skysight-inc/HackerNews huggingface dataset:
Linking to a press release you made that Forbes.com syndicated and making it look like Forbes wrote about you is deceptive. I stopped browsing at that point. If I were a potential customer I would feel like you were trying to trick me and wouldn't feel confident about using your service, or trusting your company.

Otherwise, the layout looks good. Some of your marketing text reads a little funny//choppy. You might want to re-read what you wrote and fine-tune.

And nitpicking: I don't like how the word "it" is on its own line in the quote on your front page.
Take half a day and learn about SEO.,, It could be a pretty huge driver of traffic and customer acquisition if you guys tweaked a few things. Drop me a line if you'd a few SEO bits of advice. (no, I'm not a consultant)
Are you also planning to include ebay results?
A cofounder please? Another Stanford Grad Student?
I am a grad student at Stanford looking for help building a startup. I have a working prototype and enthusiastic responses and a small amount of money. I just need a cofounder to get things going faster and to have someone to work with! I have been using lots of Python. Email me at jameschce@gmail.com.
Yes! I was stunned by the speed. Maybe one of these days, you'll share your secret (if there is one).
Ask YC: how to do market research?
When somebody asks you "Who are your competitors?", how do you find the answer?

Some are obvious - Yahoo vs. Google, Emacs vs vi, etc. But if I'm making a "website that does X", and X is pretty narrow, how do I find the competition? (Beating them is no problem... :-)
Facebook: "Have Not Been Briefed On OpenSocial"
Yeah like move into telecom.
They should've bought the URL: http://www.opensocial.com/ !!!
I agree, but market cap is a far worse metric.
Thats interesting about stumbleUpon, but what happened when they eventually got bought out with eBay? what was Google's move?

But I do agree, if Google had invested in FB they would have probably not pushed for OpenSocial so aggressively and so quickly. But I think they would have eventually done it, meaning they would not have been stopped by FB.

I think there is a lot more to get out of OpenSocial. If they can reach out to the whole web instead of one network they can probably do a lot more and target a lot more people. As they said it themselves, they look at the web as a platform instead of one site on it as the only platform.

So far with OpenSocial they have Myspace, Bebo, Orkut, Friendster, SixApart and +++ which is almost = to the web. This is not a bad deal compared to one site that is mostly about what it could be in the future rather than what it is actually right now (which is not much compared to Myspace, and definitely nothing close to all these sites combined.)
Further, many Facebook applications are not able to take advantage form the Facebook platform now. The platform paid off well for the early adopters and also for the most popular apps, but the majority of applications on Facebook are not seeing much return from the site. Whereas, through OpenSocial they are now able to reach out to a much larger audience, that is also a lot more diversified with a lot more itnerests.

On top of all these it is a lot easier to develop for OpenSocial as it is for Facebook, since you can merely use HTML and Javascript to do so, instead of learning the FBML (facebook markup language). Although it should be noted that in order for a developer to do more customized stuff, they will need to work with the APIs of those sites that have one, this way they can take total advantage of the underlying websites.
Google can do #4

site:whatever.com <query>
"Google announced an open interchange that allows users to take their social graph with them from one site to another."

That's not what was announced at all.
Deal-scouring isn't a new idea by any means. Nonetheless, I've been playing around with it, and I'm very much impressed with the speed and ease of use of the service. Well done.

One suggestion though that may or may not be helpful at this point. Perhaps when a user searches, you can have a "short list" that lists the most popular products in that search, so that the search can be narrowed to a single product.

For instance, when I type "bluetooth headset," a short list of headset models could come up on top of the results. When I click on one, it limits it to, say, H700.

Also, I searched for "Playstation 3." I was looking for the console, but got one console result and a bunch of games. Perhaps categories like "Playstation 3 Console," "Playstation 3 Games," "Playstation 3 Accessories," etc.

The former would be much easier to do than the latter I'd imagine, but both types would be helpful.
How to tell if a web page sucks
So... how does OpenSocial work?
Is OpenSocial only the same thing as the Facebook platform, except in a write once, distribute to many, approach. Or can it do other things as well? Can I extract social graphs out of OpenSocial - i.e. if I have two people emails addresses, can I tell if they're connected somewhere withing the OpenSocial network?
Thanks! I was feeling the same way about the forbes release but everyone else insisted.
Right now, you'll find that our results for relatively specific searches (e.g. LG 42" Plasma - http://www.bountii.com/search.php?item=lg+42%22+plasma&s...) are really good.

However, like you mentioned, a broader search- "Playstation 3", yields more than consoles. We're working hard to improve the quality of our results for broad searches like this. For now, we decided to make the price filter very accessible to people. When you get back more than consoles for your "Playstation 3" search, we hope you'll narrow your results to those "> $200" to skip over the games and accessories.
It definitely comes across as slimy. It seems like your service is interesting enough on its own to not need to resort to shady tactics in order to be compelling.
for me, it's not a war zone, it's a boxing match between Google and facebook. but Google was the heavyweight and facebook was young and arrogant. we all know waht happens next.
I've read elsewhere that he doesn't want to let people invest in his ideas--only to donate. Is that reasonable?
I'm speculating that Facebook may try to use Microsoft's strategy of mucking up standards to gain a competitive advantage
Think of MS "investment" into FB as an advance payment for their advertising deal. MS guarantees $150m/year to FB in revenue. MS is losing a lot of money on even that deal so the last thing they wanted was to allow Google to take that advertising avenue away from them.
Tough doesn't mean unfair.
I think the point that Alex was trying to make is that if you are not intelligent enough to realize that it doesn't matter that much, you probably are going to need all the credentials you can get.
An Online Color Thesaurus
The engineering education at Pitt is solidly mediocre, yet we're still reasonably high ranked. Most of my upper level IE classes have 60 people which is unreasonable and really hurts the quality of learning. Still, engineering, at least, is in demand enough that Pitt graduates don't have any trouble finding jobs around Pittsburgh.
This matters in industries where they don't have an objective metric for skill, like finance, business, law, etc. The only thing they can go off is a school name and grades. In more objective enterprises, like starting a tech company, for instance, the only thing that matters is objective competence and execution. Almost no tech company, scientific discovery, or novel mathematical proof comes out of a classroom.

For subjects like biz and finance that don't focus on exact answers, what else do you have to go off of? But who would major in something like that anyway?
I thought the college application process was a bunch of bullshit.

You were correct.
I'd take Carter over the current leadership of this country any day of the week.
Good timing Scheme is undergoing quite a bit of change that should culminate in about 6 months.

I have used scheme at work and for the last 6 weeks on a private project in earnest.

One issues is that there are a lot of scheme implementations out there. Some good, great, average, and others bit rotted. Only mention two here.

DrScheme/MzScheme is pretty amazing. It is fully loaded and few know of its full capabilities. The fact that PG can just "write" Arc in MzScheme and some other pretty neat things that are doable in MzScheme is not an accident. DrScheme/MzScheme is much, much more then Scheme in a way not too many people understand.

The second implementation is Larceny. True native compiler. Plenty fast. The compiler is written in Scheme (small C runtime). Its hackable from top to bottom. Extensible and did I say fast? Threading is fair or green threads using continuations/call-cc (no O/S threads). Don't like the Scheduler? Modify it, its in tasking.sch The interrupt handler is a lambda function, just redefine it. Don't like the i386 code output, hack the assembler or the optimized 5 pass compiler. Its all in Scheme.

Don't like standard poll, I added epoll via the FFI in a few hours.

Larceny has been around for years, but is undergoing a resurgence to bring it up "closer" to the new R6RS standard.

I think it has great potential. Be advised that do to the rapid changes in development underway that there are some rough edges in certain "library" areas, however, the core compiler is solid and stable.

Awhile back Slime was ported over to Scheme48 (not a system for general real world use, but a fun hacking implementation). The compiler group should have Larceny stable with many of the libraries and features of the new R6RS standard (some will not implemented). IF SLIME scheme backend was ported over to Larceny as well. It could be the start of something special.
Hey guys -- very slick implementation... I'm wondering though, what is the major differentiating factor from what's out there already?

It's lightning fast & the UI is incredibly clean; that could be enough right there.
More like a boxing match between facebook and myspace actually.
We recently launched HeavyInk.com (a mashup of a comic book retailer, collection management, social networking, etc.) competing in a somewhat crowded market of comic book retailers.

Before we did this, I did a lot of competitive research.

I searched on all the relevant keywords. I ended up finding a ton of comic book retails, plus a lot of other related sites that had excellent ideas (collection management, social networking, pull list management, etc., etc., etc.). So: right there, by digging deep into the search results, I found a lot of things that I didn't even know existed, and this let me expand my concept of what we wanted to deliver, and it also let me get a much better handle on what the market is like.

After identifying the big names in the space, I went off to Alexa and other sites, and measured the traffic of each of these competitors.

I also got some information via backchannels on the likely revenue of 2 or so of the 10 big competitors, and then verified it through another backchannel. I then did some curve fitting to come up with an algorithm that predicts the revenue of an online comic book store, based on their Alexa rank and traffic.

I then went through the top 10 or 20 sites, and took notes. After I saw the commonalities between them, I created a spreadsheet, and listed all of the salient details of each competitor.

At this point I had a good handle on (a) what price point we wanted to aim for during our growth stage; (b) what features we might want to offer.

Then I set up a survey on Wufoo (I ran the survey past a survey designer first to get her imprimatur on it), and sent email to the top 10 or 20 comic bloggers. Two or three of them linked to the survey, and we ended up getting around 500 people to take the survey.

I wrote a script that imported the CSV data from Wufoo into our database, and then wrote a bit of Ruby code that did a mediocre version of cluster analysis. This let me find out which groups of customers would be most profitable, and in turn let me find out what features these customers would be interested in.

Then we wrote up some design documents and started coding.

We coded for three months, and went live in a "quiet beta" two weeks ago. We've been hunting bugs, and will announce to our list of 500 or so survey takers on Monday or so.

That's how I do market research.

--
Travis Corcoran, president
HeavyInk.com

"Your comics are here."
Lucida Console is both more compact (the reason I use it) and more readable.

Just my 2 cents.
FogCreek: The origin of Wasabi
it would be nice if it were a little more tangible -- you say you help gather and manage leads and make it easier to manage search marketing. but those are huge spaces and cover a universe of possible features/applications.

for example, maybe make the screenshots more legible so i could quickly get a feel for what specifically the thing does (ok, the 'create custom landing pages' and forms is clear enough, but the rest of the description is a lot fuzzier) and how i can use it.

the site itself looks gorgeous, though -- good luck!
yesterday, facebook was worth $150 trillion dollars. now it is worth PENNIES. this is WEB 2.0, PUT UP OR SHUT UP!!
Twitter Hasn't Made a Dime but Twitterrific Is Making Bank
Future Mars Craft Inspires High-Tech Spy Plane
All of that is nonsense. Just build it and launch it. Then the market will tell you what it thinks.
What is in it for them?
I'd say all the copy is terrible. Cut out all the enthusiasm and hype. Just give it straight. Spelling out what you mean by generating, tracking and managing leads would be good. I know you know what it means, but its too vague. Better to say: 1) setup you pay-per-click campaigns or work with your existing ones 2) make custom landing pages with forms to get their information 3) track these leads 4) incorporate stats and info from various places. You get the idea... leads can mean too many things, you seem to be all about getting lead info from web forms off of pay-per-click ads - and that focus is a good thing.
Technology Outside the Valley: The Debate Rages On
Stephen Petranek: 10 ways the world could end
Fields medalist: Continually aim just beyond your current range
I...I can hear the voices. They don't stop, they're telling me to...read 1984??
Google is a crazed heavyweight who was just watching the fight, but had to rush the ring.
Which is funny as he appears to have gone to cornell.
nicely designed. i agree with others about the copy. it's well written, but i don't think the tone is appropriate for this type of product. then again, i'm not even a potential user...

I would take what everyone on here says with a grain of salt because i'm guessing most of us haven't used a CRM app.
Stanford Students Present Facebook Apps to Class
I was really pleased when Terry started blogging

...rarely does reading a blog push me past my current range. smile

There's a promising trend of putting, on blogs or wikis (Terry has done an incredible job on the dispersive wiki, and Scott Aaronson built the complexity zoo), thoughts not quite ready for 'primetime' (nor any specific journal). It's quite an exciting development. It certainly changes the social dynamic: I can imagine that in the near future, the most important research institutions will not be individual research departments but online communities crystallizing around prominent scientists who happen to be terrific bloggers.
http://pastie.caboo.se/113312
Alan Kay: The Computer Revolution hasn't happened yet
10 years have passed since this OOPSLA keynote. Are we getting any closer?
My YC submitted company - Thoughts or suggestions
We are in private beta now; been for a month or so...

Thanks for all feedback!
You should try hop - best Scheme for the web today:
http://hop.inria.fr/ http://hop.inria.fr/usr/local/share/hop/weblets/home/article...

Also, it has a scheme-to-javascript compiler inside it...

If you really like Java, SISCWeb is also nice.
We do a few things to show our shoppers prices that other engines cannot:
1. We pay users to submit pricing information. This ensures that our price index is complete as there are some things that cannot be automated.
2. We show you all the hidden prices ("Click to See", "Add to Cart", etc) from all of our stores.
3. We include rebate and coupon savings in prices.

-John
You are right. RScheme has a real time garbage collector

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RScheme
Good luck with your startup, make sure you tell us when it launches !
I certainly hope so (that there are people using it). And increasing it.
yeah that is really really cool. Any hints on Lines Of Code

Don't tell if you don't want to, or if you think its too long ! Maybe paren count is more appropriate ;)

I am guessing amazingly concise.
what if what you're doing takes more than a weekend to build?

there are more cost effective ways of seeing what the market thinks besides disappearing into a hole and coding.
well, how do you expect your customers to find you (or your competitors)? search? forums? trade shows? word of mouth?

then search, look on forums, go to trade shows and ask potential customers what they do to solve the problem you want to fix and how they would find you.
bountii offers better prices on zunes fwiw
You should have a tour, so people can see what you have to offer without signing up.
My pagerank went up and was standardized on all of the pages. One page was a 3/10 another was 4/10 and some had no pagerank, now they are all 5/10.
Can you give a summary of what it does? I don't understand and don't feel like signing up

Also, it hoses the back button on my browser, which is annoying
Well, without signing up, I don't really get it. Maybe you'd care to explain it to us in a few lines? A few things of note though:

1) Breaks the back button on my browser. That's a no no

2) The splash image takes way too long to load.
The 'Winners' of the Wired News Saddest-Cubicle Contest
You're saying you installed the Scratchback widget and your Pagerank went up? I thought it was all nofollow links. What do you think happened?
No I meant with the pagerank change not the scratchback thing. Although the scratchback thing looks interesting.
Breaks back button, very frustrating.
I don't get it, needs at least a short explanation on the front page.
It seems obvious that people want something that is not so professional, Vivid in the article doesn't seem to be getting that they can gain market share if they would change there tactics, maybe put together a compilation cd of amateur content or create there own amateur content using models who are not so worked over that they are impossibly perfect looking.
Since you asked for thoughts + suggestions, here are mine:

I totally agree on all three points of the parent to this post (wtf is it, don't break my back button, and why is the bg so beastly).

The only keys that could give me some context don't really make any sense:
"sleep and wake up social network" - huh?
alarm messages - what?
Vertical and horizontal scroll bars on my maxed-out browser window - why?
No chair at the computer desk - oh noes! where am I gonna sit?
"Sleep with us... and let your friends wake you!" - This sorta reminds me of this one time in college...

I'm curious to know what your site does, but not curious enough to sign up to find out. But if I did want to sign up, why do you need my website? Which website? My business website? Personal website? Blog? Flickr? The chamber of commerce for my city of residence? (Same goes for "name" is this my real name, first name, last name, or a user/nick name?)

Why does the input look right justified? That feels awkward.

The thick black border around the brown box changes its thickness on the bottom left side.

You've got a lot of work to do to get your front page together. I will be interested to see how you progress, and to learn what your site/company is about.
Or find out how it tastes...
Damn

http://bountii.com/search.php?item=blow+job&submit.x=0&#...
I disagree with the comments saying that the purpose is unclear -- I understood immediately -- but this just seems like begging for being the butt of practical jokes. I don't want to wake up to getting rickrolled, and I don't want to not get woken up because somebody chose John Cage's 4:33 as my alarm message.
Great thank you so much for your feedback. It's a big help!

Here is a full summary...

Sleep.FM - The Social Alarm Clock is an alarm clock social network, where upon the alarm time passing on the site(mobile versions soon) you are awakened by your alarm messages(audio files or voice-mail) received from your friends on the network.

It is themed around the human conditions of resting and waking where user environments are bedrooms. Users interact with one another by entering each others bedrooms to leave one another gifts(with or without comments), emails and or alarm messages.

The back button issue.. does that happen on the splash page or when you click, "Already a member? Click here," which takes you to another page?

Thanks!
For many years, weight lifters thought that by increasing the number of repetitions, they could increase their strength. Eventually, they found out this wasn't true. What's needed is a very few reps and a great amount of weight. The same is likely true with intellectual pursuits. Better to struggle with Bach's inventions 30 minutes a day than to play "Smoke on the water" for 10 years.
Why did you make the decision for this idea to be a stand-alone site rather than a feature (widget, fb app, etc)? From your description it seems like it's better suited to the latter.
I think getting Rickroll'd would be the perfect start to a bright and early morning.
To give another data point, before reading your comment I tried "50" plasma" on Bountii and the best I got was 999 (http://www.bountii.com/search.php?item=50%22+plasma&subm...)

I did the same search on froogle
http://www.google.com/products?q=50%22+plasma&btnG=Searc...
and found this:
http://www.jepago.com/store/view-item.php?p=834.6&src=F3...
and thought "Well, 834 sure beats 999" I did see the hefty shipping charge but I didn't see the zip code option until you mentioned it. It seems obvious enough once you see it but I think the results are too eye grabbing to get everyone noticing it by accident.

Overall I think Bountii had much better results once I got past all the mounts and brackets and stands. Relative to froogle bountii does a much better job of sticking to results that actually matter (froogle had a nice price for a plasma in Yorkshire and for one that didn't turn on).

My experience was I clicked on the 1000-7000 filter and got nine clean results and great prices from reliable vendors (at least in the sense that newegg >> jepago?) but i just wasn't sure that i wasn't missing out on a TV at 930 without doing some more less pleasant digging. I did figure out pretty quickly I could do a price highest to lowest search on < 1000 and make sure it was just false positives below but maybe there's a way to make that a little more intuitive.

I think it's really important to get the users clear on the shipping taxes thing so here's my proposed solution. On the front page immediately to the left of the search box put a two item checkbox labeled "with shipping" and "without shipping" with "without shipping" pre-checked. Then everyone knows 1. the prices don't include shipping 2. the prices could include shipping if you want. If the user clicks the "with shipping box" it expands to be the zip code text box. This way 1 and 2 get done but it still only takes typing+enter to get to the results if you don't want shipping. It avoids asking for the zipcode on the front page which might come off as creepy unless you know what it's for.
LoL - RickRolled... yes you can have a lot of fun with it, but you can regulate your Social Alarm Clock, impeding the practical jokes.

I only allow few people to send me alarm messages, like my g/f who is away at school and some of my family members who are sure not to RickRoll me.
Thanks I appreciate your comments and suggestions :)
This is incredibly superficial feedback - the gradients on those two dots over the i's really make me cringe. Just make them solid green.