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Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

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Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#21

Post by minimaxir »

guelo wrote: post #7

Startups that are based on user-contributed content are based on fraud in the sense that they imply to their users that the contributed data will always be available. But it's a lie, the user's data is only being used to explore a potential market. If the market idea proves successful the company will be sold and shutdown. If the idea is unsuccessful it will also be shutdown. Startups should be required to tell users…

Also, a startup may gate or otherwise limit user-contributed content (i.e. Quora). That has similar consequences.

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#22

Post by jonathanjaeger »

guelo wrote: post #7

Startups that are based on user-contributed content are based on fraud in the sense that they imply to their users that the contributed data will always be available. But it's a lie, the user's data is only being used to explore a potential market. If the market idea proves successful the company will be sold and shutdown. If the idea is unsuccessful it will also be shutdown. Startups should be required to tell users…

No. Private companies should not have to disclose their runway or profitability as this gives competitors insight into the market. Imagine if Pandora plastered a big notice on their signup that says they're not profitable so beware of creating new channels because who knows what will happen. Same is true for Facebook in the early days. It's just unnecessary and business should not be conducted by trying to optimize users away from your product. Of course, I like when companies are fair about how they go about their shut down (e.g. Posterous with ample time to backup your content and go elsewhere).

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#24

Post by jedschmidt »

As a fairly regular user of Punchfork, I definitely wish it were still around, but this feels self-entitled.

Let's not forget that the data Punchfork is letting users take out is the exact information they put in: a list of liked recipes. The original recipe data is just one click away.

I'm not sure how this is any different than a personal Twitter archive; it contains only your tweets, not those of the folks you interacted with.

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#25

Post by ersii »

phereford wrote: post #11
anonfunction wrote: post #10

I hear a lot of grief about companies shutting down. And I get it, if I spent a lot of time on Punchfork or Google Reader I would be bummed out. However I can still see the good that will come, yummly already jumped at creating an API replacement much like feedly promises to be an alternative for google reader. By the way, is ending your startup in "ly" the new fad in the technosphere?

Ending in .ly was really popular 2 years back (bit.ly, embed.ly, etc etc). It's still popular, but it has waned since .ly was publicly available. I think the fad has since passed and a lot of people have been jumping on the .io bandwagon recently.

Don't forget the "try to use the TLD bit to make the end of your word"-fad :-) Like doing "hackerne.ws" - not exactly new, but a rising star fad.

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#26

Post by davidradcliffe »

mikeflynn wrote: post #15
ChuckMcM wrote: post #12

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong but Punchfork scraped their recipe content from other sites? Is it possible there is a data tainting issue here? Hard to reconcile Jeff's comments about user archive and the stuff on the web site, but that said I wasn't a user so I don't know if they sent an email with a download link or something.

I'm a registered user and they did not do any notification. I didn't even know it was shut down until seeing this link.

I'm also a registered user and didn't get the notification.

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#27

Post by at-fates-hands »

IheartApplesDix wrote: post #4

What exactly is the motivating factor for an acquired website (especially one acquired by a large successful media company) to care about how you feel with their service? >large amount of work into scraping those sites I think this states clearly the founders attitude about data rights. It's the Wild West out there still.

>>>>> large amount of work into scraping those sites.

C'mon man! It's 2103. Not only are scrappers ridiculously easy to build, it doesn't take a ton of work to build a bot in Perl and have it scan the internet for recipe's.

This guy is a total d-bag. Not sure what his deal is, or was, but everything I've read makes me not like him at all. Did he get screwed out of a ton of cash with the acquisition or what?

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#29

Post by oalders »

hafabnew wrote: post #13

Lovely subtext in the last section. Good on you guys for not rising to Jeff's stubborn/dismissive attitude.

> “If you think it is easy to build, feel free to replicate it yourself.”

>We were super inspired by Jeff’s “teach a man to fish” attitude...

This left me with tears in my eyes. :)

Re: Punchfork shutdown inspires Open Recipes

#30

Post by tlrobinson »

eah13 wrote: post #3

I could see posthaven turning into an API that any site could integrate with so that users knew their data was safe. Depending on the site and type of user data, this type of exportability/backupability could be a real differentiating feature.

Idea: a browser extension that automatically scrapes and archives your data as you browse a site. Power-users can submit scrapers for new/modified sites.

Normally scrapers can be detected and blocked, but if it's passively running in the background on a user's machine, opportunistically grabbing data the user is already viewing, it should be impossible to detect.

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