Not to be that guy but it's like the author is writing a novel. What's the tl;dr here?
The author attended an "American Idol" for startups. It's hip to have a startup. The names of said startups may as well be gibberish (yet they attempt to explain the meaning behind them). Pitches consist of ridiculous buzz words and maketing speak to cover up the fact that none of these ideas are solving problems or something that people want. tl;dr of my own reply: Have you seen that movie Idiocracy? It's like that,…
Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
31–40 of 93 posts
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#32Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >> It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.
Actually, I quite like the name Appthwack.
http://www.salon.com/1999/11/30/naming/
Read the whole thing, it's hilarious.
As soon as I saw the parade of names in the OP I was reminded of one of the names the naming consultants in the the Salon piece devised -- "Jamcracker":
When Altman and Manning presented the name Jamcracker to a client recently, the reception was not everything they had hoped for. "I put the name up in front of their creative people," Manning says. "There were a couple of women sitting in. One of them got up and said, 'Oh, that's disgusting.' Another said, 'This is really sick.' I said, 'Excuse me, what are you talking about?' They said, 'We can't explain it, but that name is just creeping us out. We don’t know what it is, but could you take it off the wall, please?'" Manning remains mystified by the incident. "There's apparently some strange, uncomfortable meaning attached to it in the minds of some women," he says. "God knows what that could be."
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#33"These women and men have come together to do brutal violence to the English language, to leave the spoken and written word bloodied and victimized on a cold cement floor, wishing for the sweet relief of death." I will read anything this author writes. Thanks for spotlighting this blog. Tip: if you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, make sweet love to the English language. Then worry abou…
I think you should figure out what content you want to convey first; throwing pretty descriptive words at a page with no content is a good way to get garbage.
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#34Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#35"These women and men have come together to do brutal violence to the English language, to leave the spoken and written word bloodied and victimized on a cold cement floor, wishing for the sweet relief of death." I will read anything this author writes. Thanks for spotlighting this blog. Tip: if you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, make sweet love to the English language. Then worry abou…
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#36Woah. How did this drop from #2? There are articles above this on HN that have less points and were submitted at an earlier time...
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#37"tiny little ideas" - for me the best startup ideas are those that start with some small idea, but it is actually a trojan horse to get something into the market that is actually very large.
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#38"tiny little ideas" - for me the best startup ideas are those that start with some small idea, but it is actually a trojan horse to get something into the market that is actually very large.
That's assuming that there actually is a significant idea bound up in the tiny idea, which is not generally the scenario that the author is complaining about.
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#39Really enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >> It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.
Re: Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
#40All that said, Paul Constant is a fantastic writer, and I'm glad to see he's found an audience here.