Big mystery holding back practical superconductors may have been solved. - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/5588366/big-mystery-holding-back-practical-superconductors-may-have-been-solved

<comment><USER2> Brookhaven press release: <http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=1155>

_Nature_ article: [http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7304/full/nature0...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7304/full/nature09169.html)

PDF of article: [http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~jcdavis/publicationPDF/Natur...](http://people.ccmr.cornell.edu/~jcdavis/publicationPDF/Nature_466_347.pdf)

So, if I'm understanding right, here's what's going on. They're working with a Bi-Sr-Ca-Cu-O superconductor. The structure of this has planes that basically consist of layers of copper oxide, arranged in a square lattice. The CuO2 units are symmetrical: there's no obvious difference between the two oxygen atoms. In the superconducting phase (at low temperatures) the distribution of electrons (er, strictly, something to do with the electron wavefunction -- all sorts of weird collective quantum effects happen in superconductors) is likewise symmetrical; likewise at high temperatures where of course there's no superconductivity because thermal motion breaks up all the coherent things that need to happen for superconductivity.

When the temperature is a bit too high for superconductivity, the mechanism by which superconductivity fails seems to be this: the electrons have enough energy to get into a state called the "pseudogap state", which interferes in some manner -- which I don't understand -- with superconductivity. The pseudogap state is not well understood.

These people have found out something interesting about what happens to electrons in these pseudogap states: that symmetry is broken. For each copper atom, the electron density is much greater near one of the associated oxygen atoms than near the other. (They measure this with a scanning tunnelling electron microscope.) _Which_ oxygen atom wins may be different for different copper atoms, but it appears that as the energy of the electrons increases, so does the length-scale on which the answer is consistent -- i.e., the size of the structured electron density variations this produces.

(I'm not really a physicist, and certainly not a superconductor expert. Any of the above may be entertainingly wrong. Corrections welcome.)

</comment><comment><USER3> Can anyone explain this a bit deeper, or point to a resource that does? I find these dumbed down articles more confusing than stuff full of precise jargon (even if i know nothing of the jargon, at least it usually isn't some weak analogy with big holes).</comment>


Lane Following Autopilot with Keras and Tensorflow - <AUTHOR> https://wroscoe.github.io/keras-lane-following-autopilot.html <comment> robinson-wall This is nice work, but anyone wanting to try it for themselves should be warned that you shouldn't unpickle data received from an untrusted source.

[https://blog.nelhage.com/2011/03/exploiting- pickle/](https://blog.nelhage.com/2011/03/exploiting-pickle/)

<comment><USER3> I copied this method of loading datasets from Keras. [https://github.com/fchollet/keras/blob/master/keras/datasets...](https://github.com/fchollet/keras/blob/master/keras/datasets/imdb.py#L43). What's a better alternative.

<comment><USER4> Another serialization format which doesn't create objects, like JSON, XML, CSV,...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Was the track changed at all during the training? I'm wondering if there's some subtle overfitting here where the car learned to drive along only this specific track. It mentions this but I'm not sure what concrete actions were taken to avoid overfitting:

> The biggest problem I ran into was over fitting the model so that it would > not work in evenlly slightly different scenarios.

Regardless, a very cool project.

<comment><USER3> The method to avoid overfitting was to use the model with the lowest validation loss, not training loss. I was able to change the track around my house with reasonable success. I think would need many more example turns in the training data to become robust.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Great summary, I always think it's best when machine learning projects have visuals and videos to showcase what is actually being learned.

This simple project is a good example of supervised learning from what I can tell - the network will learn to steer "as good as" the human that provides the training data. For a different (and more complex) flavor of algorithm, check out reinforcement learning, where the "agent" (computer system) can actually learn to outperform humans. Stanford's autonomous helicopters always come to mind - [http://heli.stanford.edu/](http://heli.stanford.edu/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Consider the fairly massive changes to the competitive landscape ushered in by the _combined_ factors of self-driving and electric vehicles:

\- For liability reasons, most of the algorithmic IP will likely be open sourced. Either because it's required by regulators or because it's the most efficient way for car makers to socialize risk of an algorithmic failure.

\- Electric vehicles have many fewer moving parts, which means that the remaining parts are likely to be converged upon by the industry and used widely. This breaks a lot of platform-dependency issues and allows for the commoditization of parts like motors. As these become standardized and commoditized, and easily comparable on the basis of size, torque, and efficiency, there will be virtually no benefit to carmakers to manufacture their own. The same applies to aluminum monocoque frames, charging circuitry, etc.

Tesla currently differentiates its models based on how many motors and what size batteries, but beyond that it's mostly just cabin shape, along with new innovations like the hepa filter cabin air cleansing which will likely be a standard part of all future models.

\- Battery tech works the same way as motors, with little competitive advantage to be gained by automakers, especially since most of the IP in this area is already spoken for.

Compare the number of patentable parts in a model T vs a 1998 Taurus vs a 2017 internal combustion vehicle vs a Telsa. Tesla is one innovator, and GM has already likely patented many inventions relating to EV technology back in the original Chevy Volt era.

All this is why Tesla acquired SolarCity and is attempting to make an infrastructure play rather than a technology play. Only due to Musk's rare ability to self-finance big risks is this even possible, since infrastructure moonshots featuring $30K+ hardware units are hard to fund.

<comment><USER8> How do you see car makers differentiating their products in a world where all the parts including the frame are commoditized and the software is open source?

Also, GM built an electric car back in the 90s called the EV-1. I wonder how much innovation was in that car vs the Volt.

<comment><USER4> Interior design. Cars will evolve into mobile living spaces so the quality of interior becomes more significant to exterior.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Not to put down the OP's work (I think it's a great project), but I'm just wondering what advantages might an ML approach have over "traditional" CV algorithms. In a really well controlled environment lanes will be easy to detect, and computing the difference between the current heading and lane direction should be doable; maybe if we're talking about complex outdoor environments and poor sensors then ML would have an advantage? Or if we're teaching the robot what the concept of a lane is?

I think back to the days when I basically implemented lane following with an array of photo resistors, an Arduino, a shitty robot made from Vex parts and some c code. The problem is much simpler than the one presented in this article, but then the computational resource used was order of magnitudes less. At what point then, do you decide that "OK I think the complexity and nature of the problem warrants the use of ML" or "Hmmm I think neural network is an overkill here"?

<comment><USER3> Traditional CV approaches are much easier to debug as well. I chose the ML approach with the assumption that it would be easier to build a robust autopilot that would work in many lighting conditions. Actually my short term goal is to get the car to drive around my block on the sidewalk (no lines). From my experience CV approaches have many parameters that need to be tuned specifically for each environment. While ML approaches also have parameters that need tuning they stay constant between environments.

<comment><USER9> I see, that makes sense. It'd be indeed worth it if we can apply a model trained on controlled environment to a more challenging one with little to no modification. Good luck with the project and keep us updated!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> I updated this post with some of the great feedback from the comments. Also I just ported the algo used by the last DIYRobocar race winner, CompoundEye. Here's that post: [https://wroscoe.github.io/compound-eye- autopilot.html#compou...](https://wroscoe.github.io/compound-eye- autopilot.html#compound-eye-autopilot)

Thanks!

</comment><comment><USER10> Nicely done! But I'm assuming that this is more of an exercise rather than a real-world application of ML? I say this because the task of keeping a car between two lines is trivially done using control algorithms. Of course, the CV part -- "seeing" the lines -- requires some form of ML to work in the real world.

<comment><USER11> Obviously, "Lane Following Autopilot using my brain and controls theory" would not make it to the top of HN. Welcome to the new era where Tensorflow replaces Lyapunov and ML spares you the need of understanding hard problems... until you need guarantees and safety... but but it's ok let's add more data.

<comment><USER12> I agree with you. If you can leverage control theory from the 1950s to solve your problem, what's the point?

However, I will state that using e.g. Lyapunov functions to prove the stability of the system requires a model of the system. And even if you need a guarantee for your system, that guarantee is only as good as the fidelity of your model. For an inexpensive RC car, with slippage and saturation, without torque control or inertial sensing, you're going to have a hard time doing something that sounds as principled as what you suggest.

<comment><USER13> You seem to be forgetting the entire vision pipeline that automatically extracts "lanes" and that information gets incorporated in an end to end manner requiring only true steering angles and nothing else. Its easy to comment but its not as straightforward or trivial as one might assume.

<comment><USER11> Indeed, I was not really talking about the vision pipeline. But once you decouple the problem (use ML for vision, planning for the trajectory, controls for the rest), you'll get much more stability, guarantees and insight into how to improve your problem. These kinds of end-to-end approaches are very hard to evaluate, they have zero educational value, are not parsimonious and tend to reduce people's analytical skills.

<comment><USER14> But to be able to decouple the vision pipeline you need a lot of manual annotation work which is tedious.

<comment><USER15> Tedious, and also solved for a decade already. Also, it's much easier to just find lanes using traditional CV and simply using annotators to verify the lane labels.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I might be missing it, but I don't see instructions for installing TensorFlow/Keras on the Raspberry Pi in the Donkey repo or in this blog post (needed to actually run the trained model, it looks like). For TensorFlow, there are pre-built binaries and instructions to build from source here:

[https://github.com/samjabrahams/tensorflow-on-raspberry- pi](https://github.com/samjabrahams/tensorflow-on-raspberry-pi)

Note: I am the owner of this repo

<comment><USER3> Donkey runs a client on the Pi and a remote server that runs Keras/Tensorflow.

<comment><USER16> A ha! Very cool- apologies for not seeing how it worked at first; I assumed you used the server to control/collect data manually, and then loaded the model onto the device. Thanks for the demo!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Two major errors: 1) This doesn't seem to be controlling overfitting on the right validation set. 2) There isn't a test set at all (separate from validation).

Using Keras' "validation_split" parameter will just randomly select a validation set. This is not the right thing to do when your data is image _sequences_ , because you will get essentially identical data in training and validation.

Because of this, the numbers/plot here might as well be training accuracy numbers.

<comment><USER17> Keras uses the end of the data set as validation, and only randomizes it if the "shuffle" argument is set to True [1].

[1]: [https://keras.io/getting-started/faq/#how-is-the- validation-...](https://keras.io/getting-started/faq/#how-is-the-validation- split-computed)

<comment><USER15> Except the second half of the data is the flipped of the first half (X = np.concatenate([X, X_flipped]))

<comment><USER3> Well shit. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll revise.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Apologies if I'm being stupid, but I can't find the details on how to physically connect the hardware together anywhere. Is this still on the todo list? I'm interested in applying this tutorial and making an autonomous RC car.

</comment><comment><USER19> What I would love to see is an end to end neural network soln. On one end camera input comes through, on the other outputs for speed and steering angle.

But rather than a black box, it's explainable what the different layers are doing. If neural nets are turing machines then we should be able to compile some parts of the net from code.

Then the net is a library of layers. Some Layers trained with back prop, some compiled from code.

<comment><USER15> Almost all neural nets are not Turing complete. Only very specific RNNs are; most RNNs aren't, including pretty much any RNN model used in the real world right now ([https://uclmr.github.io/nampi/talk_slides/grefenstette- nampi...](https://uclmr.github.io/nampi/talk_slides/grefenstette-nampi.pdf)).

Also, this is a useless fact, because so many other random things are Turing complete.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> X is in the range 0, 255. They don't show code converting it to a much saner range for the network they've chosen. Is the full source somewhere?

<comment><USER21> Have you already looked at the pickled data? Because it looks like the model is outputting a single label value out of 256 labels; depending on the training data (steering angle) and how it is represented in the data (signed float or integer?), each one of those 256 learned should (?) be similar - <USER2> think.

Again, I'm not an expert. Or - maybe it is outputting a number 0-255, and then taking that number and converting it (and maybe other operations) into values suitable for the servo on the car (perhaps centered around 0 - so -128 to 127 or something like that - then scaled for servo PPM width or whatever values needed)...

All guesses, of course.

<comment><USER3> The input values are image arrays 120x160 pixels with 3 channels for red,green,blue. The values range from 0-255 and are not normalized before they are fed into the convolution layer. I found this did not make a difference.

The output of the model is a single real number between -90(left) and 90(right). I believe a better approach would be to bin the outputs and use a classifier. This way you'd know when the model was getting confused (ie, approaching a perpendicular line.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Before even opening the link, I was thinking, which jurisdiction would it be legal to program "personal" autopilot.

Awesome tutorial.

</comment><comment><USER23> I remember seeing keras in commaai source. Who else uses it ?

<comment><USER3> Tensorflow anounced last week that it will incorporate Keras as its default higher level abstraction. It's a pleasure to use.</comment></comment>


Leonardo da Vinci was a hopeless procrastinator. - <AUTHOR> http://chronicle.com/temp/reprint.php?id=zs61txc4kwr4kd1q1rjbfxt41952gdmf <comment><USER3> On a day to day basis Leonardo would allocate his time between customer projects and his own. He would balance client commitments with his natural energy for creativity - and according to this article, his natural energy often won that battle.

It could be argued that it was the vision and taste of the Medici family in Florence that actually launched the renaissance. Their customer dollars enabled a new class of Italian artists and scientists to pursue creativity and innovation. Leonardo took this to a whole new level - if you had the opportunity to see the recent exhibit in the San Jose Tech Museum, it is clear the he was standing on the shoulder of other intellectual giants at the time.. all spurred by customers with a taste for art and technology.

However, when the vision of the creator exceeds the vision of customer, what is the result? A starving artist, a 'self-sabatoger', a practitioner of 'sinful laziness' and 'self-abuse'?

The author points out that academia has no place for the passionate creative. I would argue that similarly the a customer driven market is also no place for the passionate creative. So, where do they belong? Are we content as a society to witness that occasional, rare intersection of the visionary customer with the passionate creative? As entrepreneurs, is it our place to find a solution?

<comment><USER4> The freedom to pursue creative fulfillment is very unusual in human history.

The vast majority of the time it just takes far too much time and energy to survive.

On very rare occasions, people have enough time to create art. An example I can think of is the native Americans in the pacific north west, before the arrival of Europeans.

The unique combination of:

Seasonal salmon runs - very good calorie rich food that's easy to catch.

A mountainous geography - keeps population reasonably small.

Resulted in a societies that could quickly catch and store enough food for the whole year.

And they ended up with a surplus of time and energy - free time.

Unsurprisingly that led to a staggering amount of art. Sculpture - <USER2> poles, music, dance, etc.

But again, that's very unusual. The only other example I can think of is ancient Greece and they had a lot of free time thanks to slavery.

The one entrepreneurial solution to this, that I can think of is robotics.

I already have a dish washer and a roomba, but those only save a few hours a week. To really free up my time I need something that will do my work for me, like a robot that can code in C++.

I just hope the robots don't rebel or something like that.

<comment><USER5> From what I've read, a lot of studies of "indigenous peoples" contradicts what you are saying. Especially regarding the time spent on necessities. I read an ethnographical book about how tribal peoples in the jungle 'worked' for at most half the day on their basic needs.

Granted, the jungle is also plentiful (altho hazardous.)

But the masses of people who have to walk hours for water, in Africa and parts of the Middle East, is also a modern thing. Before modernish times, that would be totally untenable. Either they would move on, or they would all die, rather than this in-between state they occupy now.

The majority of cultures since the Great Leap Forward seemed to have created quite a bit of art, music and myths, but many of them were trasient and impermanent and so left no trace. And apparently a lot of it was "practical," in terms of beautiful clothing, vessels, "magical" items and weapons.

But I don't think I'd call those things uncreative because they were also useful.

<comment><USER4> I should have been more specific. Clearly almost every people has created art.

It's hard to dig almost anywhere in the world and not at some point hit some magical amulet or wonderfully decorated pottery art, or something like that.

My point was about the rather unusual situation of Leonardo, and even more so, jonmc12 question on how to allow more people the same freedom Leonardo had.

The _large degree_ of time and effort devoted to art, by a large part of the population, is unusual.

Clearly every society has art, and often individuals, shamans, singers, etc, can be full time so to speak. But it's rare that most people can devote most of their time, to activities other then survival.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> My solution to procrastination:

1\. Identify the activities you procrastinate (for me, writing scientific papers);

2\. Rearrange your life so you don't have to do them any more. (I just left academia to do a startup.)

<comment><USER7> what kind of startup? Is it linked to science?

<comment><USER6> I don't know yet! I'm still exploring that, while finishing up various academic projects.

<comment><USER8> You are delaying facing your fate too! Just do it man. If something is told here over and over, is that theres no perfect business idea. You pick one direction and correct your course every time your market tells you so. good luck. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I completely disagree that Leonardo was a procrastinator simply because he didn't do everything he dreamed of. I'm sorry, I've looked through some of the books of his designs and he has things like strip-miners and hang-gliders and such. I'm sorry, they were physically incapable of making them in his day.

He understood concepts and designed things that fit them, likely knowing he'd never be able to build them in his lifetime. The first design for a Space Elevator came in like 1895, and in 2009 we still don't have the technology to make one, so why is Leonardo a 'procrastinator' simply because it was impossible to build some of the things he wanted to.

<comment><USER10> Because labeling Leonardo a procrastinator makes all of us procrastinators feel better about ourselves.

<comment><USER9> And not saying it makes me feel like I'm not a procrastinator! I rue the minute you commented and ruined my few moments of not feeling like a procrastinator.

<comment><USER11> Furthermore, the fact that Leonardo is a procastinator and so are we indicates that we are all merely human and somewhat equally capable, regardless of how human history has elevated the status of one being over another.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Real artists _occasionally_ ship?

 _Steve Jobs tried to motivate people by saying "Real artists ship." This is a fine sentence, but unfortunately not true. Many famous works of art are unfinished. It's true in fields that have hard deadlines, like architecture and filmmaking, but even there people tend to be tweaking stuff till it's yanked out of their hands._

<http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html>

</comment><comment><USER13> Unfortunately for da Vinci, pg had not yet finished the "noprocrast" feature, so would-be masterworks gathered dust as da Vinci frittered away his days on an early version of Hacker News.

</comment><comment><USER14> "The unambiguously negative idea of procrastination seems unique to the Western world"

As an American living in Shanghai for 9 years, I have had to confront this meme in its various forms on many occasions. My wife (Chinese) will simply tell me things like "Chinese people are not afforded the luxury of your behavior". It appears procrastination is something that must be "afforded".

Its not that procrastination is unique to us (modern-Western-middle-class++), but that it may have cultivated itself into an attribute that has reluctant value; otherwise da Vinci would have no merit in this context.

<comment><USER15> Paraphrasing David Allen: Procrastination isn't about not getting things done. Procrastination is about not getting things done AND feeling bad about it.

I spent a month in India this year. It's a much slower lifestyle there. When something doesn't get done, they just don't feel bad about it.

(Obviously, huge generalizations in that last paragraph.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Is he a procrastinator for not actually attempting to build his helicopter with late-15th century technology? He would have failed, as the rough-hewn wooden gearboxes of the day were incapable of the power levels needed for rotary-wing flight. And other reasons. It was probably better to move on and sketch some new ideas than try to build things centuries ahead of what was technologically possible.

<comment><USER17> You're seriously missing the point. If you read the article, Leonardo also failed to finish a great number of paintings and sculptures. These were clearly completable within the technology of the time and within Leonardo's personal skill.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> It's just as true now as it was then, perfect is the enemy of good enough.

<comment><USER19> But would you rather have good enough or Leonardo?

<comment><USER20> Good enough, because masses will be able to afford it and benefit from it. Bring in Leo and the cost goes from nearly free to extremely expensive. Think bicycle against Ferrari, when all you need is a way to make the 3 mile commute between home and the plant.

<comment><USER19> _Good enough, because masses will be able to afford it and benefit from it._

This reads like something out of Turgenev. A pair of boots is worth more than the complete works of Shakespeare! Before art, bread!

By contrast, one might ask: Leonardo's procrastinations have more value than the output of how many thousands of sensible, disciplined people?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> What he should have been is a type of center of ideas where other people who could execute brilliantly, but did not have as many insights and ideas could start from to complete his stuff. He'd have become some type of manager at the end though.

</comment><comment><USER22> Leonardo was the ultimate hyperbrain at work (see [http://www.inter- sections.net/2008/08/28/hyperbrain-owners-m...](http://www.inter- sections.net/2008/08/28/hyperbrain-owners-manual-1-the-big-picture)).

</comment><comment><USER23> Catchy title. Diagnosing "procrastination" seems to be all the rage nowadays, people will almost always identify with it.

<comment><USER24> This may not apply to Leonardo da Vinci, but I'm reminded of M.A. Foster's notion that overcrowding generates bureaucracy. The idea may not be original to him, but he suggested that people erect social or procedural barriers when physical ones are no longer available.

Perhaps procrastination is a similar phenomenon. The workplace is ubiquitous now, if we allow it to be. Do we procrastinate so that our minds have time to recover from these new demands?

<comment><USER5> Let's not forget that the _invention_ of bureaucracy was hailed as a beautiful and wonderful thing, in order to prevent rich people from buying positions in govt and also getting personal favors out of other govt officials.

<comment><USER25> Yes. See Max Weber on the topic.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> "You know how Einstein's grades were bad as a kid? Well mine are even worse!" - Calvin (& Hobbes).

</comment><comment><USER27> I'm in good company.

In all seriousness, that sounds like ADD.

</comment><comment><USER28> * hopeful

</comment><comment><USER29> Da Vinci was a true Renaissance Man.

</comment><comment><USER30>
      Procrastination is like masturbation, it's all good until you realize you just f***ed yourself.

</comment><comment><USER31> Just because he once worked on Duke Nukem Forever, da Vinci has been unfairly tagged as a procrastinator.</comment>


Dear Y Combinator, we bet you we can solve a problem of yours in 72 hours. - <AUTHOR> http://www.seedlauncher.com/blog/2012/04/03/dear-y-combinato-we-bet-you-one-interview-that-we-can-solve-a-nagging-problem-for-you-in-the-next-72-hours/ <comment><USER2> Life skill for you: putting a message into a bottle and then flinging it onto the Internet _could_ get it read, but that isn't the way to bet.

Here's a hypothetical for you: how many people do you think have social permission to contact a YC partner and say "X is awesome and deserves a look." I'd ballpark that in the hundreds to low thousand range. Many of them are accessible on the Internets and less overwhelmed with suitors than the YC partners are. How about solving a meaningful problem for one of them and having the next application say "We built a $WHATEVER for $SOMEONE which increased their customer base by 10%, like they told you over email earlier."

P.S. This advice had wide application beyond YC and beyond "applications." Indeed, part of me thinks that applications (in general) are a backup filtering mechanism for people who haven't figured out a more effective way to get what they want yet.

<comment><AUTHOR> <http://b.qr.ae/Hktlyv>

This explains our dilemma. Frankly, we are a bunch of "nobodies" in the middle of Iowa. We don't know any Y Combinator Alums, and even if we were to reach out the best we could hope for is a lukewarm they seemed "nice". We have a lot of drive and are trying to prove ourselves any way possible. That's what we're trying to do with this post.

<comment><USER2> Step back from this conversation for a second and reread this, pretending it was from someone you don't know. Does this person who wrote this post sound like a winner who is going to make the next Dropbox? That's who YC wants in their next class. Be the winner who is going to make the next Dropbox.

There is nothing wrong with making affirmative efforts to sound like a winner. This is a skill which will take you far in life. I suggest working on it.

With specific reference to you being in Iowa: howdy! I live in a rice field in Central Japan. I work that into speeches frequently, often as part of a self- deprecating joke. I probably overuse self-deprecating jokes if I'm being totally honest with myself, but when I use them, the idea is not to convey "I'm not as competent as all you cool kids from the Valley who paid good money to hear me talk today", it is close to _exactly the opposite_ of that.

You say you don't know any YCombinator alums. Is knowing YCombinator alums a priority to you? Winners routinely achieve their priorities by taking the basic, obvious steps for achieving them. There's a series of tubes between central Iowa and every YCombinator alum. There's also planes which regularly fly between Iowa and Silicon Valley. (I am totally serious.)

You may be inclined to state reasons why YC alums (or anybody else whose cooperation would be valuable) would not want to talk to you. How about you just don't state those reasons and instead wait to hear them from the horses' mouths instead? Better still, how about instead coming with reasons why they would of course want to talk to you, because you're building things that will solve identifiable problems for them?

<comment><AUTHOR> I just wanted to say you've brought up some good points and given us some things to consider. That being said, I would think that someone who had the guts to throw themselves out there and say let us prove that we're worth your time is the kind of guy who could make the next Dropbox. This may seem like a cheap stunt to a lot of the people on here, but we're just trying to prove that we're more than our credentials and we're worth a shot.

<comment><USER3> "I would think that someone who had the guts to throw themselves out there and say let us prove that we're worth your time"

The problem is what you are trying to do lacks creativity and originality. And without that I would question whether you could in fact build the next "dropbox".

<comment><USER4> This made me chuckle. Dropbox was one of the least creative or original startups I know. But it was born out an immediate unfulfilled need and a subsequent deep fury, and then executed and refined insanely. Before and since Dropbox there have been many, many attempts to fill this space, but their execution has been phenomenal.

<comment><USER3> Dropbox's success is in their creativity in solving a problem. (the execution). Here the issue is getting into YC (which by the way I question the entire idea of thinking that is an end in itself - but that's a separate issue). If that is the goal though, someone can put more effort into simply saying "I'm good look at me and let me prove it". How they say that isn't relevant either (putting up a billboard for example..)

Effort doesn't mean doing obvious things either. Simply doing the things that anyone can think of don't count and show creative initiative. Part of the problem is of course that newbies don't know what is "obvious" and tried before in varying degrees.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Even if PG gave you such a task, how would that demonstrate anything relevant? You getting a task and a deadline is the _opposite_ of being entrepreneurial; that's called having a job and a boss and showing that you are an adequate or better employee.

Being entrepreneurial involves you

1) generating ideas,

2) using your intuition to pick a good one,

3) testing it out to see if your intuition is correct (iterate if not), and

4) then execute _that_ idea (and again, iterate as needed)

Or, in short: _discovering and exploiting an opportunity_

Edit: minor.

<comment><USER6> Oh, I don't know. Having a team that can solve any arbitrary difficult problem in three days could be quite useful in a startup. The (technical) execution of a startup idea can be cast as a series of arbitrarily difficult problems, after all.

<comment><USER7> Arbitrary huh...

My two long term pet peeves for which I would be most happy to help lobby to get them a hearing:

1) Faster than light travel 2) Create a robot that carries it's own power supply, communication device, and webcams that would allow me to traipse up and down any path in Rocky Mountain National Park in real time so that I can take a hike for 20 minutes when I need a break without the requisite plane travel and hotel bill

I suspect pg would be willing to pay for at least number 1 :-)

<comment><USER6> Well, I'd settle for a teleportation device or ability that could take me anywhere in the universe instantaneously, and far, far greater physical durability (maybe in a Culture-level gel suit).

They better get cranking, because 72 hours is just not a lot of time to develop either of these things.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I love the creativity, though I have to admit, I'm a little confused.

YC already does a great job of releasing great startup ideas (see links below in the off chance that you haven't read them already). And it seems like everyone I met who got in was accepted because of the awesome things they created. So if you're short on ideas, read the lists, and then get to work and have something to show for it by application time! Whether or not you get in will probably matter less and less once you're cranking away at a company you're really into.

<http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html>

<comment><AUTHOR> Our team has been talking, and we've decided that even if we don't hear back from anyone at Y Combinator we're doing a 72 hour hackathon sometime in the next week using something on one of those list. :)

<comment><USER9> Yep just do it. Everyone can talk a good game. Solve something then come back and show everyone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> I don't think that YC is trying to identify teams that can create the maximum amount of value in 72 hours. They're looking for teams that will create the maximum amount of value over thousands of hours (or more).

It's not at all clear that the former correlates with the latter.

<comment><USER11> I think you're correct a long-term push is different from a 72 hour scramble but they're only looking to "win" an interview, not a place in a starting class. I think it's reasonable a team could be unsuccessful at filling out an application (which previously required an idea) but still be extremely strong candidates. I hope YC accepts, they don't stand to lose anything (save time) and there's no obligation to accept similar copycat offers in the future. They might also get a problem solved.

<comment><USER10> Ya, I'd tend to think it's at least worth pg sending them a challenge.

That being said, I don't think that what successful YC applicants are doing should be characterized as "filling out an application." The application just captures their past work in a form. It's the actual past work that matters, not the simple transcription.

I think my larger point is that an awesome 72 hour hack session probably isn't as good of an indicator of future success as a track record of successful medium to long term work in the past.

<comment><USER12> Why would he limit the number of potential solutions to one? If they wanted to try this it seems like it would better to put the challenge to everyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> "You're actions speak so loudly that I cannot hear what you say."

One of my favorite quotes of all time, by Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you are really more than what comes across on paper, you should have things to show that extend beyond what is on paper. Claiming you are smart and can execute will get you nowhere. I'd venture to guess that everybody who applies believes that they have that in spades.

But the larger question I have, and continue to have, is why people continue to view entrepreneurship as an elite club to which you must be allowed entrance. No offense to Y-Combinator or any other startup incubator, as I'm sure the experience is fantastic. I just think anybody approaching this as some kind of bridge that you must cross to achieve success is misguided. Successful startups were born long before incubators and they were built by people who knew how to execute and had the wherewithal to do so. The very fact that you have to plead to make the case that you can execute shows in many ways that you can't. An incubator should be viewed as one avenue to ramp up traction and execution, not a permission slip to do so.

</comment><comment><USER14> I saw a similar post on nuclearphynance.com a few years ago. A young unemployed developer offered to code forum members' models for free. He was swimming in interview invitations because people admired the tenacity.

The biggest difference between what he did and what you're doing is that he made it an open offer. If you chopped off "dear y combinator," and released the challenge to HN members in general I think your post would have attracted a much more positive response.

Also, I'm not sure if you guys have been paying attention but pg and paul have been vocal about YC painpoints recently. Search their comments. The one I've heard the most is "everyone is exhausted after demo day".

</comment><comment><USER15> You speak desperation language.

This is like a woman that rejects you on a date and you take it too seriously: " I will do whatever you wish to test my love". It does not work that way because you are putting her in a high pedestal and yourself in a lower status.(And you could be sorry for making commitments to people you don't really know yet, "may you get what you wish for" is a curse on China).

Maybe it is not the point that you could do something in 72 hours, but what you could do in 720 or 1000 or 3000. Sometimes you need to do marathon instead of 50 meters. I believe PG wants people that won't abandon on the hard moments of a startup, people that will "find a way" over difficult circumstances.

You don't need Y Combinator to success.

<comment><USER16> I guess one man's "desperation" is another's marketing/self-promotion.

Maybe nothing comes of this directly but many more people are already talking about them then say 24 hours ago. In that it's already a huge success for a promotion that has cost them all of 15 min.

<comment><USER17> I disagree. They could have gone and shot a bunch of dogs and posted pictures on the internet. By your measurement 'many more people are already talking about them...'. Is this example extreme? Sure, but the point is that the measurement is not if people are talking about them, but if they get closer to their goals.

How can they take advantage of this to help them? The first step is do a 72 hour hackathon on any problem and produce results. Then come back, and say, "Show HN: We did the PG challenge anyway!"

<comment><AUTHOR> We actually are doing that. We're in the process of looking at PG's list of ambitious startups/Y Combinators list of ideas for startups. Even if they don't get back to us over the next few days we're going to mull these over then execute.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Rather than naysay your efforts, I prefer to support. pg has opened up YC to people without ideas, so contrary to other comments here, I don't think you're violating the spirit of YC to request an interview without an idea. But your open-ended way of asking might give pg too much to think about. So that could be a reason why he hasn't got back to you yet.

One idea: pg wants to invest in more entrepreneurs who don't have ideas yet, and in some cases, perhaps even people without much history of success on paper. Applicants like yourselves need ideas to build. Create a system that makes it easy for YC's problems to be discovered by applicants, so applicants can use these problems as product ideas. Another tip: think beyond YC's problems to the problems of YC companies. The problems of YC companies are also YC's problems.

Another idea. I read that YC has trouble scaling their demo days each year. One article quoted a guy saying that the growing lunch line is actually one of Demo Day's bigger problems. Make YC Demo Day food service better for guests. Or instead, make it easier for YC to coordinate. I'm sure pg doesn't like thinking about it.

</comment><comment><USER19> Question: Did you spend 72 hours straight doing everything you can to make your application reflect who you really are and what you have to offer?

Want to solve a pain point? why not start with your own. Clearly, getting noticed and recognized by YC Partners is a pain point for you and many others.

Almost 100 years ago Napolean Hill offered a solution. Spend a few weeks researching your target, and approach them with a real value proposition, an offer they can't refuse.

Or work on the problem of getting noticed by YC partners by hacking the application process, identifying all the entry points to reach them, create a platform for incubators to crowdsource out their problems and pain points to their applicants, or just find a way to become friends with their mothers.

If there is a will, there is a way goes both ways. If you really had a burning desire, you would have found a way, and if you haven't found a way, your will isn't up to the task.

</comment><comment><USER20> > This is the second time we've applied to Y Combinator. Our dream has been, > for a while, to get our startup off the ground

I don't mean to be crass, but

1) This seems to imply that doing Y Combinator entails success, which is backwards.

2) What has the startup been doing since when it was last rejected? Why try to showcase a random thing you can do in 72 hours instead of showcase how you can build your startup in the months in between YC sessions?

<comment><AUTHOR> 1\. You're absolutely right, it dosen't guarantee success. However, getting into Y Combinator would definitely help.

2\. This is actually our pivot. We've been together as a team for a year. Also, the reason we haven't launched is because we've been waiting on the crowdfunding law to pass.

We've been working and are continuing to work on seedlauncher.com, applying to Y Combinator is a very small part of what we've been up to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I will be surprised if YC even has any pain points that are well enough understood to be concisely communicated to an external source and can be solved in 72 hours. Usually the reason you have a pain point is either that you don't understand the underlying problem yet, or the solving it will take time. But I suppose that just means any pain points YC may be able to convey are things where these guys are expected to fail, which I guess is the whole spirit of the challenge.

</comment><comment><USER22> You'd be better off building something awesome in 72 hours and using that to show your awesomeness.

<comment><USER23> True that, build something amazing in 72 hours. You are not just idea implementation and realization machines.

<comment><AUTHOR> We'd be in for that too. We have tons of ideas waiting on deck so to speak.

<comment><USER24> Then go and build one of them in 72 hours, live blog it, and post it here. If it's interesting, surely it'll get upvoted, and then at least _some_ of the YC partners will take notice.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Do it PG! Do it! I want to see a slam dunk! I want to see EPIC failure! I want to see if they're all talk or can walk the walk. This is like the reality tv episode of entrepreneurship. Just once, I want to watch and wait with baited breath as the challenge is issued, the gauntlet is thrown down, the problem put out and the solution successfully solved! Don't make it easy, make it tougher than any problem one of your own companies can solve. Make it so tough people will look around and wonder, can it be even done? Also, make them play dramatic music at their office constantly for all 72 hours.

<comment><USER26> A reality show of this nature actually is a pretty good idea.

<comment><USER27> Techstars created a reality show out of their program and I think it was widely regarded as a pretty bad decision in hindsight...

<comment><USER25> Right, but this won't be filmed, it will just be watched in our minds until the moment of failure or triumph, at which point we will pepper the internet with generally useless comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Ambitious, risky, and likely to be ignored by YC, but I like the spirit :)

Would be fun to see them play this game with you though (I'm quite curious to see how you guys work things out if they challenge you to send an iPhone to Mars and back, for one example of many, many problems they could ask you to solve that you couldn't really take care of in 72 hours).

<comment><USER29> Their offer is specifically for problems that YC itself faces.

 _Give us a problem, a painpoint, anything that annoys you in day to day life, and we'll hack it in 72 hours._

Sending a phone to Mars and back isn't one of them, and is missing the entire spirit of the problem.

<comment><USER30> _"Give us a problem, a painpoint, anything that annoys you in day to day life, and we'll hack it in 72 hours."_

Perhaps one of their painpoints is people begging for acceptance with the argument "gosh, we really are worthy, honest!". Maybe they could solve that one by coming up with a way to demonstrate their value beyond a plea for compassion.

<comment><USER29> I didn't say I thought it was a good approach. I was just clarifying the GP's misunderstanding.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> You know what works better?

Build something nice and polished ( _anything_ ) and show them that.

Big claims work better when you're not coming empty handed.

</comment><comment><USER32> I admire the hustle, but in this case, you are asking the people of YC to do extra work to come up with something for you to solve. I think they are very busy and unlikely to do that.

</comment><comment><USER33> Hey guys, the list of problems to solve is up: <http://paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

</comment><comment><USER34> You guys should post about your startup here while you have some attention. Sounds interesting (I am assuming you are applying with the seed launcher idea?).

Without being an expert in startup financing I'd imagine there would be some fairly significant regulation challenges in the idea? Anyone successfully using the platform currently?

It is also interesting that your idea itself if it comes off might be solving a YC problem (How best to connect pitching startups with the right investors and generate the best valuations).

<comment><AUTHOR> Seedlauncher.com is a crowdfunding for equity site that is based around investing in small businesses within your own local community. With crowdfunding becoming legal we're creating a platform to enable both accredited and unaccredited investors to become part owners in their local businesses.

<comment><USER35> Maybe distill that into: Seedlauncher is crowdfunding for small, local businesses.

That actually sounds like a really good idea. Why not just do this without waiting for yc?

<comment><AUTHOR> We are doing it. We've been working hard for months. We're just waiting for the SEC to write the regulations for crowdfunding following the passage of the JOBS act.

<comment><USER36> If it existed today, I would almost certainly be using it. This needs to exist, and with the JOBS act passing it will. The race is on to see who gets a user base first, or before someone like angelist does it with their existing user base.

If I were in your shoes I would spend 72 hours getting a full profiling system up and online with the vision, get THAT on hackernews, and start building a user base. By the time you actually finish the integration of backends to allow for micropayments, tracking users, and equity allotments, you already have users and are that much further ahead of anyone else working on something similar when you turn those features on.

YC is awesome, but they only are one of many options available to you. From where I sit, there is nothing about this project that _needs_ a lot of funding to get a prototype built, an a prototype will be what you need to prove you guys have the chops to take this all the way. The prototype just needs a few weekends of time, infrastructure knowledge and programming skill. The only thing I really see you needing some cash for early, is legal counsel to build solid terms of service and investment agreements carefully written to make sure you are fully protected and acting within the JOBS act.

Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss this further.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Database connection error... Cached:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ix=acb&sour...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ix=acb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Awww.seedlauncher.com%2Fblog%2F2012%2F04%2F03%2Fdear- y-combinato-we-bet-you-one-interview-that-we-can-solve-a-nagging-problem-for- you-in-the-next-72-hours%2F)

<comment><USER38> Thanks for the link, didn't expect to see an error

</comment></comment><comment><USER39> They should solve their hosting issues first. Google's cached version for those looking for a copy <http://bit.ly/HM9HHg>

</comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I've got a problem for you to solve. This is not a complete sentence. Solve that. ;)

 _In the spirit of showing you that we can thrive at Y Combinator, and that we are more than who we are on paper._

<comment><USER12> Awesome, free grammar advice from someone who writes:

"I have got a problem"

Thanks for the LOLz...

<comment> jack-r-abbit I've got something for you to read. <http://bit.ly/HcYIJS>

Edit: Also, while I stand by the correctness of my first statement, me being right or wrong wouldn't make that fragmented sentence a complete one. However, unlike the OP, my comment was not intended to catch the attention of Y Combinator to get an interview with the hopes of getting my start-up kick started. So I would tend to give posts like mine a little more leeway than a challenge like the OP. Perhaps grammatical errors like that resulted in the rejections.

<comment><USER12> While admittedly childish on my part; the use of formal grammar brings up an interesting question. In a potst somewhere on HN I read that yc uses some sort of bayesian filter on applications. The details and my recollection are a little murky about the process.

It would be interesting to know if there was a correlation (+/-) between formal, colloquial or improper grammar and the success of applications.

<comment> jack-r-abbit That _would_ be interesting. As imperfect as my grammar and spelling are, I know that when I have a stack of resumes on my desk to review, the first pass weeds out the ones with grammar/spelling mistakes. Applying for a job is too important of a task to make avoidable mistakes like that. If you have not taken the time to make your resume perfect then you are likely to do sloppy work in your day to day activities. I would apply the same filter to a YC application. If I ever find myself working up an application for YC, I would spend the time and money needed to make sure every bit of that was correct. Now whether it should be formal or informal or what have you would be a big mystery. I would tend to lean toward formal in something like that. But perhaps not so formal that I come off has a robot. You can't trust robots.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> I think it's really funny that all the comments telling people they won't get noticed are actually boosting it to the top where they are very likely to get noticed.

Humanity ftw!

</comment><comment><USER41> I have an idea. Within 72 hours you have to hack into the Y Combinator servers and mark your application as "invite to interview". Do that and you get an interview :)

Disclaimer: if you're not sure what :) means, please google it before proceeding with the above suggestion.

Anyway I'm just joking. Your post is a nice way to get noticed. Good luck with your application!

<comment><USER42> Have you ever tried googling for an emoticon...?

<comment><USER34> [http://insidesearch.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/search- quality-h...](http://insidesearch.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/search-quality- highlights-50-changes.html)

Based on the second item of that list, might soon get some emoticon love on Google search.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> Maybe you can try building a search engine for Hacker News.

<comment><USER44> That already exists, scroll down.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> > Our dream has, for a while, to get our startup off the ground

English..

<comment><USER46> I was going to point this out for them. It's particularly harmful because it's in the second sentence...

<comment><AUTHOR> Oops I accidentally a word there. Fixed :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> Yes, but relating to and understanding the problem that you are trying to solve is the difficult part. You may create a solution to the problem, but any programmer can do that. I always viewed YC as being difficult to get into because you had to do this part prior to applying. If PG does give these guys something to make, then maybe that'd be a good answer to the question on the application that asks what your greatest hack ever was - it'd be turning the tables on PG and getting him to give you something to solve! Clever. :)

</comment><comment><USER48> If you an idea or expertise to do something like this I don't know why you need to wait for Y Combinator to pick you up before you get started.

Making something profitable from day 1 is difficult but profitable from day 30 is less so. Yes the profit may just about buy your team a round of coffee's but at least you got off your mark. Your ball is rolling.

Waiting for seed funding before building your product seems somewhat counter- intuitive to me.

<comment><AUTHOR> We aren't waiting for seed funding. We pivoted to seedlauncher back in December, and have been working on it since. We're prelaunch while we wait for the SEC to write the regulations surrounding crowdfunding so we can operate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> He gave a couple at the pycon conference. Why don't you pretend they responded with killing email and come up with the better solution for task inbox...

</comment><comment><USER38> Being able to ship a proof of concept (a precursor to an MVP) is a pretty core skill that will happen many times in that thousands of hours.

Other fun questions in the perpetual proof of concept game:

Will it work this way? Will it work that way?

I don't know. How long will it take? Can we quickly try it out somehow to see if it gets us what we need? Who can jump on this?

</comment><comment><USER19> I would venture to say the application process worked like clock-work. YC is looking for people to mentor, educate, and smooth out the bumpy road ahead for, to discover modest people, who acknowledge their weaknesses and are willing to humble themselves and learn from everyone around them.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ouch. We never said, or even meant to imply we were somehow better than the awesome people at Y Combinator, or frankly better than anyone else. All we're trying to do here is show that we're worth a second look and maybe a conversation.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Just in case anyone is curious about what we're working on I thought I'd give a quick description. Seedlauncher.com is a crowdfunding for equity site that focuses on investing in small businesses within your own community. If anyone has any questions I'd be more than happy to answer them.

</comment><comment><USER49> Here's a crazy idea: start working on your startup now and try to gain traction. Apply for YCombinator again next season and show them that you've actually hit on something that's becoming popular. This is actually how a lot of the most successful Y-Combinator alums got in themselves.

</comment><comment><USER50> The arrogance and desperation...

If you can solve a problem in 72 hours, it's not a very difficult problem.

Building a company takes years.

</comment><comment><USER51> Cool bold approach. Props. I'd like to see YC respond with a challenge. Everyone should stop being so skeptical. Maybe the guys are incredible geniuses. In fact I think they are being modest by throwing in that third 24 hour period. I bet they could do any challenge in 48 ;)

</comment><comment><USER52> Not getting picked should not necessarily reflect poorly on you... But if you try much harder you will just show that they were correct to avoid you. You do have spirit though, so do something useful with it instead of ranting about not being picked at the dance.

</comment><comment><USER53> Finding good solution to a given problem is what most of the engineers do day- to-day at work.

Real entrepreneurs identify opportunities (problems) and provide solution. Remember, a problem well stated is a problem half solved.

</comment><comment><USER54> Why don't you just build something other people want? Don't focus too much on what YC partners want, focus on what other people want(conversely if you do that YC partners will want you, not vice-versa).

<comment><USER55> The problem with "building something for others" rather than solving your own problems is you may not be passionate/persistent enough to survive the low's to get to the next milestone

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> If you'd rather not leave the Midwest, consider Chicago. They have a great entrepreneurial community at: <http://www.builtinchicago.org/>

</comment><comment><USER57> If you are so talented and innovative, do you really need YC? Just because one road closed down, doesn't mean you can't reach the destination.

</comment><comment><USER58> Start here: <http://www.paulgraham.com/ambitious.html>

</comment><comment><USER59> Any problem, I don't think so.

A problem, sure... I am sure there exists a problem of YC that you can solve in 72 hours.

</comment><comment><USER60> make it a competition and the best team wins the interview.

</comment><comment><USER61> Why don't you spend the 72 hours prototyping your startup?

<comment><AUTHOR> So Seedlauncher.com is a crowdfunding for equity site focused on investing in small businesses within your local community. So, we're pre-launch because we're waiting for the SEC to write the regulations regarding crowdfunding. We'd open up our site to a closed beta, but we don't want to jump the gun and fade into obscurity by launching 4 or 5 months before we can actually operate legally.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> can you guys do this? <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3795607>

</comment><comment><USER63> hey guys getting database error on your blogs.

</comment><comment><USER64> I wouldn't use it equity is valuable

</comment><comment><USER65> Ballsy. I like it.

</comment><comment><USER33> Apply to StartEngine.com</comment>


LinkedIn is not using email contacts to find people who have an account already - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/102760907897543103676/posts/Uuaqr7RH5iF <comment> grey-area This obsession with collecting users (dead or alive) reminds me of Gogol's _Dead Souls_ \- companies trading in users (who may or may not exist) in order to boost their standing and taking out huge loans on the basis of their illusory popularity. Even illusory users can have some value, just like the dead serfs in Gogol's tale, and like the dead serfs, their value is not in their existence, but in being entries on a ledger of chattels.

It doesn't matter to LinkedIn whether these accounts are used or real, because they are judged on basic numbers like how many users they have. Since real money is involved and salaries and careers are riding on this number going up, they'll employ all kinds of perverse and intrusive tricks in order to inflate that number every quarter for as long as it is a measure of success.

<comment><USER3> Is there any evidence LinkedIn reports all members email contacts as LinkedIn users?

The g+ post just displays OP's confusion at "connect" really meaning "invite" in instances where contacts don't have a LinkedIn account.

<comment><USER4> None whatsoever, the OP is making a gigantic leap based on a logical fallacy.

LinkedIn claims X number of users

Suggested connections by LinkedIn can be generated for users that do not even have a present LinkedIn account.

Therefor, the number X must include those users.

<comment><USER5> You're using logical fallacy wrong. At best this is a logical error, not a clasifiable fallacy.

But it's far more likely that it's just an error of judgement, involving no formal or informal logic at all.

Namely, nobody, including OP, made the syllogism you present, with the neat "therefore, X must include" etc step.

They simply thought that it's very probable that this is what LinkedIn did to inflate their numbers.

<comment><USER6> Neither the article nor the title actually talk about inflating numbers, which is how I read it at first too. They only talk about actually increasing the number of users, by sending out invites: "Another example of the lengths LinkedIn will go to in order to increase its user base."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > "LinkedIn allows you to sign in to your email account and it will scan your > contacts..."

Hand my contacts list to a website? No thank you. When is letting a website have this a good idea, not just Linkedin, but _ever_?

<comment><USER8> I'm the same -- I never allow websites to riffle through my contacts, and would certainly never give up access to my email account to do it.

However, mobile apps have a much easier time of it. Looking at the contacts stored on one's phone is just one of the many permissions they request, and users are conditioned to just click past that screen anyway.

<comment><USER9> I never would either. Problem is, it's possible I may have accidentally done it in the past, possibly when I was tired and thought it was about something else.

Did I? Can I undo it? No idea. Linkedin is quiet about it, and it looks like it can't be undone.

<comment> T-hawk Once information has been transmitted away from your device, it can never be undone. At best you might stop it from sharing future deltas, but once somebody has your data they will always have it as far as you can ever know.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Really surprised by all the comments here. This seems like a solid business decision by LinkedIn, riding the line of what a user is willing to accept and balancing it well with the potential rewards.

Look at every famous company and you'll find tactics that you don't agree with, and sometimes downright illegal (Path).

If you're not willing to do desperate things, to do what is necessary for user acquisition, good luck trying to build a successful business, because pure blind luck is exactly what you'll need.

Stuff like this is what really separates successful businesses from the failures. It was never about some grand vision, or some belief in connecting the world. It was about figuring out how to acquire users, retain them, and monetize.

<comment><USER11> I've tried to explain this line of logic previously on HN and my experience is that the majority of the people here live in their own world. Much like people who enjoy reality TV, just more technically savvy.

They babble about how FB decreases audience reach or how they hide their ad targeting instead of realizing the massive opportunity that is presented to the people who are willing to put the work.

They besmirch google for giving rapgenius preferential treatment instead of taking notes and using the precedent.

They revile linkedin for marketing tactics that serve them very well.

In short, the crowd here is mostly nerds with a misunderstood nobility sense, refusing the see the world they are living in for what it is.

Alternative in short - people here are workers, not businessmen.

<comment><USER12> That's because people usually put "morality" over "success of a business, even mine", and that's the world I want to live in. Your world has slaves (they're good business, after all).

<comment><USER13> No people put morality over "success of other". Most of the time when talking about something convenient, or you own business, people manage to bend their own morality with "rationalisation" or "carefully avoiding looking at the fact".

Our world has slaves.

<comment><USER12> > No people put morality over "success of other".

I disagree. When was the last time you took some money you saw lying around on someone's table?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I know I'm a bitch for laughing that an article about Linked In inflating its usage figures is posted on Google+.

<comment><USER15> Surely the fact it's posted from there indicates that the whole "its a ghost town, they're just lying" meme might be obviously false?

<comment><USER14> Remember that meme that was going around about social media and donuts? Twitter: I am eating a #donut ... Instagram: Here's a heavily post-processed picture of the donut I just ate ... Facebook: I Like donuts! ... Google+: I am a Google employee who likes donuts!

It's cruel and exaggerated, but like most successful (?) jokes it contains just enough truth.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I've never intentionally shared my contacts with LinkedIn and yet I get shown names from my address book. One was my teenage son and I tried to connect thinking he'd signed up for some reason. Nope, he'd never even considered it.

I don't know where LinkedIn got my contacts from but I suspect I must have missed a setting when I briefly installed the mobile app a few years ago. Some of the email addresses they have are out of date so that adds weight to my theory.

<comment><USER17> Came here to post the same; after seeing as "people you may know" some email contacts that may not even know what LinkedIn is (such as my mom), I strongly suspect they're doing something even more shady to grab my contacts. I have never installed the mobile app.

<comment><USER18> It's super-creepy. All you need is someone who has previously emailed or chatted to you via e.g. gmail to give their email address and password to LinkedIn to "find contacts". The seem to go about mining a graph they have constructed using various people's email correspondence/address books, even including contacts via a nameless email addresses you never provided to LinkedIn.

When I signed up I saw a bunch of people I had as contacts on a gmail account which I hardly ever use. I had NOT used said gmail account when signing up for LinkedIn (and no LinkedIn app etc.). They seemed to have somehow associated me with contacts for an email address I had told them nothing about by piecing together the contact lists of the small number of contacts I added on LinkedIn and linked the name in their address books to my unnamed gmail account. I simply don't trust them anymore.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Misrepresentation can be a very serious offence. I'd like to hear LinkedIn's argument for impersonating people who don't use the platform.

<comment><USER20> Their argument probably contains the following two phrases: "making money" and "that eighty-five page document you agreed to when you signed up."

Less cynically, all they seem to say is "ask this person to connect with you." That doesn't imply that they're using LinkedIn.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have used my Gmail box since early beta, and most definitely, a fraction of people I have ever contacted are no longer alive. There is no way for me or for LinkedIn to determine that. They may use an aggressive strategy to get new sign-ups, but that's just their way of shoveling money. Death is natural and inevitable, and I believe that we must raise people's awareness of it. I'd say deal with it and don't ever let the reality offend you.

Here is a good speculation from xkcd on a related topic: [https://what- if.xkcd.com/69/](https://what-if.xkcd.com/69/) With it in mind, how valuable would a database of the deceased be in 100 years from now, if we start gathering this data today? For example, mining the internet for history on relatives would probably become a business of it's own, and as a consequence, ancestor's deeds would be much less romanticized than they are today.

</comment><comment><USER22> I deleted my LinkedIn account last year because I got tired of dealing with spam emails from them and people bugging me to endorse them for skills. I still get emails from LinkedIn telling me someone would like to connect. For a site which is supposed to be about building professional connections I find them horrible to deal with.

<comment><USER23> Endorsements seem automated to me, and I almost feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Distant cousins endorsing you for Ruby? There's no way they actually clicked that button. I feel like LinkedIn is generating those as well, as a means of getting back on their platform.

<comment><USER22> Endorsements always seemed a bit off and it wouldn't surprise me if they were automated. I had an ex-colleague repeatedly contact me about endorsing him as he had endorsed me. At that time I hadn't looked at LinkedIn in months so I had no idea why he'd endorsed me. I got the impression that the site had suggested he do it and now obviously I should return the favour. All very annoying and one of the main reasons I closed my account.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> I can see how this may confuse people who aren't tech savvy, but as a tech person, I immediately recognise this as a ghost profile. When you see five or six of these amongst the actual profiles, and all of them just so happen to be people from your email, possibly who you haven't spoken to in years, you can put 1 and 1 together and know it's a trick.

<comment><USER25> Literally a ghost profile, the person is dead.

LinkedIn must have zero empathy for what loss does to people to use such tactics that can cause distress.

<comment><USER26> Wouldn't it cause the same distress if the deceased person really had had a LinkedIn account? Seems to me that the distress is not caused by the tactics in and of themselves.

<comment><USER25> Recently deceased is forgiveable. Long-deceased is massively insensitive.

Those suggestions should be restricted to profiles of people recently active that you may know.

<comment><USER24> Really though, how would they know? How can they know?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Ironic title coming from a post on Google+. In all seriousness though the title is misleading. Its not increasing user numbers, its increasing perceived relevancy, and misleading users into evangelizing its platform.

<comment> grey-area It's deceiving users into evangelising its platform in order to increase user numbers.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> What a load of bull.

Let me tell you a story about John Sculley. Former CEO of Apple ( [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sculley](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Sculley) )

I met John 4 times. He contributed to a charity that I was working with. I didn't think there was any chance he would remember me. Years went by, then I got a linkedin invite from John wanting to connect.

John Sculley wants to connect with me? Really? This can't be real. I'm "famous" but I'm not that "famous" and I barely met John, no way, has to be fake. So I report it to LinkedIn. A second friend gets a similar invite, and she has never met John, but was a contractor for Apple, and at Pepsi when John was. I have her report it to Linkedin as well.

Linkedin rushes around, calls John, doesn't get anything but a generic voicemail. 72 hours later they remove the account. 4 days later John's wife gets back from a trip, and checks his email and sees that linkedin has removed his account.

Ooops. I have caused a legit person to have their account removed.

I'm not saying LinkedIn users are all "real" but they do seem to go out of their way to have what is described in this article not happen.

\- [http://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonwirtz](http://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonwirtz)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is not the only underhanded practise from LinkedIn. I've had endorsements from people whom I know haven't logged into LinkedIn for years, including one from my partner who was sat next to me at the time and had even forgotten they had an old account there.

<comment><USER30> That's interesting. Recently, I've been receiving endorsements that seem completely random from some connections. For instance, I got one from an old college buddy (with whom I've connected, but haven't had time to catch-up) for "product management".

Got another endorsement from someone else who also had no way of knowing my skillset in a particular area.

Was thinking maybe they accidentally clicked on that intrusive, dark pattern of a prompt that keeps appearing atop the site. Now, I'm not so sure.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> Is there an alternative to LinkedIn in that isn't (as) ethically dubious?

<comment><USER31> Well, in case anyone is curious: I have done a fair amount of searching, and for the most part it is a barren wasteland of alternatives. The only one I've found that looks OK is Seelio[1]. Let's see how this goes.

[1] [https://seelio.com](https://seelio.com)

<comment><USER32> > It's your story. We help you tell it.

They really need to write something that tells you what the service does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> I get this all the time on the "suggested connections" page - names and email addresses extracted from my Gmail contacts, but the name is not a link to a profile (on normal suggested connections you can click on the name to see their profiles). I could easily spot those and not request to connect but it can be confusing for non-technical people.

What changed recently is that these fake profiles are also listed as having "shared connections" with me which is hard to believe considering those are not Linkedin profiles at all.

<comment><USER34> Some people you connected with also had them in their address book?

<comment><USER33> Indeed, probably it's the number of times linkedin sent them some email titled "join linkedin now".

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER35> I can confirm that this happened to me as well. I deleted my Linkedin profile last year. I received a connection request. I went back to Linkedin to confirm if my account was deleted. Of course, I had no account associated with my email address. I was puzzled by this and did not know the answer until now. I am going to warn people that I know to not allow Linkedin to scan their contact list. I am definitely annoyed by this.

</comment><comment><USER36> For what it's worth, LinkedIn has different wording on this page for people who have an account and those who don't. For people who have an account already, the button says "Connect". For those who don't it says "Add to Network". I agree that even "Add to Network" may mean to "my network", which is misleading.

<comment><USER37> I'm amazed nobody else has mentioned this. Everyone's talking about how this is such a dark pattern, but the interface clearly shows the distinction between the two interactions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Bizarre headline rewrite, there.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep. Not what I submitted it with. If they're not using email addresses to identify people you might know then what are they using?

<comment><USER39> People you searched for, people who searched for you, people you know who have those contacts in their address books and have searched for them, etc, etc. You don't explicitly need the address book and this way they suggest people that you don't have, but almost certainly know.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> LinkedIn's copy is as misleading as the title of this post. LinkedIn doesn't "increase its user numbers" by doing this, i.e. they don't report these ghost accounts to wall st analysts or include them in userbase statistics. It's simply a question of disingenuous language on their site.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not sure how anybody other than LinkedIn knows what they report but in any event I never said they did.

This practice leads registered users to attempt to connect with people who are not using LinkedIn. In effect, LinkedIn uses its user base to spam non-users with requests to create accounts.

The lie (this person has an account already) leads to a potential increase in user numbers via the emails that are triggered by the request to connect.

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Not exactly news that linkedin does this...

<comment><AUTHOR> I tend to keep abreast of tech-related news and had not seen anything outlining this sort of behaviour. For me, the fact that they so blatantly suggest that people have a LinkedIn account when they don't is appalling.

As I noted in my post, I am not in fact that surprised though.

<comment><USER3> It's like tech-news outlining that the yellow hits atop a google search are paid for. Why this is on the front page of HN I have no idea.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Just go to LinkedIn, in the top drop down menu "Network" select Add Connections. You will get a list of "imported" users. That's the users LI tricked you to give to them when they asked you to grow your network and you let them connect to your gmail or other email. They sucked in not only your address book but probably all people that ever emailed to you.

In that list just go through all users and check all that don't have little LI icon next to them (no LI profile). Click Delete button and you are all set. You can just delete all of them if you want. I clicked on "allow access LI to GMail" by accident once, when they gave me some tricky pop up during my roaming on LI. Very shitty behavior IMHO

</comment><comment><USER43> This is deceptive at best. I've been a fan of LinkedIn as a company until now.

<comment><USER44> Really? That's something I haven't heard of from a technical person in a very long while (if ever). LinkedIn's public image from the last 2 years:

* 2012 hack. 6.5M _unsalted_ SHA1 password hashes leaked [1]

* 2013 Acquires Pulse, forces existing users to create a LinkedIn account. Users are pissed [2]

* 2013 LinkedIn Intro. In case you missed it, it was an iOS app that changed your mail settings to proxy your incoming mail through linkedin's servers in order to inject a frame with business-card-like CTAs. In the meantime, this naturally gave them instant access to all your emails. Massive privacy implications.

* 2013 LinkedIn Intro, 3 days after release. Jordan Wright shows a CSS-based phishing attack: security implications as well [3]

My personal experience with LinkedIn:

* My profile info is available to premium users without my consent

* Premium users can spam me without my consent.

* "Who viewed your profile" feature. Unbelievable.

* Constant contact requests from random people. I can't turn their email notifications off entirely (introductions are mandatory). EDIT: I was mistaken - <sarcasm>the process is very straightforward [5]</sarcasm>

* They seem to be in the business of intentionally misleading people (2011) [4]

So, personally I'm the furthest you can get from being a fan and I can't imagine what you were a fan of. They're top ranking on my shit list.

[1] [http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/06/06/linkedin-member- password...](http://blog.linkedin.com/2012/06/06/linkedin-member-passwords- compromised/)

[2] [http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2306932/linkedin- in...](http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2306932/linkedin-integrates- pulse-and-upsets-almost-everyone)

[3] [http://jordan-wright.github.io/blog/2013/10/26/phishing- with...](http://jordan-wright.github.io/blog/2013/10/26/phishing-with- linkedins-intro/)

[4] [http://www.michielgaasterland.com/online-reputation/try- link...](http://www.michielgaasterland.com/online-reputation/try-linkedin- premium-for-free-but-read-the-fine-print-17571/)

[5] [http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-disable-all-of- linkedi...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-disable-all-of-linkedins- emails-2012-6?op=1)

<comment><USER45> Why did you create a profile? If you don't want to connect with your professional network, if you don't care who looked at your profile (and are even spooked about it), if you (likely) don't use it to find people... What do you think is the purpose of having a LinkedIn account?

<comment><USER44> > Why did you create a profile?

1) The intent was to separate my personal and professional social presence: Facebook is no place for doing or talking business.

2) I was looking for work at the time.

3) I tend to try things out

> If you don't want to connect with your professional network, I never said > that.

> if you don't care who looked at your profile Whether I care or not, I don't > think the network should be reporting views to profile owners. I don't think > I am alone in this either: Can you think of any other social network that > does this? Would you go back to Facebook if it reported your every view to > your contacts? Of course I'm spooked by this.

> What do you think is the purpose of having a LinkedIn account?

Not sure. I can eliminate a few things:

\- Not finding employees. I'm supposed to pay for premium to be able to search properly and message people, and then (given my personal experience as a user) my message will be lost in the noise of irrelevant offers (who the hell thinks a PHP developer would be remotely interested/suitable for UI/UX, C++, Technical Writer, ... ? Mass mailers do). SO careers and behance has served me very well instead.

\- Not finding work. Can I even separate my contacts into people-that-can-see- that-im-looking and people-that-shouldnt nowadays? If so, I'll call it progress. (My boss shouldn't know if I'm looking ffs)

\- Not organizing contacts. One flat list of people?

\- Not content. The majority of content I got to see was PR/HR kind of fluff that was almost exclusively cross-posted from elsewhere. None of my professional contacts actually generate content - that seems to happen on Twitter and G+.

I guess I use it as another online CV.

<comment><USER45> > I guess I use it as another online CV.

> I don't think the network should be reporting views to profile owners. Of > course I'm spooked by this.

So you're essentially freaked out that a prospective employer or business contact is looking at your CV.

> Not finding employees.

HR departments are paying for those premium accounts because they use it to find employees. Are you suggesting they don't know what they are doing?

> Not finding work. Can I even separate my contacts into people-that-can-see- > that-im-looking and people-that-shouldnt nowadays?

You can update your profile without broadcasting the change to your contacts, and you can answer job offerings privately too.

A lot of people use it as the de-facto rolodex: you can learn a lot about who you're going to meet without being "stalkish" because people expect to be searched (well, not you apparently). You can use it to contact people in specific positions (cold call), I've done it with great success to get past unresponsive customer services.

Many people don't agree with their growth tactics, but few would say it's useless.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> Your headline is extremely misleading. They are a public company and thus it is quite unlikely that they are lying about _user numbers_. That is a fantastic and relatively speedy way for a CEO to go to jail.

What they are doing is using your contacts list to mislead you into believing that many of your contacts are already on Linkedin. Once they get you to connect with yet-to-exist accounts, then they can legitimately spam your friends saying that you want to connect with them. Interesting strategy, but it will earn them some backlash.

</comment><comment><USER47> Linkedin is a horrible, horrible company and very harmful to the startup culture and ecosystem.

I don't understand why Reid Hoffman, who I think is a great Angel investor is doing that to the startup community.

</comment><comment><USER48> Oh wow, this explains so much! LinkedIn seems to be slacking with UX across the board IMO. The contacts page is entirely unusable, I have no idea what they were thinking when the built that.

</comment><comment><USER49> Yesterday I logged in to LI after many months. Now, I've been around long enough to know not to give access to my GMail to anyone; so I've never done that. I also haven't installed the LI app on my iPhone.

And yet, among the "people you may know", LI had a few email addresses that I am sure don't have LI accounts, and would never have them.

So how did LI get those addresses? I was logged in to my GMail account in another tab; could it be some CSRF or such bug? I found it very creepy.

</comment><comment><USER50> Seems every few months LinkedIn is busted on some nefarious activity. I don't know how it hasn't gotten a serious competitor yet, I can't stand them as a company.

</comment><comment><USER51> That reminds me, I keep meaning to delete my linked in account. It literally is of no use to me, all it does is attract spam from useless recruitment agencies.

</comment><comment><USER52> I've sometimes wondered about the folks with 0 connections. Same thing?

By and large I've found the website very useful.

</comment><comment><USER53> I think the discomfort here is that it's not a standard practice - <USER2> people are clicking an "Invite" action - and so the expectations of what happens creates some cognitive dissonance.

</comment><comment><USER54> One of many reasons Linkedin are never getting my email logins (not that I use a webmail service which they can scrape anyway; my saved addresses are in thunderbird).

</comment><comment><USER55> I've had numerous older relatives/friends accidentally sign-up for LinkedIn because of this and not even realize they have LinkedIn.

</comment><comment><USER56> I noticed this a while back - I'm fairly sure they are scanning your mobile phone contact list via their mobile app.

I promptly uninstalled it.

</comment><comment><USER57> I noticed this and don't like it. I even wrote them a complain through their Help Center and never got a response back. Sad.

</comment><comment><USER58> They have gone too far. Disgusting.

<comment><USER59> That is. And they call it data mining...

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> Here is a idea: long LinkedIn @ 194.20, short FB @ 68.90.

Now, we come back in see in 5 years.

<comment><USER60> This trade made over $4000 in the last 10 days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER61> What is the lie here?

<comment><USER62> It's a misrepresentation; LinkedIn lets you assume a person from your address book already has a LinkedIn account, and that you should _connect_ with her, whereas in fact she doesn't, and your action will result in _inviting her_ into the system.

(Even more difficult to do when she's dead, although it's unclear whether LinkedIn has a way to know the living status of its real users).

<comment><USER61> I've always assumed they got it from my email account, and not from a real account. It's not a lie, they haven't even mis-represented.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> The author fatfingered the "spam my contacts and ask them to join" button. It's annoying, but it's one step less evil than the games on Facebook that spam your friends without asking.

</comment><comment><USER64> No shit Sherlock. Its been happening for years.

</comment><comment><USER65> while they are at it, why don't they use a fake user generator?

</comment><comment><USER66> My issue with LinkedIn is philosophical as well as practical: it's _fucking dangerous_.

In the career game, most of us have to be spies-- careful and immensely _tactical_ with information-- in order to have success. A lucky few are so good at what they can do that they can shoot their mouth off (like I do) and tell the truth, for the good of the world. But most people will need to reinvent their histories at least once, and LinkedIn makes it harder to do that.

The upside: participation in a rather boring social network.

The downside: you can never reinvent yourself, because you've put too much information out there and people can find out that you actually were only a Director, not a VP, at that job in 2007, or that you spent 4 months at a shitty startup you've since taken off your resume.

But now it's almost socially unacceptable _not_ to have a profile and actively play the game (so as to get double-digit endorsement counts in your specialties).

To me, LinkedIn seems to be a way for those in the slave class to polish their own chains.

<comment><USER67> _> "The downside: you can never reinvent yourself, because you've put too much information out there and people can find out that you actually were only a Director, not a VP, at that job in 2007, or that you spent 4 months at a shitty startup you've since taken off your resume."_

This is one of the reasons I've been thinking about killing my LinkedIn account. Profile stalking with intent to discredit seems pretty damn common.

I'd always been aware of this, but only in the last five years or so have I apparently become influential enough (at work) to be a target of it.

<comment><USER66> I wrote on this earlier: [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why- i-wiped-m...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/01/02/why-i-wiped-my- linkedin-profile/)

 _Profile stalking with intent to discredit seems pretty damn common._

Precisely. Take start and end dates, which are often not well defined (consulting arrangements that become full-time, severance agreements). Then there is the issue of title. Sometimes you want to inflate it, but just as often you want to deflate one (to establish trend, or reduce one's role in an unsuccessful venture) and possibly to a previous title you held at that company, which few would consider dishonest. You rarely know, at the time, how you'll want to tell a story 5 years in the future.

However, to the Clueless, any whiff of inconsistency suggests poor integrity, while such people still get demolished by real unethical people and their long cons. Actual unethical people don't fudge their titles or dates or references, they extort their managers and companies into giving them accolades "legitimately".

I would rather hire the guy who lied about his executive title/role on his resume than the (more common) one who actually had it but got it (as most corporate executives do) through extortion.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER68> Down with Creepware! Down With Creeps!</comment>


The browser you loved to hate - <AUTHOR> http://browseryoulovedtohate.com

<comment><USER2> ummm ... so, well, if you really want to be loved and be genuinely good, then think about open sourcing. interesting pattern i'm observing among the new (younger) generation of developers ... many are implicitly not testing IE, and some are opening rejecting IE support ... and I don't think it was a question of performance as it was the values that go into the browser and the community behind it.

Here's an example from earlier this year. [http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/01/bootstrapped-startup- saves-...](http://techcrunch.com/2012/04/01/bootstrapped-startup-saves- over-100k-by-dropping-ie/)</comment>


Why Google Plus won't hurt Facebook, but Skype will hate it - <AUTHOR> http://gigaom.com/2011/06/28/why-google-plus-wont-hurt-facebook-but-skype-will-hate-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OmMalik+%28GigaOM%3A+Tech%29 <comment><USER3> > _One of the reasons why I think Facebook is safe is because it cannot be > beaten with this unified strategy. Theoretically speaking, the only way to > beat Facebook is through a thousand cuts._

That's not a reason, that's just an assertion backed up with an assertion.

> _I don't feel quite compelled to switch from Facebook or Twitter to Google_

Well, neither do I, but I'm sure as shit going to try it, and make my friends try it too - and then I'll make an _informed_ decision. And anyway, there's not necessarily any reason I'll need to _stop_ using FB or Twitter - <USER2> I'll use all three, which would still be a win for Google.

<comment><USER4> I don't think people need to _switch_ anything, and that's the genius of it. Pretty sure everyone "will be" on Google+ want it or not.

<comment><USER5> Well, so was every Gmail user on Buzz, but it didn't exactly made it a success.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Huddle? Sparks? Hangout? Such flamboyant names!

Don't they realize their greatest hits have always been dull names: Google Mail, Google Chat, Google Apps, Google Search. OTOH their failures were just as flamboyant: Buzz, Wave, Knol... Is that the work of some expensive branding consultants?

But I hope Google+ catches on. FB needs some competitive pressure to start getting their act straight.

<comment><USER7> "Google" itself is(was?) rather unconventional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "Keep me posted" link on their home page returns a 404:

<https://www.google.com/intl/en-GB/+/learnmore/notifyme.html>

A bit strange to see a rookie mistake like that from Google, given the fanfare over this thing.

I have a bad feeling this is going to be like Wave - those people who do get invites have nobody to talk to so by the time everyone else gets invited the interest has peaked.

I really hope not, though. Facebook seriously need competition.

<comment><USER9> Worked for me earlier and works for me now. Either it was down temporarily or you've got something else going on.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> > _"I personally think Skype Video can easily be brought to its knees by > Google Plus' Hangout."_

That's not much of a reason.

<comment><USER11> Not to mention that Skype has a lot of business users. I don't see them migrating to a social network.

<comment><USER12> Why not?

Step 1: G+ is integrated into Google Apps for Business. Every business account is tied to a G+ account.

Step 2: Departments use it for communication. The CEO uses it for top-down communication. It's no more or no less secure than email as it is, but it gives a better way to manage what was once email groups.

Step 3: Instead of maintaining a Skype address book and an email address book, it's all bundled into one. Conference calls are simple to manage, and how far away is screen sharing and presentation features?

G+ could, if Google were inclined, become a Skype killer, and a Lotus Notes killer, and finally become an Outlook killer.

Now, I'm not saying that Google has the vision, or that Google has it in their DNA, but it is possible.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Facebook will integrate Group Video Chat from Skype in a few weeks - bet on it.

</comment><comment><USER14> Google would be better off targeting linkedin. I'm not even remotely enthused with what I've seen of this plus thing.</comment>


Social Thing (Techstars) Acquired By AOL - <AUTHOR> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/01/suddenly-aol-loves-lifestreaming-buys-socialthing/

<comment><USER2> I got twitter-spammed by SocialThing.

I don't care how great your service is - if you spam me, I'll never use your service, out of principle.

Someone should create a hall of shame of web 2.0 companies who twitter-spam.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Hell of a week for startups. Omnisio, Socialthing, etc.

</comment><comment><USER3> Congrats to Ben and Matt and team over there at socialthing.

</comment><comment><USER4> Congrats! Is that Techstars' first acquisition?

<comment><USER5> Yeah, to the best of my knowledge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Congrats guys.</comment>