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Secret Shuts Down

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Re: Secret Shuts Down

#101

Post by sethbannon »

nostrademons wrote: post #72

This shutdown - and some of the comments here that indicate how nasty Secret had become before it died - is quite interesting in light of the conversation surrounding Google's Real Names Only policy. Secret cofounders David Byttow and Chris Bader-Wechseler were both veterans of Google+. Byttow, in particular, I recall being quite well-respected as someone who got shit done, quietly and efficiently, by the rest of the…

I'm not so sure it's wise to call G+ a "dead" social network. According to recent research by Pew, it's more popular than Twitter and just as popular as LinkedIn.

http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/section-2-social-media-...

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#102

Post by tuna »

I wonder how long it will take to leak their data, spec those associated with facebook logins.Not surprised that they failed, it had plenty negative and offending posts and no cats/burgers/porn.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#103

Post by testguy34 »

maxerickson wrote: post #73
nostrademons wrote: post #72

This shutdown - and some of the comments here that indicate how nasty Secret had become before it died - is quite interesting in light of the conversation surrounding Google's Real Names Only policy. Secret cofounders David Byttow and Chris Bader-Wechseler were both veterans of Google+. Byttow, in particular, I recall being quite well-respected as someone who got shit done, quietly and efficiently, by the rest of the…

4chan isn't a cesspool though, that's just an image they project to push away people who would respond to such pushing (approximately, the olds). (There are certainly parts of it that are risky clicks though)

Moderation on 4chan and /b/ has increased over the last year. Mostly to prevent the posting of peoples personal information. But the posting of shock images has also decreased. I don't know if they are being removed as well.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#104

Post by bau5 »

denzil_correa wrote: post #83
fredfoobar42 wrote: post #71

Good, and good riddance. Anyone who invested in Secret is a fucking moron. You can't monetize anonymous messaging, and no established company would buy technology they could build in an afternoon hackathon for the cost of a couple cases of Red Bull. If you need proof, 4chan's run at a loss for over a decade. Any investor in a VC fund that invested in Secret should sue their fund for mismanagement of money.

> You can't monetize anonymous messaging I have always been curious about this part. What are the reasons you think one can not monetize anonymous messaging?

I'm also curious. Please explain why YikYak will fail. Or does that not really count as anonymous messaging because it gives people better chances to reveal themselves than Secret? If so I think maybe https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#106

Post by frostmatthew »

sethbannon wrote: post #101
nostrademons wrote: post #72

This shutdown - and some of the comments here that indicate how nasty Secret had become before it died - is quite interesting in light of the conversation surrounding Google's Real Names Only policy. Secret cofounders David Byttow and Chris Bader-Wechseler were both veterans of Google+. Byttow, in particular, I recall being quite well-respected as someone who got shit done, quietly and efficiently, by the rest of the…

I'm not so sure it's wise to call G+ a "dead" social network. According to recent research by Pew, it's more popular than Twitter and just as popular as LinkedIn. http://www.journalism.org/2014/10/21/section-2-social-media-...

Depends how they define "use" - as this article[1] points out "Technically, tons of people use Google+, since logging into it gives you access to Gmail, Google Drive, and all of Google's other apps."

If the numbers there are right and only 4-6 million people are using it as a social network it isn't very surprising that Google would be "giving up on pitching Google+ as a social network"

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-to-google-plus-...

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#107

Post by vonklaus »

tdaltonc wrote: post #88
smt88 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that there isn't necessarily anything unethical about this. The investors knew what they were doing. However, founders who would pocket $6M from a not-even-close-to-profitable company are probably not good founders, or they don't believe in the company. Either way, their behavior doesn't inspire confidence.

I think that you are totally wrong about these founders in particular and what taking money off of the table revels about founders generally. Most founders are extremely protective of their startup. It's their baby, and their livelihood. They'll do anything to keep it alive. Most "poor"( When you see a founder take a big chunk of cash from an early round, you shouldn't think, "they don't believe in what they're doing…

Well, maybe getting an early payout caused them to lose the hustle. They turned the engine off, handed the keys back to the investors and walked. It would have been harder to shut down the company if they saw 0 upside, and all their sweat equity evaporated.

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#109

Post by zaidf »

smt88 wrote: post #70
zaidf wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. What do you mean "if they take it..."? It is their money. They gave away personal equity that was at the time worth $6M for the cash. 2. It is ridiculous to assume they pulled any move. Startups are a high risk gamble and the VCs who put money in them know it better than anyone else does. So they didn't pull a move on anyone. 3. Let's say a company raises $1M on a $3M valuation. Then in one year the valuation goes…

I agree that there isn't necessarily anything unethical about this. The investors knew what they were doing. However, founders who would pocket $6M from a not-even-close-to-profitable company are probably not good founders, or they don't believe in the company. Either way, their behavior doesn't inspire confidence.

You realize companies like Secret more than likely had acquisition offers that could have been north of $6M? It is fairly common to turn down a larger acquisition offer for raising a funding round that lets you take some cash off the table. In that case, if anything, the founders may have believed a bit too much in their company(by opting to cash out only partially instead of selling outrightly.)

Re: Secret Shuts Down

#110

Post by nyamhap »

nlh wrote: post #55

This has been a fascinating story to watch unfold (and experience as a user.) When Secret came out, the addiction bug bit me hard too -- it was _extremely_ compelling. I posted. My friends posted. Everyone was checking Secret obsessively. People were "communicating" with their exes (or so they thought), people were guessing who was posting what. It was fun. It was interesting. It pulled some emotional heartstrings (I…

In my area Secret had a similar story - started out being popular with people in their 20+'s, putting out some insightful/funny content (perhaps with some light local context). Content slowly started spiraling downward toward very specific sort of circle-jerked inside jokes (e.g. jokes about some high-schools, fraternities and even specific kids at larger schools).

Anyway it is a shame because there were people out there put out genuinely good content.

The experience is similar with the app 'Fling' (Send snapchat-like picture to 50 random people) 70% of the content is guys lying in bed with 'lol hi any gurls?'.

Perhaps a way to remedy this would be to cluster on 'like-mindedness'. Then have content show more according to whatever cluster you are in. Constant feedback on what you like and what you put out.

Some good ML + NLP based filtering could give the impression at least that many like-minded people are using the app and inspire people to put out content. If you don't allow users to control the content they follow (Facebook / twitter / vine / youtube / snapchat - 'supervised') you have to direct the right kind of content to users in an 'unsupervised' way.

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