What do you think of my startup idea? • Hacker News Board

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#41

Post by dcurtis » Thu, Sep 27, 2007, 3:01 AM UTC

nailer wrote: post #40

dcurtis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you described those sites very well. Facebook: Digitize your real relationships Google: Find websites based on keywords Yelp: Find restaurants, share experiences about restaurants Last.fm: Discover new music based on popularity Pandora: Discover new music based on constituent pieces reddig/Digg: Discover news based on popularity This idea: Discover new things based on constituent pieces, popularity, and…

You have a good idea, but I don't think you're good at communicating it. The above is a good example - I don't know anyone that sets out to 'digitize (their) real relationships'. They might do that, but it's that's a means to an end, not the end itself. Users are focused on end goals, not means. The end goal for Facebook is to keep in contact with friends, meet new people, organise events, and show off their photos.…

Those are the exact words from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. He said he didn't create Facebook to help you find "friends;" he created it to digitize real relationships and allow you to keep in contact.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#42

Post by dcurtis » Thu, Sep 27, 2007, 3:07 AM UTC

kabanossen wrote: post #34

dcurtis wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you described those sites very well. Facebook: Digitize your real relationships Google: Find websites based on keywords Yelp: Find restaurants, share experiences about restaurants Last.fm: Discover new music based on popularity Pandora: Discover new music based on constituent pieces reddig/Digg: Discover news based on popularity This idea: Discover new things based on constituent pieces, popularity, and…

Benefits Facebook: Better contact with more people Google: Answers to questions. Solutions to problems. Last.fm: Good music Pandora: Good music reddig/Digg: Inspiration, quick and easy learning about tech, internet, politics This idea: ? For example, what's the benefit of getting movies that are similar to Jurassic Park? If you say "comfort and delight" I'd like to know how it's more comfortable than checking the mov…

This idea: find similar people, good music, good movies, and interesting things.

How are those not benefits?

The benefit of finding movies that are similar to Jurassic Park is that you find new movies that you might enjoy. This is very obvious. What is the benefit of finding new music on iTunes/Pandora? It's the same thing! Of course it's for comfort and delight. That's what you're supposed to be pursuing in life.

IMDB does not recommend movies at all. If it does, it does it horrifically badly because it has never helped me before. IMDB is not a recommendation engine, it's simply a database. And they don't seem to want to innovate beyond that.

Video stores are enormous and movies are ordered alphabetically by genre. There is no way to know which movie is good, or which one you will like, because all you have is a promotional paragraph on the back and a pretty picture on the front. This is also very obvious to me.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#43

Post by xentek » Thu, Sep 27, 2007, 3:07 AM UTC

its called digg.com and about a dozen other sites I've seen. You could even build most of this in Ning for free, right now.

My point being that I don't see anything in there that really evolves the social content sharing platform in any significant way.

Re: What do you think of my startup idea?

#44

Post by nailer » Mon, Oct 01, 2007, 2:58 AM UTC

dcurtis wrote: post #41

nailer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a good idea, but I don't think you're good at communicating it. The above is a good example - I don't know anyone that sets out to 'digitize (their) real relationships'. They might do that, but it's that's a means to an end, not the end itself. Users are focused on end goals, not means. The end goal for Facebook is to keep in contact with friends, meet new people, organise events, and show off their photos.…

Those are the exact words from Mr. Zuckerberg himself. He said he didn't create Facebook to help you find "friends;" he created it to digitize real relationships and allow you to keep in contact.

Regardless of who said the words, have they ever been used to market Facebook to users?

The jargon used makes it sounds like a conversation with contemporaries, colleagues or investors.