111–120 of 134 posts
If this is a way to get your name out there and you're looking for Google to acquire you in the future, fine but I guess I don't see the point in this post as it's a waste of time writing about competition instead of building and improving LiveNinja. Sorry to be blunt but all the best with LiveNinja, I do hope it crushes Google's stab at it.
We are a vertical marketplace for connecting you to fitness professionals. We are extremely focused on this segment and our offering in terms of price and trainer quality, etc speaks for itself.
Here are some observations from my point of view.
1. I welcome Google entering this space. I am not nearly as worried as others are. The big challenge that this business really has is that we need to explain to people that you can do somethings over video that you used to do in person. Google has infinitely more marketing dollars than we do. If they can convince folks that this is something easy, we would love to ride their coattails (is that one word?) on that one.
2. For some verticals, Google will do well (my guess, technical help etc). Building a fitness focused marketplace is not the same as building a music learning marketplace. We can make our user experience far more fitness centric than everyone else. Ultimately our users value that. So do users of other vertical marketplaces for online tutoring, etc. When you are meeting a trainer, we can offer health tracking, health data analysis, fitness suggestions based on your prior workouts with us. This is not impossible for Google but they have to boil the ocean first and then make their bets.
3. Working in this space, it has also taught us that while Google will be better at some things (integrating with Hangouts, Android etc), if they are going to move to WebRTC, there are many users who still prefer IE and Safari and are stuck on older versions. If they move to support those browsers, then it is at odds with their WebRTC focus. We can offer an independent solution that uses WebRTC when available and not in other environments to again give a better user experience.
4. Overall, we are cautiously optimistic that this is good for this space. It validates our work for the past year and we are hoping the market is big enough for a lot of niche segments.
Be Wello, Amol
Great attitude. I've known a start-up or two that either pivoted or dropped their project altogether at the news of Google releasing a similar idea. Google is great at engineering, but the new iteration of Google Maps is proof IMO that they're not a great at products. With that said, I'm sure y'all at Live Ninja will throw the knock out punch.
I know it's slightly off topic, but your comment " ... the new iteration of Google Maps is proof IMO that they're not a great at products. " I'm curious as to what you don't like about the new Google Maps? Personally, I think that while it took a little bit to get used to, it's great and works way better than before. I'm just curious to hear your two cents on what you don't like about the new maps. Thanks!
Web Client: First of all, I hate how control are at 4 opposite corners of the screen. On any screen size it now takes longer to go from one control to another. I used to be able to zoom down all the way to street view. Now I have to click on a spot and hope that the street view option comes on. I used to be able to right click and search nearby. Now when I search in an area and want to see a list of results and I can't change the search area without going back and forth. It's one thing to change the aesthetics and move features around. But to completely remove features is really annoying.
Mobile client: My use case is when I'm in motion. I want to see where I'm at currently. It always shows where you last were before it fetches a GPS signal. Sometimes, it even shows me moving in the opposite direction at my old location before it finally updates and animates to my location. This leads to confusion while I'm driving or walking. The animation is really annoying because sometimes I'm super far from my previous location and I have to wait for the app to animate to my position and on top of that zoom down to a default zoom level which should never be assumed because different zoom levels have different contexts and this assumes a default.
When I do searches for anything, it automatically zooms to the top hit. I always have to zoom out or even stop it while it's mid-zoom. They've removed tons of features like layers, seeing things along the way during navigation (useful for gas stations along the way home), etc. For the mobile client, I can really go on forever.
There was nothing wrong w/ the old maps looks wise. Yes, the new maps "looks" nicer but it's actually frustrating to use and I'm sad to see a lot of features go.
>I’m pretty underwhelmed. Why? >This is more like a squeeze bunt back to the pitcher and you’re out at first base. How so? >What I’m seeing when I look at Helpouts is some of the exact same mistakes we made over a year ago, while our company was still in private beta. For example? >...you built Helpouts all wrong. Go on... >Will people buy some of these Helpouts? Yes. No doubt. But it’s not going to scale in the way…
Did he ever lay out concrete examples or reasons as to how Google is doing it wrong? I gave up digging through all the fluff.
I'm not going to lie, I didn't like this post as much as I wanted to. The author says that Google is making the same mistakes that LiveNinja made over a year ago. And that LiveNinja has learned a lot and iterated since then. At this point, I'm ready to believe that LiveNinja is the more mature product. That if I have a need, I should probably go to LiveNinja. I'm ready to be sold... But then the author does nothing.…
The target audience for posts like these is more often than not...(wait for it)...the person who wrote the post. When a big company enters your space and becomes a competitor, the first reaction of many if not most founders is to worry. These types of posts are an effort on the part of founders to convince themselves that the larger competitor has an inferior offering and won't be able to compete effectively. Inciden…
I mean, if he can prove that Google is way behind his work, then he has an advantage that may provide more value to a company that is interested in competing with Google and has the resources to justify competing at a bigger scale.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would have been a great article if they had mentioned 2 or 3 concrete things they have learned. Lets wait for an update...
That article is just a big bitch fest, or maybe it is just his toen I do not like. You could have summed what he says into 2 sentences. As you say, it would have been much more mature to have compared the 2 products, show why their product is better and done away with all the childish ranting.
I found it interesting that the "use cases" in the G. Helpouts video were exactly the same as the ones in the LiveNinja promo video[1] which was posted 1y ago: guitar, yoga, and fashion ~= makeup. I guess there might be some idea-copying going on... [1] http://vimeo.com/37270865
This is a terrific post - If liveninja doesn't work out Will should start an PR agency. Note these points he manages to get across in a subtle way: - We're disappointed that Google with all their resources couldn't make a better product. (Our product is superior) - You made the exact same mistakes we made a year ago (we're a year ahead of you, and you don't know what you're doing) - We're glad Google entered the scen…
Kevin Hale of Wufoo comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBWFfxE2658
This is a terrific post - If liveninja doesn't work out Will should start an PR agency. Note these points he manages to get across in a subtle way: - We're disappointed that Google with all their resources couldn't make a better product. (Our product is superior) - You made the exact same mistakes we made a year ago (we're a year ahead of you, and you don't know what you're doing) - We're glad Google entered the scen…
Agreed. Also, Google's weakness that a startup can exploit is their almost non-existent Customer Service. Google wants to scale massively from day one, so manual, 1-on-1 support can never be part of the plan (unless they go meta and create a Helpouts for Helpouts, probable actually). If Google entered my space, I'd just up the customer hand-holding game and start posting testimonials about it. Kevin Hale of Wufoo com…