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Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

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Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#31

Post by arnorhs »

slantyyz wrote: post #28
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.

I'm not saying this will replace Wikipedia and I'm not saying there's a problem with Wikipedia as it is - I'm just saying that there are use cases where everything is not a nail.

I'll bet you that 90% of the time you hit up Wikipedia you'll only read the top paragraph. At least that's what I do and I've seen more people use Wikipedia like that.

In fact, I love duckduckgo's 0-click result because of exactly that.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#33

Post by ejwcom »

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…

These are some use cases that I do not deeply consider, actually. They might change the context a bit.

I still don't see it as anything more than a toy, even in these cases, and how the valuation could be at all justified, especially given their usage trend while in the alpha, even with all the TC hype.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#34

Post by ry0ohki »

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…

Your post, while insightful, doesn't really provide much reason as to why there seems to be a huge influx currently of high funding rounds for seemingly basic or non-profitible companies, the likes that I have not seen since the 90s. The companies you mentioned, Pandora, Dropbox, and Facebook are probably the exceptions, and don't release financials to my knowledge. It will be interesting to see what Facebook actually makes when they publish numbers next year. Last I heard Groupon started with huge profitability and now is burning way more money then it makes (I also doubt it to be a sustainable biz model).

There is definitely a bubble right now, I've seen average 8-15mil rounds for companies that offer something tangental to a popular service (it's LIKE FourSquare, or it's LIKE Pandora) despite the fact that original services themselves are not necessarily making huge exits. Perhaps it's just that the horizons on the dotcom VC funds are expiring and there are lots of new funds?

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#35

Post by arnorhs »

ejwcom wrote: post #33
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…

These are some use cases that I do not deeply consider, actually. They might change the context a bit. I still don't see it as anything more than a toy, even in these cases, and how the valuation could be at all justified, especially given their usage trend while in the alpha, even with all the TC hype.

That might be right.

It is both a blessing and a curse to judge these things based on your own opinions and maybe that's what I'm doing right now.

Because I actually want to use this. Not for everything, but I for many things I can imagine myself using this. At least I've put it in chrome's search bar under the keyword qwiki, let's see if it sticks :)

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#37

Post by slantyyz »

arnorhs wrote: post #31
slantyyz wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm not saying this will replace Wikipedia and I'm not saying there's a problem with Wikipedia as it is - I'm just saying that there are use cases where everything is not a nail. I'll bet you that 90% of the time you hit up Wikipedia you'll only read the top paragraph. At least that's what I do and I've seen more people use Wikipedia like that. In fact, I love duckduckgo's 0-click result because of exactly that.

I wasn't suggesting you were saying that, I was only making a point related to your two criticisms:

Wikipedia is not very consumer friendly. It's dull looking and the entries are usually filled with a lot of text.

That you read the abstract at the top of the article suggests to me that the article structure is very efficient (and arguably consumer friendly) in that they provide the TLDR summary above the fold, which nullifies the problem that the full article may have too much text.

By the way, my use case for Wikipedia tends to have me reading the complete article more than just the abstract, because I'm usually in research mode when I use Wikipedia. Of course, everyone has a different use case, and I suspect your use case is more common than mine.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#38

Post by PaulHoule »

If you asked me, "Why is Wikipedia Better than the Encyclopedia Brittanica?" my answer would be, "Because it lets people make things like Qwiki."

No, Qwiki isn't the be-all and end-all in this space, but it's an example of the kind of thing that's possible when people re-mix wikipedia content and respin it for different purposes and audiences.

That said, $7M gives them a lot of rope to hang themselves, in particular, a lot of time to hire people and make commitments without the need to focus on something that's profitable.

My guess is that there are quite a few people working on things in their garages without an early round of funding who are going to produce things that are more interesting and make more money in the end.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#39

Post by oxtopus »

In Qwiki's defense, perhaps what they have been demonstrating is only one manifestation of the technology behind the scenes. The stated mission is to improve the way people experience information, with an emphasis on valuable information -- that is, information that, when consumed, could result in a transaction like "planning a vacation on the web" and "evaluating restaurants on your phone".

Currently they are mining wikipedia because (I'm guessing) it's a convenient source for a massive amount of data to feed into an automated system. No one really cares about turning wikipedia entries into slideshows, but I know from experience that car dealers and real estate agents pay real money to have their pictures and data converted into videos.

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