Are you chasing a fad or a market?
gabrielweinberg.com
Are you chasing a fad or a market?
1–10 of 15 posts
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#2I love the point he made about search engine results not making too much inherent sense. It took a little bit of work, but I really tried to imagine what I'd like from a search engine, and it wasn't a list of textual links.
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#3DuckDuckGo is indeed useful. I just spent a while looking around the site and the only obvious monetization was selling logo clothing and a water bottle. Just curious: what is their plan for making money?
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#4This also has the flavor of Warren Buffet's investing in 'boring businesses'. I think it is better to make something low-profile with higher likelihood of success. Bingo card creator is a good example. It takes out a lot of variables such as luck, connections, and timing.
There are plenty of places that you can choose your competition wisely. I would rather compete against a ma-and-pa than a fleet of the brightest engineers battling for space in the new fad market.
I guess it depends somewhat on if you are looking for f-you type money or something else. If I were to compete in a hard market, I would definitely go with the let the market move to me approach.
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#5DuckDuckGo is indeed useful. I just spent a while looking around the site and the only obvious monetization was selling logo clothing and a water bottle. Just curious: what is their plan for making money?
I know of affiliate links but there may be others, as well.
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#6DuckDuckGo is indeed useful. I just spent a while looking around the site and the only obvious monetization was selling logo clothing and a water bottle. Just curious: what is their plan for making money?
This is an interesting comment because it may determine if DuckDuckGo (DDG) can remain true to its privacy goals given that the privacy feature was not part of its goal initially compared to say 'offering structured content'.
E.g., if privacy-conscious users started using DDG thus enabling DDG to reach critical mass attracting buyouts, huge advertising dollars for it's structured content, will DDG cave-in and ditch privacy?
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#7I love the point he made about search engine results not making too much inherent sense. It took a little bit of work, but I really tried to imagine what I'd like from a search engine, and it wasn't a list of textual links.
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Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#8DuckDuckGo is indeed useful. I just spent a while looking around the site and the only obvious monetization was selling logo clothing and a water bottle. Just curious: what is their plan for making money?
This is an interesting comment because it may determine if DuckDuckGo (DDG) can remain true to its privacy goals given that the privacy feature was not part of its goal initially compared to say 'offering structured content'. E.g., if privacy-conscious users started using DDG thus enabling DDG to reach critical mass attracting buyouts, huge advertising dollars for it's structured content, will DDG cave-in and ditch p…
Why couldnt you have highly targeted based advertising against the search terms and not the user?
I can see why it wouldn't be as attractive as knowing everything about the user and marketing towards them but I don't see why it couldn't work, and it isn't betraying the users trust so long as the data isn't matched to any IP or pattern.
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#9[deleted]
Re: Are you chasing a fad or a market?
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is an interesting comment because it may determine if DuckDuckGo (DDG) can remain true to its privacy goals given that the privacy feature was not part of its goal initially compared to say 'offering structured content'. E.g., if privacy-conscious users started using DDG thus enabling DDG to reach critical mass attracting buyouts, huge advertising dollars for it's structured content, will DDG cave-in and ditch p…
Why couldnt you have highly targeted based advertising against the search terms and not the user? I can see why it wouldn't be as attractive as knowing everything about the user and marketing towards them but I don't see why it couldn't work, and it isn't betraying the users trust so long as the data isn't matched to any IP or pattern.
You could! It could help DDG make lots of money.
However, my thought was if that (privacy) was not the main goal and something comes along, e.g., $$$$/partners, that could catapult you to become a market leader/giant in your core goal area then given the principle of most startups to focus on a core competency and to do it really well, the secondary goal (privacy) could be compromised.
EDIT: I don't have a list but I'm sure there have been cases where companies tweak their policies once they gain traction.