didn't keep pace which led to a gradual weakening.
we see the opportunity in building on top of existing trading platforms such as ebay rather than creating them from scratch.
Green Wiki
It's not necessarily ebay's own patents. MercExchange might be your biggest worry. But to answer your question, see http://www.pagebox.net/bm4.html
They're building on top of eBay, rather than instead of it.
Ah, you beat me to it harj! Shouldn't have left the window open before replying :-)
working hard != working a lot of hours
Superstition: Startups with derivative names fail...
Even if you have first mover, e.g. Feedster, Friendster,...so be original.
So it's time to replace eBay because you can't add the seller as a friend? Right...
The "long tail of auctions" :) What would individuals want that power sells wouldn't?
Ah, the timeless "I cut, you choose" -- I'd heard it could be applied to this but I hadn't heard how it worked. Clever, thanks.
Netflix reeling from customer losses, site outage
Takkle goes for another funding round
Sport social networking site TAKKLE is always making news. Today the startup announced that it has raised additional funding from Sports Illustrated and the New York City Investment Fund along with TAKKLE's original investors.
Atom is done
rescuetime looks really cool guys. would love to give it a shot (i just signed up for the beta using frenetic at gmail dot com).
A few examples:

Blockbuster. For a long time, BlockBuster was thought to be invincible in the video rental space, because they bought up all the prime real estate close to video renters. Because you could always find a BlockBuster near you, people became regular BlockBuster renters, which gave them a steady revenue stream and reliable borrowers so they could afford to buy up even more prime real estate, which enhanced their brand, which got them even more people hooked. They are in the process of being killed by NetFlix, because NetFlix realized that with the Internet, you didn't need a physical store presence at all, rendering BlockBuster's real estate advantage moot.

IBM. IBM came to own the computer market by offering CIOs a single model (the System/360) that would serve all their needs - it could run all the software people needed, and it was expandable with compatible, more powerful models for when you outgrew its computing capabilities. As a result, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". As more Fortune-500 CIOs bought IBM, it became more unthinkable to buy anything else, because the whole industry was used to IBM machines. They were killed by Microsoft and the PC revolution because this dropped the prices of computers & business software to the point where CIOs were no longer making the purchasing decisions. The department heads and small business owners who now made the buying decisions were used to PCs at home, so they bought PCs.

The Rothschilds. The Rothschilds provided liquidity in European financial markets for most of the 19th and early 20th century, frequently serving as the "buyer of last resort" during financial panics. In doing so, they developed very strong connections to the ruling governments in Europe. These personal relations let them charge a premium when loaning money, which helped them build up capital, which increased their power to ask as a source of liquidity, which improved their power connections. However, they've been hurt badly by the rise of America as a major financial center (they have few or no connections to the American government) and by the massive growth of capital markets. They no longer have the funds available to compete with Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs, Bear Sterns, etc.

If you look at these, there are basically two ways to break a network-effect monopoly:

Identify the factor of production that lets them operate so efficiently. Search for a technological breakthrough that makes that advantage irrelevant. Use every advantage the technological breakthrough gives you to deliver the service better and cheaper than the incumbent. (Eg: Netflix).

Identify a group of people who form a potentially large market, yet are marginalized by the customers of the monopoly you want to break into. Offer a product that makes this marginalized group more powerful than the customers of the monopoly. Profit as they become the dominant customer group. (Eg. IBM, Rothschild)
One way to beat network effects is to make the next network.

Instead of trying to break into the news business, for example, reddit build a new kind of thing, and people started using that instead.

So if you want to beat something huge and established, the way to do it is to try to answer the question: twenty years from now, when they write this history of this period, what will people say replaced it? Such questions are very hard to answer, but they do have answers, and with some effort you can often see the beginning of one.
My First Facebook App - I Want One
This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon Wish List.

Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback.

Thanks!
Generalized version: startups fail.
I entered the text below into the text field on the submission form but I guess that only works for posts where the link is blank.

This app provides you and your friends the ability to vote on different Amazon.com products. You can add products via an Amazon Search or an Amazon Wish List.

Please feel free to check out the app and provide feedback.

Thanks!
Instant Django: No-installation-required portable Django environment for windows, with tutorial
Coding Horror: Will My Software Project Fail?
You can combine filling-gaps and applying-to-YC by building something impressive during your 4 months. Building stuff is both the best way to learn about hacking, and the best way get YC's attention.

Better still: build something with someone else, who you can then start a startup with.
When JSON isn't JSON
A bigger division between stores that sell thousands of items, and more regular users, would make sense.

While the information architecture is fine, the site is really ugly. There has to be something functional and beautiful, and not just functional and bare like craigslist.

The rating system is idiotic -- an early form of karma whoring where the marginal cost of high ratings is too low. Perhaps it would make more sense to gain a point a per day or hour, and a 10 point rating system, where you need to allot scarce points when giving reviews.

The payment problem is solved with PayPal and others, so that is a non-issue. People actually trust it.

Better templates that allow for easy and beautiful sales pitches would be nice. Some of the 1996 era junk makes me want to run for the nearest far-more-pretty myspace page.

Community would make a lot of sense for particular items, like bobble-head dolls and replica light-sabers. Buyers of one rarely have the other, which beckons for sub-culture. Though I did know a guy who had mock light-sabers and a collection of StreetFighter 2 bobble-heads.
Eben Moglen challenges Tim O'Reilly to "join the conversation"
ActionMonkey: New JavaScript engine from Mozilla and Adobe
I've always wanted to be able to measure how much time I spend actually working. I wish this wasn't a closed beta.

This reminds me of that IBM philosophy, that you can only improve what you can measure. This could seriously help me improve my productivity.
"Green" is such a sales pitch, without much substance. Recycling some parts is important. But carbon offsets don't actually offset much energy usage at all. In fact, in subsidizing other forms of energy, people probably use more energy from them. Even the benefit of a low-energy computer is very small when compared to the biggest consumers of power in the home: furnace, AC, water-heating, etc..

But I suppose the lesson is that you can leverage misconceptions.

And don't get me wrong -- I love tiny computers. An old MacMini makes a perfect media PC. Bittorrent download boxes needn't be large also. I hope they have a version without the subscription fee.
http://www.zonbu.com/plans/commitment.htm
Zonbu wants to provide a fair service to consumers. There are no hidden charges: you will not find those obscure setup fees on your Zonbu billing. In case that you are not satisfied with our service, you can keep the device and get a refund of your remaining subscription balance minus the prorated portion of your Zonbu hardware rebate. Let's take an example: if you choose the 50 GB every two year billing plan, you initially pay $99 + 24 $14.95 = $457.80. If you cancel the service after six months, you keep the device and we reimburse you: $119.10 = $14.95 18 - $150. Also, once your subscription terminates, you have read-only access to your data for three months, both from your Zonbu device and from any other remote access PC. During that time you are welcome to move your data from the Zonbu servers to another storage solution of your choice.
Adpinion seeks biz dev/sales person
Adpinion has developed innovative technology in a field where
innovations are rare: banner advertising. Now we're looking
for an experienced biz dev/sales person to help us extract the
maximum value from it. At this early stage, you'd be almost
a cofounder. If you're interested please send us an email at
founders at adpinion dot com.
Leon, yeah! We're excited about the potential for our Adpinion as a tool for businesses to quickly evaluate the performance of their ads.

The issue of advertisements getting shown less because everyone dislikes them is something we're looking at closely. We focus a lot on individual user preferences, so if you dislike an ad hopefully there is someone out there who likes it and they will get shown the ad more to keep the number of impressions consistent. However, there will be cases where an ad gets less impressions because the majority of people dislike it. We feel that serving these ads as much as the ads that everyone likes creates an inefficiency in the cost per click model: if you're a website publisher and there are two ads that pay the same per click, you're not making as much off the less popular ad. We're exploring ways to incorporate ad ratings into the cost structure in a way that gives advertisers incentive to make well-liked ads.

Also: guaranteeing a minimum viewership/maximum price for cost estimation is definitely something we're aware of, and we have some ideas on how to achieve that. We'll reveal them when we're done ; ).