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Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

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Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#81

Post by ZachPruckowski »

davidcann wrote: post #69
dstein wrote: post #17

The thing that bothers me about Qwiki is their "technology" is just a smoke and mirrors reproduction of things we see in the movies when a robot or A.I. talks to the characters. It's made to look and sound like A.I. except what they're doing doesn't involve machine learning or anything A.I-related. It's a simple mashup with a well-oiled marketing campaign (Techcrunch) behind them.

I agree to some extent, but wikipedia and similar sites are what A.I. will use to "learn" in the future. If this were 1990 or I didn't know about wikipedia, then I would be very impressed and think this was true artificial intelligence.

If this were 1990 or you didn't know about Google, then a simple web directory connecting you to various sites would be very impressive.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#83

Post by brc »

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.

No, I would say Wikipedia is very research and student friendly.

Most non-tech people I know would have probably looked at Wikipedia once or twice. I would say Wikipedia is barely scratching the surface of delivering knowledge to the general person on the street.

There is definitely scope for delivering wikipedia information in an alternative format. Particularly through mobile devices. It's like when Facebook was still limited to universities and was yet to bust out into general use.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#84

Post by borism »

Evgeny wrote: post #62
borism wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

fail-safe meaning you're ready to lose up to 50% of your investments? cause quite a few things on that list are mutually exclusive...

The author argues that these four types of investments are very unlikely to go down at the same time - if one loses a lot, the other types grow. " It might seem that a Permanent Portfolio containing these four contradictory investments would be neutralized: As one element rose, another would fall and nothing would be gained. On a day-to-day basis, that can be true. But over broad periods of time, the winning investme…

70-02 period is pretty irrelevant in today's world though. how did such portfolio perform during Great Depression, which is more like what we face today?

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#86

Post by DanI-S »

borism wrote: post #84
Evgeny wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author argues that these four types of investments are very unlikely to go down at the same time - if one loses a lot, the other types grow. " It might seem that a Permanent Portfolio containing these four contradictory investments would be neutralized: As one element rose, another would fall and nothing would be gained. On a day-to-day basis, that can be true. But over broad periods of time, the winning investme…

70-02 period is pretty irrelevant in today's world though. how did such portfolio perform during Great Depression, which is more like what we face today?

Would it have been possible to raise $8m in VC funding for a glorified slideshow during the Great Depression?

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#87

Post by gfodor »

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…

Some constructive critism: you make some good points, but it's hard to digest them in such a long format. I'd suggest you try editing your thoughts down more aggressively so that readers can digest them quickly. If you find yourself having to write a conclusion paragraph to a comment, odds are you're not editing your key points down enough to get them across.

This isn't meant to be offensive, it's just one of those things that until someone tells you about it you'll continue to go on unknowingly making the same mistake. I had someone do this with me recently in regards to my presentation 'skills', or lack thereof, and it was very helpful.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#88

Post by bermanoid »

plusbryan wrote: post #40

Does anyone know the story behind the two "Co-Founder Emeritus" titles on their team page? http://www.qwiki.com/team

Gregory Smith is not involved in the day-to-day of Qwiki because he's actually a television actor, and I assume he's too busy to be there all the time - he was the lead role on the WB series Everwood, Doug (Qwiki's CEO) knows him from when he worked at the WB. IIRC Gregory played a big part in coming up with the idea for Qwiki, and provided a lot (maybe all?) of the initial funding.

Jay Oh was the tech lead at Doug's previous startup, The U (http://www.theu.com), which shot and sold video tours of colleges (Gregory Smith and several other actors from the WB appeared in and helped promote many of these videos, so it's all very connected); I'm pretty sure they achieved a very nice exit from that when they sold and started to work on Qwiki. I don't know why Jay left Qwiki, specifically, but he's now one of the leads at http://howmutch.com/.

FWIW, I'm not part of Qwiki, but I was good friends with Doug when we were younger - on that note, just based on what I know about Doug, if I had to bet, I'd say that Qwiki has a very good shot here, regardless of what it looks like now. He has an impeccable business sense and will pivot without hesitation if it looks like he needs to, not to mention that he's one of the most driven people I've ever met in my life.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#89

Post by Evgeny »

borism wrote: post #84
Evgeny wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author argues that these four types of investments are very unlikely to go down at the same time - if one loses a lot, the other types grow. " It might seem that a Permanent Portfolio containing these four contradictory investments would be neutralized: As one element rose, another would fall and nothing would be gained. On a day-to-day basis, that can be true. But over broad periods of time, the winning investme…

70-02 period is pretty irrelevant in today's world though. how did such portfolio perform during Great Depression, which is more like what we face today?

I think the author wrote from personal experience, so he could be either too young or not even born yet during Greate Depression.

Re: Qwiki Epitomizes the Current Startup Bubble

#90

Post by Semiapies »

crasshopper wrote: post #74
borism wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you should learn to take criticism then.

Why, because trying to do anything gives everybody else the right to criticize you? He's got a point. Taunts cost little and yield nothing.

Yes, trying to do anything does give people that right, just as it gives them the right to applaud you, too.
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