Xobni - a waste of money • Hacker News Board

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#21

Post by zkinion » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 8:52 PM UTC

I can just feel the angst and envy in this thread. Despite being a silly product, they still worked very hard on it and built up enough spin and hype to get it to that point. It brings up the argument that a startup can do any kind of shenanigans as their business, but with hard work, resourcefulness, determination, and perseverance, they can still be successful. Go read their blog from years ago when it was just a couple of guys driving out to the valley, all the way up till now with seven digit offers coming in.

Xobni will make off like bandits despite how "worthless" the product is. The next offer will be for way more than the original $20 million. I wish them the best of luck.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#22

Post by edw519 » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:13 PM UTC

henning wrote: post #17

jamess wrote: post #9

I tend to agree. It was worth having a go at buying the company, but now they've been rebuffed their next best option is simply to clone the interesting bits in house. It'll take them six months to produce a reasonable facsimile , but then they probably don't have another feature release planned for that amount of time anyway. Personally, I think the Xobni guys are fools for refusing the offer. If Microsoft are inter…

Yes they were foolish to turn down the offer, but competing against a culture as meeting-centric and slow as Microsoft's is less challenging than you might think, IMO. (I can't believe they turned down the offer!)

"but competing against a culture as meeting-centric and slow as Microsoft's is less challenging than you might think"

I think I'll get another opinion about that from someone at Netscape, Lotus, or Corel.

Oh, never mind.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#23

Post by edw519 » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:17 PM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #8

gruseom wrote: post #2

Here's an example of how the context-freeness of the web can work against you. I've never seen this guy's blog before. The headline was just interesting enough to get above my click threshold. But when I got to the post, all I noticed was how badly written it is: perhaps it was quickly than trying to replicate some Microsoft underlying thinks that they will make the old boss happy If I knew the writer to be a frequen…

Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I proba…

"Dismissing comments because of spelling errors?"

On a post to a forum like this, of course not.

But not even running your own blog post through a spell or grammar checker?

Unakseptibal!

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#24

Post by Tichy » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:25 PM UTC

dunn wrote: post #10

Tichy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I proba…

>> How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? You said it. Doing so is grounds for ruthless downmodding on here. PG said there are 30 editors now. People are getting accounts marked dead at the drop of a hat, if they don't drink the kool-aid.

I voted you up, because I am sure you were joking. Half-joking, anyway - the downmodding part is probably true, but the editors kicking you is not.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#25

Post by edw519 » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:26 PM UTC

mrtron wrote: post #16

dunn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? You said it. Doing so is grounds for ruthless downmodding on here. PG said there are 30 editors now. People are getting accounts marked dead at the drop of a hat, if they don't drink the kool-aid.

I would dare criticize YC startups (but not this one since I know absolutely nothing about it). If I got banned from here for doing so I would start a competitive site out of revenge...because that would be ridiculous. Or have a lightsaber dual with pg, I would leave the choice to him. I warn you I would be wearing spandex during the latter though.

I dare not criticize you in spandex (because I know absolutely nothing about you), but still, I vote for Option a.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#26

Post by Tichy » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:31 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #18

Tichy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I proba…

I think you may have misunderstood my emphasis (my fault). I'm not interested in the grammatical mistakes as such; I'm interested in what happens when I go to read a web page from a source I'm unfamiliar with. Because URLs are pointers, I jump directly to content in medias res with very little context. In the absence of context, other indicators fill the vacuum. In this case, the sloppiness of the writing affected my…

Sorry if my reply came across a bit rough. Naturally, not being a native speaker, I felt a bit irked by it, because I would tend to fall victim to the "spelling mistakes filter" myself.

Of course judging by the presentation in general is perfectly valid and natural. Otherwise there would be no web design.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#27

Post by thaumaturgy » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:32 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #18

Tichy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I proba…

I think you may have misunderstood my emphasis (my fault). I'm not interested in the grammatical mistakes as such; I'm interested in what happens when I go to read a web page from a source I'm unfamiliar with. Because URLs are pointers, I jump directly to content in medias res with very little context. In the absence of context, other indicators fill the vacuum. In this case, the sloppiness of the writing affected my…

I had the same reaction to his picture too, FWIW. I figure the guy's got more than one picture he can use to represent him, and presumably he picked the one that he thought represented him the best ...

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#28

Post by Tichy » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:33 PM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #23

Tichy wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dismissing comments because of spelling errors? Not sure where it would lie in PG's categories (ad hominen?), but anyway. I remember the other saying, that sometimes you can learn more from your enemies than from your friends, because they are more likely to tell you the truth. How many people here on HN will dare to criticize a YC startup? Personally I don't need or use Xobni, so I can't comment. And anyway, I proba…

"Dismissing comments because of spelling errors?" On a post to a forum like this, of course not. But not even running your own blog post through a spell or grammar checker? Unakseptibal!

The mistakes he made would not be caught by spell checkers, I think. What good grammar checkers are there? It seems Firefox comes with some spell checking functionality (at least it corrects me when posting on the net), but I have no idea how good it is. I think not that good...

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#29

Post by jamiequint » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:35 PM UTC

fleaflicker wrote: post #19

henning wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes they were foolish to turn down the offer, but competing against a culture as meeting-centric and slow as Microsoft's is less challenging than you might think, IMO. (I can't believe they turned down the offer!)

There are a lot of factors to weight when considering a sale. It's not as simple as weighing the (rumored and potentially inaccurate) purchase price. You can't say it was foolish unless you know everything--payment schedule (cash/stock/milestones), ambition of founders, post-acquisition employment requirements, future direction of the product.

not to mention that a sub $20M sale on $4.2M investment would not be seen favorably at all by the investors sitting on the board.

Re: Xobni - a waste of money

#30

Post by mynameishere » Mon, Apr 21, 2008, 9:35 PM UTC

zkinion wrote: post #21

I can just feel the angst and envy in this thread. Despite being a silly product, they still worked very hard on it and built up enough spin and hype to get it to that point. It brings up the argument that a startup can do any kind of shenanigans as their business, but with hard work, resourcefulness, determination, and perseverance, they can still be successful. Go read their blog from years ago when it was just a c…

The next offer will be for way more than the original $20 million.

You could be right. But when I saw that "20 million" I could hardly believe it. If I was a MSFT exec, I'd simply say, "we'll give you 1.5 million (or whatever), take it or leave it." If they left it, I'd have a couple interns replicate the thing.