41 million (and growing): The number of views for Rebecca Black's "Friday" video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD2LRROpph0
I would not have paid $1 to view it.
41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
241–250 of 269 posts
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#242Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's about what humans want. Humans act the same, for the most part, accounting for cultural differences. (Fashion is an example of a cultural difference, In Turkey, for example, men often place as much importance on being stylish as American women do.) So, think culture development. Talk To Customers. (And don't try to flirt. Look at their faces. Write notes.) Talk to them both individually and in groups. Have a par…
This is common advice, but I find it frustratingly vague. Talk to people? I talk to people all the time. Heck, I talk to women all the time — half my friends are women, I currently live with two female housemates and used to live with a third, and my mother is a middle-aged office manager. After years of talking to them, I can only conclude that I've missed the boat on making Facebook, Etsy, The Sims and Model Mayhem…
You may find this a helpful starting point:
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good post. It seems common for participants in an industry undergoing a bubble to concoct elaborate industry-specific theories to explain a sudden influx of new money when the real cause is, well, exactly that: a sudden influx of new money. Unfortunately, we've been trained to correlate the numbers in our bank accounts with actual value, but the link has been all but severed for a long time. It seems unbelievable tha…
The current inflation rate suggests that the supply and demand for cash is in balance. This might not be true, but you won't disprove it with unsourced conspiracy theories.
It might help to take Chris Martneson's Crash Course (www.chrismartenson.com) where he makes it clear that inflation is necessary under the present Federal Reserve system. Although Chris was a biological scientist before being an internet content provider, he has a pretty good way of describing the economics behind the Fed. It doesn't take a conspiracy theory to address the fairly human activities of the superbanks. Activities that vastly increase their power and in no noticeable way improve our lives. They don't have to conspire. In fact, they are often vicious competitors. Anybody tried to get a home mortgage lately? Hard to get, now. And why? The banks get free (as in no interest) loans from Treasury which the Fed will pay interest on. So they loan it back to the Fed to get paid interest. Why take the much higher risk of loaning us money to buy or refinance a home?
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unless you are a very sophisticated trader (and likely even then), knowingly betting that a bubble will continue to expand is just gambling. You might get lucky and exit at the right time, but it's seriously -EV. That said, I don't really think the majority of small time investors think in those terms or are at all aware of how the monetary boom-bust cycle operates, which is why they get fooled into thinking they are…
In hindsight, maybe. You only know it's a bubble when it bursts and the markets come back to earth. Outside of that it's rational to invest in something that's growing.
I still disagree. During bubbles, it is often apparent through straightforward financial analysis that companies are overpriced. Investing in a company whose price isn't supported by underlying assets and earnings because it's 'hot' is a speculative gamble on the extremely difficult to predict group psychological whims of the marketplace, not a rationally conceived value investment.
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#245Yes we are..
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#246I don't know about the rest of the world, but we sure are in a bubble here at Hacker News. There seems to be a real disconnect between what people want to build/invest in and what people in the real world actually need and want to pay for. Just as sample of what I've witnessed in the past few years: Ask HN: How do you like my file sharing app? Ask HN: How do you like my social app for niche ? Ask HN: How do you like…
I come to Hacker News to see what interests a small demographic with whom I share some. To find out everything else, I go out on the street and interact with people.
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's true that a higher inflation regime will not help debtors. But the net effect of an event like QE/QE2 is to help debtors.
But the net effect of an event like QE/QE2 is to help debtors. Let's be serious here. Net effect of QE is 0.
QE2 did push US mortgage rates up.
It's unclear why/how though, as the vast majority of new US mortgages end up with a GSE that is heavily dependent on govt support, so the increase was a political decision.
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#248Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can't you have both? Take option A for a few years. Save most of that money, then quit. Take option B for a lot longer than you could have if you didn't take option A first. But seriously, I understand that option A almost never pays that well and is usually not guaranteed. For example, working for stock options that you'll most likely never see vest. Also option B is not guaranteed to make no money either, and at le…
Am I correct in my opinion that people following option A tend to be, though perhaps not universally, driven by a certain kind of greed that promotes cold, unfeeling non-authenticity? These effects ripple throughout our society at a deep level. Some superficial examples--Zynga, advertisements for female facial creams, etc. But I feel it goes much deeper. It's like an emergent phenomenon, a parasitic infliction upon o…
I haven't looked for the article I am talking about since I last read it (back when dead trees still dominated). So I can't vouch for its veracity anymore. Its essence may be interesting or jog someone else's memory. (I may try to find it later)
The article stated that a group of college (MBA perhaps) students was surveyed and asked "would you work for the highest paying salary once you graduate?", or "would you work for what you want to do and enjoy after you leave college."
The answers were compared against reality and the respondents life after a few years - It showed that whoever chose to do what they were interested in were more successful in monetary and career terms than people who chose to follow just the cash.
It does have further support, in that we generally value passion and drive as key predictors of success over someones ability to choose better paying jobs.
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
don't focus on the features of the product - focus on the team. it might end up being something completely different (there is a word for that) from the perspective of 'can these guys spin a $40M investment into something that is worth more?', the answer is probably yes (probably enough to worth investing in) it isn't a bubble because this is still VC money, not crazy mom and pop shooting at the NASDAQ money. during…
Cuil had Googlers behind it. The people behind it can make a difference if the other fundamentals (market viability especially) are in place. Is there a $40m+ market for a group photo album app? This app is free, so they'll need a great monetization model even if the market is there.
Cuil was trying to solve a problem that was already solved, and they were so arrogant in their media briefs you could just tell that they were on another planet
Color, on the other hand, if they at least solve the problem of figuring out where somebody is I can see someone paying 200M+ for that (fb or google)
Re: 41,000,006 reasons why I think we're in a bubble
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
don't focus on the features of the product - focus on the team. it might end up being something completely different (there is a word for that) from the perspective of 'can these guys spin a $40M investment into something that is worth more?', the answer is probably yes (probably enough to worth investing in) it isn't a bubble because this is still VC money, not crazy mom and pop shooting at the NASDAQ money. during…
The team behind it makes the work I've seen so far all the more surprising. Have you played with the app? It's horrible. It's really bad. It's not fun to use--it's confusing and frustrating. The UI is a nightmare. It's buggy. I know some of those things can be smoothed out over time, but it doesn't feel like those early apps you see that have tons of promise but a few rough edges. As an investor, I'd be worried.
I'd probably never install the app, but then I don't even use a smartphone - but they have enough money to make this mistake 10 times over
who knows, they might end up powering location for foursquare, facebook, and google etc. in 3 years time as the new GPS.