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Imzy is shutting down

imzy.com

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Re: Imzy is shutting down

#171

Post by orionblastar »

I like Imzy and am sad they are shutting down.

Reddit needs alternatives to it that works better.

I am working with someone to open source their Kr5ddit code on Github by rewriting it. Look at http://k666.kr5ddit.com which is a start with no money invested yet. Look at http://kr5ddit.com to see how it uses bitcoins to buy Kr5ddits used to moderate stories and comments. It is not complete yet, but it is a good idea and allows anonymous posts without an account, but you can't earn kr5ddits without an account. Imzy tequired invites to get an account.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#172

Post by imchillyb »

kickme444 wrote: post #132
stupidhn wrote: post #102

I'm on HackerNews multiple times every day. Imzy is a company that came, raised over $10MM in funding, and went out of business in 7 months. This is the first I've heard of them. How on earth does that happen? It's inexplicable.

We were actually a company just shy of 2 years.

You were a /usable platform/ for just shy of 7 months.

Being a company and having a usable product are not similar things.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#173

Post by m3rc »

santoshalper wrote: post #168
austenallred wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. It's really difficult to offer perspective like that on something you don't really understand and haven't seen from the inside. It's pretty clear if you don't have product-market fit as a founder. And if you don't have a really good idea of what you could do to get to product-market fit, it's entirely possible it's wise of the founders to…

A community isn't a product. It is not at all clear from the inside or the outside whether a community is going to gel and take off within a year. Communities =/= products. An entirely different kind of thinking and patience is required to grow a community as opposed to build a product.

What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#174

Post by sanswork »

jimmyk wrote: post #160
erikpukinskis wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will probably have a hard time raising from institutional investors, but my guess is their userbase is primarily single men who spend large amounts of time on the computer, a decent subset of whom have spending cash. The "goats" are also people who feel like they've been politically badgered into a corner, so I suspect they will spend to maintain their last refuge. Your will to fight goes up as the space you are…

Which... I think is a great thing. You think it's a great thing that there is less dialogue between people with differing opinions and more places that function as echo-chambers?

Yes I think it is a good think there is less dialogue between hate groups. I want them to all feel they are the only ones in the world with those beliefs so they died off with them.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#175

Post by sanswork »

DanBC wrote: post #38

Imzy was a nice place to be. Some of the problems I had: 1) The interface was confusing. Making posts was confusing. 2) Users were allowed to create communities, and they did. There were a gajillion of very tiny communities. This fragments the userbase and makes each tiny community seem dead. 3) Not enough users. Seriously, seeding the community with posts is a good thing. It sets tone and gives people something to i…

I tried switching to them a few months back as I was tired of the negative stuff on reddit so reddit but nice was awesome sounding. After a day someone posted a bunch of spam posts in one of the communities in the form of "hey I came across this blog suggesting this what do you think" same user multiple links to the same blog with each article trying to sell the same supplement affiliate offer. I reported it as spam and was told that they'd just hired a spam expert who determined it wasn't spam. I decided that if their spam matster couldn't recognise affiliate offer spam the place would be 90% affiliate offers soon enough as the affiliate forums heard about it so I stopped visiting that very day.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#176

Post by kristianc »

LordKano wrote: post #154
kristianc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you join a Subreddit which reinforces these political beliefs and is that not a safe space in itself? It seems to me that everywhere on the internet that you might class as a 'haven of free speech' (whether it's 4chan, Twitter, Mumsnet or Atheists Rationalist Skeptics Anonymous) comes with an underlying set of social norms which to some extent preconfigure the kind of debate that will happen there. Imzy is just…

Would you join a Subreddit which reinforces these political beliefs and is that not a safe space in itself? If I understand your question, yes. I would join such a Subreddit because an echo-chamber isn't what I seek. I completely agree with forbidding things like doxing or making threats of violence but I'm concerned that "Safe spaces" only encourage intolerance towards other points of view. Disagreement is good. May…

> If I understand your question, yes. I would join such a Subreddit because an echo-chamber isn't what I seek.

Good.

> I completely agree with forbidding things like doxing or making threats of violence but I'm concerned that "Safe spaces" only encourage intolerance towards other points of view.

Now now. If I went on /r/the_donald and started leaving comments about Gun Control, Trans Rights and Abortion, you and I both have a fairly good idea what would happen.

How do I know that? Well, a giant Pepe the fucking Frog fills half the screen when I even load the page, for a start, and I literally cannot upvote in /r/the_donald until I click the frog and subscribe. It's the online equivalent of a pub hanging a sign on the door saying who it welcomes in. Sure, you can ignore it, but are you really going to?

It's a de facto safe space. In fact, it's not even really a de-facto safe space, given Rule VI of The Donald is "This forum is for Trump supporters only." and if rule VII - "No linking to other sub-reddits" doesn't make it an echo chamber, I don't know what does.

Likewise, If I went on a Democrats subreddit and started raising Republican talking points, I'd be shown the door pretty quickly.

The issue isn't "pro" or "anti" safe-spaces, because everywhere is a safe space to someone. It's when people start to get selective about which safe spaces they're going to allow that gets to people.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#177

Post by nilved »

m3rc wrote: post #173
santoshalper wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A community isn't a product. It is not at all clear from the inside or the outside whether a community is going to gel and take off within a year. Communities =/= products. An entirely different kind of thinking and patience is required to grow a community as opposed to build a product.

What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...

Actually it is the platform.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#178

Post by m3rc »

nilved wrote: post #177
m3rc wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...

Actually it is the platform.

Reddit investors and advertisers are not spending money on Reddit because of its platform.

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#179

Post by rhizome »

austenallred wrote: post #133
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #66

I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. And this is one of the most extreme examples of that. Most community sites take a while to grow and you really never know what will happen. Even Reddit was sort of a failure vs. Digg and they sold it off to conde nast. It was only later AFTER the sale when Digg messed up on their own and Reddit enjoyed success as a side effect. You really sh…

> I wish the founders well, but I feel like people nowadays give up too early. It's really difficult to offer perspective like that on something you don't really understand and haven't seen from the inside. It's pretty clear if you don't have product-market fit as a founder. And if you don't have a really good idea of what you could do to get to product-market fit, it's entirely possible it's wise of the founders to…

Sometimes product fit takes longer than $VC_ATTENTION_SPAN

Re: Imzy is shutting down

#180

Post by betenoire »

m3rc wrote: post #173
santoshalper wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A community isn't a product. It is not at all clear from the inside or the outside whether a community is going to gel and take off within a year. Communities =/= products. An entirely different kind of thinking and patience is required to grow a community as opposed to build a product.

What would you say Reddit's product is then? It certainly isn't content or the platform...

I'd say their community is their primary _asset_. All products are (ought to be?) built around an advantageous asset, whether it is exclusive data or a novel workflow or special insight.

But you design, engineer, build, and test a product, not a community. Though we do try.

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