I'm really interested to see what happens to Crocodoc. Back in high school a programmer friend and I built a rough website to do joint collaboration that we called Collaborate. In our minds it was mainly a solution for all the peer reviewing we had to do for English class, but it follows the same track as Crocodoc. We ended up shutting it down because Google released Google Docs and a number of other real-time collaboration services sprang up. We didn't really have time for marketing/didn't know what we were doing, so it was kind of ridiculous to compete. I'm not really sad about it (we wrote it in PHP, yech), but I'm wondering how Crocodoc will deal with the same problems.
Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
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Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#22Maybe it's time for those interested in privacy to exit stage left. I'd like to see a start-up find a way to monetize my lack of desire to have my digital information monetized, maybe by obfuscating or deleting my information, and then I buy from their partners to say thanks.
I'm forgetting - which author wrote about 'Friends of Privacy' who would create false profiles and websites in order to protect the populace?
Question for you - how much would you be willing to pay for your name, user accounts, and other specific information to never come up on the first page of Google, Pipl, or other search engines?
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#23Maybe it's time for those interested in privacy to exit stage left. I'd like to see a start-up find a way to monetize my lack of desire to have my digital information monetized, maybe by obfuscating or deleting my information, and then I buy from their partners to say thanks.
I'm forgetting - which author wrote about 'Friends of Privacy' who would create false profiles and websites in order to protect the populace? Question for you - how much would you be willing to pay for your name, user accounts, and other specific information to never come up on the first page of Google, Pipl, or other search engines?
Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End
ReputationDefender.com/MyPrivacy
It appears to be very cheap. I have no connection with this company or anyone who works for it, ttbomk.
MyPrivacy protects you from stalkers, scam artists and direct marketers, by continually tracking down your personal information and removing it from databases on the Internet. MyPrivacy removes your name, address, age, phone number, past addresses, and names of relatives from websites that sell or give away your personally identifiable information without your permission.
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#24My picks for the ones that will be successful from the idea only, without looking at the bios of the founders or the websites:
- Notifo
- Zencoder (If they drop their prices. Those prices are horrendous for the REAL market they are targeting)
- Nowmov (with name change)
- Crocodoc (will sell, but will not have too many users)
- Gamador
- Cardpool
- Chromaom
- Answerly
- Zenedy
- Data Marketplace
- 140Bets
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm forgetting - which author wrote about 'Friends of Privacy' who would create false profiles and websites in order to protect the populace? Question for you - how much would you be willing to pay for your name, user accounts, and other specific information to never come up on the first page of Google, Pipl, or other search engines?
Vernor Vinge - Rainbows End ReputationDefender.com/MyPrivacy It appears to be very cheap. I have no connection with this company or anyone who works for it, ttbomk. MyPrivacy protects you from stalkers, scam artists and direct marketers, by continually tracking down your personal information and removing it from databases on the Internet. MyPrivacy removes your name, address, age, phone number, past addresses, and na…
Amazing. Well done. Thank you.
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#26There are a few gems in there that I'd like to see more of (etacts for instance), but overall I'm dismayed by the sheer volume of SV navel-gazing produced twitter junk. I'd love to see more ideas around PG's list of things he'd like to fund being presented instead of yet another "social collaboration because what else is there?" startup.
Yes, indeed. Spot the buzzword:
We make social games.
a social data request and fulfillment system
adding social data
leveraging social media
identify active social networkers
Infoharmoni visualizes the real-time social web
social sports (and soon pop culture) betting applications
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#27Interestingly I saw Cardpool featured on my local news the other day.
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#28There are a few gems in there that I'd like to see more of (etacts for instance), but overall I'm dismayed by the sheer volume of SV navel-gazing produced twitter junk. I'd love to see more ideas around PG's list of things he'd like to fund being presented instead of yet another "social collaboration because what else is there?" startup.
Maybe the pressure of having to present something tangible with only 3 months of ramen noodles makes people reach for the low-hanging fruit.
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#29I'll take the contrarian stance and say I'm not really impressed with the list. There are some that may be good, but there's not much new. Mostly me too products. Perhaps my expectations are too high.
One example: "Our goal is to do what Gmail did to Outlook: replace a popular desktop application with a better online version." is badly begging the question. I'd be surprised if gmail + Google calendar had more active users than Outlook.
I think the popularity of Gmail is overestimated by a lot of techies. Campaign Monitor posted user stats for over 300 million people last summer:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/2839/email-client-p...
Gmail came in at only 5.5%.
Re: Y Combinator presents 26 new startups
#30I'll take the contrarian stance and say I'm not really impressed with the list. There are some that may be good, but there's not much new. Mostly me too products. Perhaps my expectations are too high.
One example: "Our goal is to do what Gmail did to Outlook: replace a popular desktop application with a better online version." is badly begging the question. I'd be surprised if gmail + Google calendar had more active users than Outlook.
There have definitely been more people who've chosen to use GMail and GCal than have chosen to use Outlook. Most Outlook users have it forced on them by their employers. (They don't necessarily object, but they weren't given a choice.)
If you include Outlook Express, then you have to consider that it had the same tying advantages that IE had over other browsers. Even so, it's been months since I ran across someone who uses Outlook or Outlook Express for personal email. Thunderbird and Apple Mail are somewhat more common among the people I deal with, but the majority of people I deal with use some kind of web mail for their personal email, with GMail completely dominating among those who are at least slightly technical and among kids.