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Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

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Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#21

Post by MichaelGG »

spidaman wrote: post #15

The author needs to get a grip, a lot of technology bootstraps on top wikipedia with a capacity to scale from there. Powerset unveiled their natural language search on the wikipedia corpus and were acquired by Microsoft for $100M a few months later. I'm sure MS wasn't just acquiring an index of wikipedia.

So, what's Qwiki's technology that's so powerful here then? I think the sentiment is that their technology isn't anything special, and they don't have any other particularly distinguishing feature, so why such investment?

With Powerset, the value was supposed to be in the technology, even if the demo was on Wikipedia. With other companies, say, Twitter, the power is in the size of their network and potential for something, even if the technology isn't groundbreaking.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#22

Post by c2 »

I don't understand the need for bench entrepreneurs to ridicule start ups from the side lines. All this effort to point fingers and make fun of start ups which are actually trying to build businesses might be better spent actually trying to build your own business.

All the posts about Qwiki and others recently (Facebook, Zynga, Groupon) all calling for the downfall of all these start ups really make me question the value of this community at times - and it's not like these posts have 10-12 points either, they have some of the highest point totals of any articles on HN.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#23

Post by danilocampos »

mjfern wrote: post #19

There has been increasing commentary lately about a "current startup bubble." Aside from Qwiki, people have pointed to the valuation of Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, and others. An important question is, do recent valuations indicate a second industry-wide Internet bubble, much like the bubble and subsequent crash in 2000? Or is something else more fundamental going on? A look at the progression of other infrastructural…

As always, incredibly insightful remarks. The bit about developing core infrastructure rings especially true. The emergence and success of these web businesses has a lot to do with the absurdly low barriers to entry for creating software for the web. This is largely thanks to the development and proliferation of open source tools.

It's not surprising that so many successes should shake out the other end of the sieve when it's so easy for someone to launch a successful site from their bedroom or dorm.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#24

Post by microtonal »

spidaman wrote: post #15

The author needs to get a grip, a lot of technology bootstraps on top wikipedia with a capacity to scale from there. Powerset unveiled their natural language search on the wikipedia corpus and were acquired by Microsoft for $100M a few months later. I'm sure MS wasn't just acquiring an index of wikipedia.

PowerSet had many key NLP people and a LFG grammar/parser.

Can you elaborate what QWiki has to offer, except a nicer user interface for Wikipedia?

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#25

Post by techiferous »

Qwiki seems like something that's easy to prototype but hard to do well. And it seems like a product that you have to do well to monetize.

Take the Qwiki entry on polyamory, for example: http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Polyamory

Qwiki pronounces it wrong, which means it actually decreases the value of the information it is regurgitating from Wikipedia.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#26

Post by arnorhs »

I simply don't agree with Eric on this one. His main argument seems to be that this startup isn't adding anything of any value to the space.

The way I see it is this: Wikipedia is not very consumer friendly. It's dull looking and the entries are usually filled with a lot of text. The modern internet consumer is constantly facing more and more attention disorders and a lot of people don't simply like to read.

The search result in qwiki is auditory and visual and you can consume it completely without reading anything. I looked up a few countries I want to visit, a few programming languages and everything worked incredibly well.

One of his arguments is that the technology is something that could easily be duplicated. I think it's true up to a point, but honestly, what hacker couldn't duplicate the base functionality of a twitter of 4sq in an afternoon? I think the inherent value isn't actually with the technology itself but with the implementation, the data, the UI and, ultimately (so it seems), the company's dedication to packaging information in a more-easy-to-consume fashion.

This will work incredibly well on a internet connected TV screen. Who can picture themselves reading wikipedia articles with their spouse in the living room off the TV? Not me. But if I'm going to, say.. Oslo http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Oslo I could picture myself looking that up and listening/watching with my SO. Even if only to get the basic info.

Another usecase is with mobile operation. Since I got my HTC desire I constantly google stuff by doing a voice search. I have to use my best american accent, but none the less it's very useful. If my search result could be a visual/auditory search result like that, it would suite some cases much better.

I think this might actually mark a new era in the startup space. I'm coining the term:

  Content 2.0
Somebody grab that domain name if it's not already taken?

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#27

Post by SoftwareMaven »

cwb71 wrote: post #16

I wonder about the timing of this backlash. Where was the outrage when Qwiki won TC Disrupt back in September? Is it just because $8m > $50k, or has something changed in the last four months?

I think the complaint is that nothing (visible) has changed. Based on what I've seen, I really doubt the value of this company has anything to do with reading Wikipedia, but rather in making vast amounts of content and relationships between content more accessible.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#28

Post by slantyyz »

arnorhs wrote: post #26

I simply don't agree with Eric on this one. His main argument seems to be that this startup isn't adding anything of any value to the space. The way I see it is this: Wikipedia is not very consumer friendly. It's dull looking and the entries are usually filled with a lot of text. The modern internet consumer is constantly facing more and more attention disorders and a lot of people don't simply like to read. The sear…

Isn't the whole point of an encyclopedia to be text laden?

That Wikipedia is already so successful seems to suggest to me that it is very consumer friendly.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#29

Post by spidaman »

MichaelGG wrote: post #21
spidaman wrote: post #15

The author needs to get a grip, a lot of technology bootstraps on top wikipedia with a capacity to scale from there. Powerset unveiled their natural language search on the wikipedia corpus and were acquired by Microsoft for $100M a few months later. I'm sure MS wasn't just acquiring an index of wikipedia.

So, what's Qwiki's technology that's so powerful here then? I think the sentiment is that their technology isn't anything special, and they don't have any other particularly distinguishing feature, so why such investment? With Powerset, the value was supposed to be in the technology, even if the demo was on Wikipedia. With other companies, say, Twitter, the power is in the size of their network and potential for some…

Sure, just don't judge a book by it's...

I don't know what, if any, magic Qwiki has cooking but I think the OP is excessively harsh. My point was that a lot of startups have needed a big round to go to the next level from a limited proof of concept where there's nothing special on their public facing service. So what? Hopefully the vision and potential is evident under the hood and that's what the investment was predicated on.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#30

Post by sdizdar »

I think Qwiki raised $8 million becasue they have excellent team (Louis Monier, Christian Le Cocq, etc.). However, I'm bothered with the fact that such a excellent team is working on something which is not really groundbreaking nor disruptive. Not something it will change the world (as search engine changed it).

However, it could be also that they have vision of the world which is hard for me to comprehend or imagine. The question is: what is their vision?

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