We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#1

Post by tyohn » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:19 PM UTC

I'm sure you're aware that its been announced that Google and Yahoo will now be indexing Flash content.

Our idea for a startup was to create a search engine for Flash content. For quite some time now we've been crawling and indexing Flash content and we were getting ready to release a beta version of our site. What would you do if you were us?

Here's the URL http://mediawombat.com

Please beware that we weren't planning on releasing it in this state.

This is a very early beta version - before you click on the Image icon or Audio icon please allow the search results page to load completely or use the traditional search link :)

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#2

Post by tyohn » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:22 PM UTC

And we are in process of a re-design. I have to wonder if I should keep working on it...

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#3

Post by agentbleu » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:33 PM UTC

Bugger. I have seen this many a time. But given you have a product launch ready and they are still talking, I would suggest using their might as your opportunity. Right now, I would be scanning the net, anyone posting about Flash I would send them a press release.

Just maybe you can get a mention off the topic as its hot right now.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#4

Post by brk » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:40 PM UTC

I like what you've done so far.

Not sure of your funding/day-job(if exists) situation. My first instinct would be to keep going with it. There may be opportunities to use the code as a competitor to Google (at time people thought they too were stupid for reinventing a wheel), or to create something that could be licensed to people to use on their own site for custom content search.

There are also SEO opportunities, to crawl a flash-heavy site and dynamically create pages with the same keywords/content that is easier for other search engines to find.

You could also expand to other sorts of rich meta-data, like indexing the EXIM data on photos, etc.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#5

Post by brm » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:46 PM UTC

Yes, keep going. Look at it as a sort of market validation for your product. You've done a lot of work, now look for angles to possibly differentiate yourself.

The door has gotten a little harder to get through but it is by no means closed. Who knows, G and Y jumping into the market may make your technology a valuable acquisition for someone else looking to compete in search.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#6

Post by Mistone » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 5:57 PM UTC

wow your market just got validated by the major players - this is no reason to stop, you do however need to push forward on a specific niche - this can be seen a major set back or opportunity - likely there is a lot of buzz on this announcement. maybe you can great some adwords adds against the news story keywords and get folks that are excited about this server to try our your site first.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#7

Post by tectonic » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 6:00 PM UTC

Consider licensing your search tech to companies not blessed by Adobe? (I.e., other than Google / Yahoo!) I know my company would be interested.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#8

Post by tyohn » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 6:18 PM UTC

tectonic wrote: post #7

Consider licensing your search tech to companies not blessed by Adobe? (I.e., other than Google / Yahoo!) I know my company would be interested.

Sure, we'd be very interested.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#9

Post by DenisM » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 6:19 PM UTC

The rest of us should consider wether we're writing a feature for someone else's product, or if what we do can stand by itself.

Re: We've been working really hard on our startup and now this

#10

Post by tstegart » Tue, Jul 01, 2008, 6:21 PM UTC

You've done a lot of work, so don't think its worthless just because someone else jumped in. But you need to strategize and think about all the ways this will affect you. What was your monetization strategy in the first place? You may need to change it to account for the new development. Maybe you'll license your code instead, or come up with something new. But don't just give up without at least thinking long and hard about what your business can do. You should also research what Google, Yahoo and Adobe (hey, where's MSFT?) have ACTUALLY done, not just said they will do. You may have an opportunity there as well.