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Yo

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Re: Yo

#61

Post by kunaalarya »

notduncansmith wrote: post #10

The onboarding process was really jarring. I expected to be able to use it instantly. Instead, I had to wait ~30 seconds while my username was registered, and now I'm sitting on my hands waiting for some SMS with a code that will allow me to login. Also, there's no easy way for me to use the app with other people without inviting them first (which, given my circle of friends and family, would have to be preceded by a…

The SMS piece is a server issue with all the traffic they had today. It should be instant but it's been delayed all day for people, was fine when I first signed up. Once it does, your phone number will be verified and it'll connect people in your phone book like Snapchat, Whatsapp, Secret, etc.

Re: Yo

#63

Post by notwedtm »

qu4z-2 wrote: post #50
prawn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a typical forum comment or an observation on the meaning that can be given with a single word.

the meaning that can be given with a single word. Very little in this case. There's a reason simple "This" comments are discouraged on HN. Having said that, I do agree that single words can contain a lot of meaning at times. This just ... isn't a great example.

Agreed.

Re: Yo

#64

Post by notduncansmith »

astrocat wrote: post #47
notduncansmith wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I could see the Tinder-style pivot actually making this an interesting app. As it stands, what this app fails to do is establish a channel of communication. If I message a friend on Skype, I know that we're most likely going to converse over Skype. Same with email, SMS, phone call, etc. With Yo, however, they have to choose some method of communication which may not be ideal for me. Furthermore, given that there is z…

>As it stands, what this app fails to do is establish a channel of communication. This might be the allure. Its a message without baggage. There's no guilt for failing to say "hey, how are you man?" No shame in saying "yo" and getting on with your life. Because it lacks the ability to "establish a channel of communication," it inherently removes social pressures to extend the communication to a degree one or both par…

That's an interesting theory, and something like that could have a place somewhere. It's unfortunate that one has to establish the grounds for such a relationship beforehand, by convincing someone to download this app that allows pinging between them and exactly one other person (until this app gets more traction).

Re: Yo

#65

Post by prawn »

qu4z-2 wrote: post #50
prawn wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is a typical forum comment or an observation on the meaning that can be given with a single word.

the meaning that can be given with a single word. Very little in this case. There's a reason simple "This" comments are discouraged on HN. Having said that, I do agree that single words can contain a lot of meaning at times. This just ... isn't a great example.

Tens of thousands of people are finding some use for it, even if it's just novelty.

I could imagine yo'ing my wife to say "Thinking of you" while at work, or my brother to say "Not up to much if you want to Skype", etc.

I think they could easily start with something curious like this and then slowly extend it to something else (e.g., single word/term conversation elements where you get more choices the deeper the conversation goes).

How many naysayers were there (and still!) with something like Twitter? Yet I use Twitter many times each day.

Re: Yo

#66

Post by dep_b »

What sparked my interest is that indeed there seem to be some words that are like a swiss army knife in possibilities. Yo is a prime example. It can mean hi, okay, no thanks, what's that, hey, a warning and the list goes on forever.

Trying the app it said to me that I could connect to Facebook through my settings. The app didn't have settings.

sad trombone

Don't snort the 1.2 million at once, yo.

Re: Yo

#67

Post by ryandvm »

jacquesm wrote: post #23
ISL wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1-bit communication can get a lot done. Not sure? (don't do this) Try calling your local emergency service (911 in the US) and hanging up.

No, really don't do this, you could get someone killed like that (priority traffic causes tons of traffic accidents annually, if they follow up on a 9/11 when there is nothing wrong you are in very hot water, and rightly so). There are a lot of situations where one bit communications can make big changes. Sending a voltage down the wire to the 'launch' relay on some missile will do a lot worse. In the end, any actuat…

Can't wait for the Facebook clone. They should call it "Poke". Oh wait.

Re: Yo

#68

Post by ChuckMcM »

jacquesm wrote: post #7

> Without ever having officially launched, co-founder and CEO Or Arbel managed to secure $1.2 million in funding from a list of unnamed investors, except for co-founder, angel, and Mobli CEO Moshe Hogeg, who participated in the round. Stuff like that really gets me. I see tons of start-ups that would have a fighting chance given that sort of investment and then lame stuff like this gets funding. Of course they're ent…

Perhaps, and this would not surprise me in the least, it is vanity investing. Something which has some traction, clearly is scratching some itch, and is under valued relative to that traction. Here we are in June, a couple of months from April and it has 50,000 active users. With a bit of virality that gets to maybe 250K or 300K. Conceptually simple (probably not patented or otherwise circumscribed) the team is probably 2 maybe 3 people. So with the two founders and maybe an employee, its an easy Acqui-hire at $3M. So you put in your 1.2M, get prodded, sell for $3M and double your money in what, 6 months? A year? And I agree with your 1+M$ is nothing to sneeze at, a lot of good can be done with that. Welcome to the gangsta school of high tech investing :-) If you have the capital to play with you can lay down bets like this, and it is exactly like laying down a million bucks on the 'pass' line at the casino. If they get an acquihire you get your money + 100% back, if they manage to keep the shine and traction going maybe you get back 2x or 3x your money, or maybe they fizzle and fade and people move on and you are out a million bucks. I was familiar with a guy who was a 'player' and he mortgaged his house for nearly a million dollars and put it all into a 'winner' startup/concept which, in his case, did not win. It was an "interest only" note with a big payment at the 5 year point, at which time he turned the house over to the bank. Very sad.

I will take exception though to the 'dumb money' comment. It is dumb to gamble, but even smart people do it, it is a risk/reward trade-off. Smart people can look at the fundamentals here and see there is a possible 'flip' opportunity, high risk, high reward, short time to closure. The trick will be to see in 3 years if it hasn't flipped or exited by then. But that only tells you the payoff. I bought a $66M lottery ticket the other day, 'dumb' ? Sure it was $2 put at risk. I chose not to buy a $2 soda. Probably not a smart allocation of capital, but the soda would have been turned into piss in short order, the lottery ticket has potential right up until the drawing :-).

Re: Yo

#69

Post by mathattack »

dustingetz wrote: post #49
jacquesm wrote: post #7

> Without ever having officially launched, co-founder and CEO Or Arbel managed to secure $1.2 million in funding from a list of unnamed investors, except for co-founder, angel, and Mobli CEO Moshe Hogeg, who participated in the round. Stuff like that really gets me. I see tons of start-ups that would have a fighting chance given that sort of investment and then lame stuff like this gets funding. Of course they're ent…

Have you considered that perhaps the investors have more information than you, or the founders have an insight that you don't have, or that this is not their final product?

I suspect it's the last. They have either great insight into virality, or a second step that looks easier to monetize.

Re: Yo

#70

Post by madeofpalk »

jacquesm wrote: post #55
WildUtah wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A technical note: Twitter carries unicode messages; the limit is not 140 octets but 140 code points [0]. This is especially useful when tweeting in Japanese. I believe there are more than 65536 code points assigned so a tweet should be able to carry over 2240 bits of information -- 2240+ Yos. --- Incidentally, in Japanese and BEV (probably adopted from jp), the word "yo" has an entirely different meaning. [0] http://…

A good one, thanks. Yes, that makes good sense. I guess that in some languages twitter really does carry a lot more information than it does in Latin alphabet languages. If your language would only allow for 140 bytes you'd be really out of luck if your language routinely requires multi-byte sequences in UTF-8. Hm. You could do a 'tweet compression' trick where you use a fixed number of bit from a subset of UTF-8 tha…

Already exists! http://pages.physics.cornell.edu/~aalemi/twitter/
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