Bournegol – Algol-like dialect of C used to write the original Bourne shell - <AUTHOR> http://oldhome.schmorp.de/marc/bournegol.html <comment><USER2> Reminds me of an intro to programming book in German that I once had, covering different styles from imperative to OO. Not even that old, late 90s I guess. But I guess the author just had to use C, even if he'd have preferred Pascal. So the very first thing the book does is introduce a boatload of preprocessor macros to make it look like Pascal. A weird way to start out if you had some prior C experience…

Then again, for short academic programs it probably won't cause that much confusion, having running code is more a side-effect of that, so it's a bit like executable pseudocode.

It does make me wonder what's the biggest program out there that's been written with heavy preprocessor abuse. Then again, not sure whether I'd really wanna know…

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought it was amusing until I read that:

        #define LOBYTE      0377
        #define STRIP       0177
        #define QUOTE       0200

I can deal with preprocessor abuse but octal crosses the line...

Also, in case anybody would have the bad idea to take inspiration from that code, don't do that:

        #define MAX(a,b)	((a)>(b)?(a):(b))

It evaluates the macro parameters twice.

Although, on second thought, don't do anything like that code anyway.

<comment><USER4> Octal was far more common than hex back then, due to machines with a wordsize that was a multiple of 3 bits; hence Unix permissions, coming from the 18-bit PDP-7, also inheriting that convention.

<comment><USER3> Interesting, you have a source for that?

I thought permissions were given in octal just because they're groups of 3 bits (owner/group/other) so it aligns with octal correctly.

<comment><USER5> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programmed_Data_Processor)

       PDP-1  18 bit
       PDP-2  24 bit
       PDP-3  36 bit
       PDP-4  18 bit
       PDP-5  12 bit
       PDP-6  36 bit
       PDP-7  18 bit

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-7](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PDP-7)

"In 1969, Ken Thompson wrote the first UNIX system in assembly language on a PDP-7, then named Unics as a pun on Multics"

CDC "super" computers also had 60-bit words.

Moreover, the original ASCII standard had the 7-bit characters, the improvement over even less bits used for characters before that (6 bits == 2 octal digits). 8-bit bytes weren't something you could expect except when buying IBM (which had EBCDIC, not ASCII).

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is an interesting sort of forerunner to another topic in yesterday's HN [1], Cello [2], which appears to be essentially a more thorough, and better- grounded version of Bournegol.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799070](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8799070)

[2] [http://libcello.org/](http://libcello.org/)

</comment><comment><USER7> Wonder the rational for

      #define TRUE (-1)
      #define FALSE 0

instead of

      #define TRUE (1==1)
      #define FALSE !TRUE

edit: re-formatting

<comment><USER7> replying to myself, −1 is 1111 1111 in 8-bit two's-complement integer</comment></comment>


What Should I Know About (Insert Container Project Here) - <AUTHOR> https://youtu.be/jB3pi2knSFM <comment><AUTHOR> This is a talk I gave at OpenStack Tokyo yesterday around market analysis and R&D work I've done in the container ecosystem and specifically how the various projects compare to one another including: Docker, Swarm, Kubernetes, CoreOS, Flocker, Mesos, DCOS, Marathon plus more, as well as how it can relate to OpenStack.

If you're interested in the slides themselves, you can find them here: [https://www.scribd.com/doc/287401286/What-Should-I-Know- Abou...](https://www.scribd.com/doc/287401286/What-Should-I-Know-About-Insert- Container-Project-Here)</comment>


Google+ now lets you use any name you want - <AUTHOR> https://plus.google.com/u/0/+googleplus/posts/V5XkYQYYJqy <comment><USER3> Ha, what a disaster G+ has to be for Google. They must kind of be looking at it like "ew what do we do with this thing now?"

They should've taken a more holistic and serious approach to bringing your offline identity online. Instead they tried to copy FB. They should've just called it Google Identity(with the same level of seriousness as Youtube's copyright protection product: Content ID) and provided real-life perks with associating say your Driver's license number with it which maybe would allow me to renew my driver's license much more quickly. I don't know. G+ is just _weak_.

I mean at the end of the day, they DO have your identity. I'm sure their algorithms could within a certainly small margin of error determine who I am to a reasonably high degree of probability based on nothing other than lines in a bunch of log files(DoubleClick Ad requests on various sites, YouTube video watch times, Google Searches based on time of day/location, mobile usage, etc); again, regardless of where or when or how I use Google(i.e. using igonito browsers, using a friend's phone, using a computer an internet cafe, etc.). So why not throw all that information under one umbrella, Google Identity, and provide it to me once I claim it.

They're likely able to treat online "behavior" as essentially unique online fingerprints and can just associate that with individual users; that is, they don't really need uniquely identifying data(unique IDs, usernames, etc.), they just need to watch your online activity(regardless of if you're logged in or have identifying cookies, etc.) for a while in order to identify you.

I assume it's because consumers probably aren't ready to know just how much data Google actually has on them AND how much information can be extracted from said data. It's likely pretty accurate and pretty scary.

<comment><USER4> To be honest, one differentiator that would me use Google+ over Facebook is a -1 button.

I love to dislike things, especially if disliking them would affect their Google ranking (I'm looking at you Quora and your dark patterns!).

Not only I would love the -1 button, but also negative endorsement, and pretty much any Google+ feature, but with a negative twist.

That would really encourage me to use Google+, or should I say Google-.

<comment><USER5> A -1 button affecting search rank would be used almost entirely by dark-hat SEO firms.

<comment><USER4> How about a -1 that affects ranking ONLY to people who enables the feature and follows you?

I mean, if I follow an expert in his area, it makes more sense to me to see that he doesn't endorse spammy-website.com, than to see he endorses "Chrome Beta for Android".

<comment><USER6> This used to exist - SearchWiki gave you the opportunity to either vote up a search result or to remove it entirely. Both of these actions would affect only your own results - there were vague plans to eventually use the data to improve ranking, but the spam/SEO implications were never solved.

Basically people just used it to kill experts-exchange.com. Usage was tiny otherwise, and the experts-exchange case was fixed when StackOverflow started getting traction and Panda put the final nail into experts-exchange's coffin.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Finally.

I know it's a bit childish, but for my pseudonymous Google account, I kept getting these notices that they were going to disable my Google+ account unless I gave them my real name, unless I could show them documentation proving that the pseudonym was my legal name, so I just found some pictures of middle fingers and that sort of thing and photoshopped them onto a photo of a license and submitted that. They give you a few chances to submit something, so I had a little fun picking out new insulting pictures for a while, until I got bored of it (which was almost instantly).

Obviously it wasn't going to have any effect other than to virtually flip off some random person being paid to check IDs, but it was at least cathartic in the face of such a stupid, stupid policy.

<comment><USER8> I've always liked just making an image with some leaked-but-still-technically- classified information, on the (admittedly very unlikely) off chance that someone with clearance might see it and have to get themselves debriefed.

<comment><USER9> You should know that's a federal crime, if you're talking about leaked U.S. classified material. Simply because you see the _Washington Post_ printing Snowden's leaks doesn't mean handling and distributing classified information isn't a crime. It is still classified and carries full force even though it has been printed; no "cat out of the bag" defense applies.

Very importantly, I'm not stating an opinion on this legal situation, just pointing it out.

<comment><USER10> 100% Incorrect. If the OP has a security clearance, then maybe... At most he is probably in violation of the NDA he signed, not any criminal laws. To actually violate the criminal statues around Leaking classified material you have to CAUSE ACTUAL HARM to the US government.

The original leaker obviously causes harm, but the guy submitting a public document to Google for fun....that's going to be hard for a judge to believe.

It's remotely feasible that a person without a security clearance could be convicted of a crime for re publishing classified documents, but it would have to be some very odd situation.

<comment><USER9> No, it depends on the information. Read 18 U.S.C. §793 and §798.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Google is in an ugly place right now. Not only are they beholden to the advertising agency they are now the poster boy for all the NSA spying and other controversies because of their massive information footprint, real name policies, constant nagging for phone numbers in gmail, etc.

Apple and others have positioned itself as privacy friendly as well, which is a double whammy.

I'd love to see G+ be the seedy version of Facebook. Fake names, nudity, etc. You can't beat facebook by being facebook.

Hopefully, "real names everywhere" is a fad that is dying. The search engines and employers of the world don't need to know my every political thought or see my every vacation photo. Zuckerberg's idea of the internet exists only because its profitable for him. In every other respect its insane.

<comment><USER12> > Google is in an ugly place right now.

I disagree. Massively.

After Elon Musk, and possibly partly inspired by him, Page has driven Google to be, by far, the most ambitious tech titan in the game right now.

Looking past G+ and its nonsense (which is an ugly thing, granted.): \- Loon is in motion, and in conjunction with recent drone acquisitions, will likely bring internet to currently unconnected billions. \- Self-driving cars are actually happening. \- The smart contact lens for glucose monitoring will change the lives of diabetics. \- Investments and acquisitions in AI and Robotics speak to a MASSIVE ambition in that sphere. \- The recent announcements in their consumer lines with TV, Nest, Auto, and wearables are extremely competitive.

And these are just the things we know about.

Compare all this to Apple (which I love, but a Beats acquisition, a bigger iPhone, and a watch coming? Woop-de-doo.), and Facebook (how's Slingshot doing?), it's not even the same game anymore.

To say that Google is an ugly place, or that they're "beholden to the advertising agency", is naive to the bigger picture.

<comment><USER13> Everything you described is Sergey, not Larry. Larry did G+.

<comment><USER12> Right right, I digress there. Still, the point of the case remains - Google is crushing it and is, along with Musk & co., absolutely one of the most exciting companies in the world to watch right now.

<comment><USER14> So is the NSA.

<comment><USER15> How long will it be until every mentioned of Google isn't followed by some sort of NSA related comment? Everyone knows, to an extent, what happened and it really adds nothing to the conversation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> "For this we apologize"

There's a lot of sniping at Google here, but I think they deserve some kudos for using the A word in corporate communications.

<comment><USER17> I was at google while the nymwars were going on. The debate was just as heated and polarizing inside google as it was externally. I'm also surprised (pleasantly) to see someone use the A word here. I think this is an attempt to start over after exit and/or political defeat of certain high level execs. But I also think it may be too late. G+ has missed the bus to be anything more than the butt of jokes and hilarious memes (A google employee ate a donut, here's a picture etc..). Certainly a lesson in there somewhere about hubris and corrupting influence of power etc.

<comment><USER18> Vic did, in fact, approve this change well before he left. (It wasn't just an overnight switch flip, hence why it took a while to actually go live - <USER2> documents have to be rewritten and approved, ux flows have to be modified, etc.)

<comment><USER17> Maybe. You seem to have heard it directly from Vic. I think the more plausible scenario is the CEO finally having had enough and pulling the plug on both the name policy as well as Vic's tenure at google. How this sequence of events is then presented to the rest of the public (including rest of Google) would then be a matter of following a corporate playbook written by experts in that domain.

<comment><USER18> You're allowed to be cynical, but I'm also allowed to tell you that you don't know how Google works internally. :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I pretty much grew up on-line. I got into BBSs when 1200 baud was considered fast. The basics of having on-line identities really have changed all that much in all that time. To newer generations it's even more natural. When I see companies completely screw up basic stuff like this, I wonder if these decisions are being made by people who were never really part of the on-line world and fundamentally don't "get" it?

The people at Google making these decisions aren't some 75 year old fuddy duddy luddites, they're about my age and they're running one of the most important properties in that world. Screwing up something as basic as this has just seemed so... _weird_. I can only imagine that the final say-so came from somebody/people who fundamentally didn't grow up with the same kind of comfort and experience I did on-line and really doesn't understand it.

But then again, my parents, who never even used a computer until the 2000s, and never even got on-line until 2003 or 2004 get it. It seems to obvious as soon as you jump on-line that you are both empowered and need to have on-line identities that you can control.

I really wonder if the people at the top are really part of the on-line world, or just completely removed from it and spend their time wondering about all these digital ants in the digital ant farm and wondering what we're all about?

<comment><USER20> > spend their time wondering about all these digital ants in the digital ant > farm and wondering what we're all about?

This announcement certainly reinforces that notion. Google+ announces as an anonymous "we", that their name policy "helped create a community made up of real people." As opposed to fake people? Anonymous people are real, so is this a reference to bots? The name policy prevented bots? No. It didn't. This is ridiculous corporate code language. So ya, pushing around their digital ants is exactly how this announcement reads.

<comment><USER21> _Anonymous "we"_

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_%28novel%29)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> "When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names."

I _wanted_ to use my real name. My legal, backed by a name change order, mononymic name.

After watching them fumble it, trying to use a space or a dot, and being told to gtfo or change it to a "real" name (and once again, fuck you very hard Google, even the TSA is able to deal with this), I left.

And now I'm looking around for the giant hole in my life that can finally be filled by G+. ... looking ... looking ...

</comment><comment><USER23> I kind of wish Google would have let you pick which display name to use on a per-circle basis. Then I could use a pseudonym with strangers, a nickname with friends, and my real name with family.

<comment><USER24> I always feel like these services are designed wrong. You want to be able to have multiple identities for different people, but having one organization that can associate them all with one another defeats a lot of the purpose of that. Especially if you're using it for anything that could get you into real trouble if e.g. someone were to break into that service and obtain or publicly disclose all the associations, like democracy activists in oppressive countries.

You can always create completely separate accounts and then use them over Tor one at a time blah blah blah, but that's a huge usability failure. What you really want is a UI that allows you to sign in to multiple accounts without the server knowing they're all the same person (which means native software, probably with something like Tor automatically using separate circuits for each account), and then allows you to seamlessly receive messages for any of them and clearly delineates which account you're sending from when you post something.

<comment><USER25> For most of us, most of the time, having the central site aware of all our pseudonyms wouldn't be a problem. Even if they divulged your identity upon lawful (court order) request. Even if they consistently targeted advertising at you, through some kind of layer that let advertisers aim at demographics without revealing ID.

Most of the time, it would be enough to have some sort of unified Google login (in a Google iframe or whatever), offered as a service to different sites on the Web, and different pseudonyms available that __don't reveal your 'true' ID or other pseudonyms to the site owner__.

I'm a little surprised that Google haven't offered some kind of 'Google Identity' service to the web at large based on this sort of idea. It wouldn't be good enough for activists in oppressive regimes, but it would offer a convenience to general people who like to keep separate identities on different sites.

<comment><USER26> > I'm a little surprised that Google haven't offered some kind of 'Google > Identity' service to the web at large based on this sort of idea.

The problem, I think, is that, given the current "don't be evil, just creepily self-serving!" attitude that seems to guide Google, no one would trust them. Even if one could trust them to keep one's identity private _at launch_ , I am sure that anything like this would come loaded with the kind of "T&C may change without notice at any time" codicil that would allow them to permit themselves to disclose your identity later.

<comment><USER18> The popularity of "Sign In with Facebook" seems to belie that.

<comment><USER26> I think that I disagree (that this is a counterexample); it shows that people want a 'one-stop' identity solution, but not that they trust Facebook to keep their identity private.

<comment><USER18> But the statement to which I was replying is "the problem is that ... no one would trust them". The popularity of "Sign In with Facebook" belies that it's a problem to not be trusted (at least when it comes to offering identity services).

<comment><USER26> Ah, I see. I was implicitly assuming that the parent's other requirement:

> different pseudonyms available that __don't reveal your 'true' ID or other > pseudonyms to the site owner__

(which isn't offered by Facebook—right?—and which _does_ require trust in the issuer) would be part of the putative Google Identity.

On the other hand, having spent this much time arguing that it wouldn't happen, I'm now wondering why OpenID with Google as 'vouching agent' (or whatever that part is called) doesn't count.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> I suspect the outrage had more to do with signalling than the specific issue of pseudonyms.

I also suspect that signalling will become more important for web companies than most hardware companies, because I am more directly affected by what happens behind the scenes with web companies than say, a skateboard manufacturer. It's difficult to infer behind the scenes - what are they doing w/ my data, etc - without using some signals, like not allowing pseudonyms.

I imagine that startups face this most dramatically, because their product is so fragile and indefinite that signalling is used to forecast where things are headed before I invest significant time and money. This goes for all kinds of signalling - how likely are they to end the product, to lose funding and shut down, to dramatically increase prices, etc.

Is this true, or did most outraged (or just indifferent, but not excited) users really dislike the pseudonym policy itself?

<comment><USER28> I disliked the pseudonym policy itself, I found it to be a puzzling policy considering how immigrant-filled the tech industry is, and Google too.

I was born in a different country, with a different name. I operate with an anglicized name, which took years to become my legal name. There was a long period where the name everyone knew me as wasn't my legal one. Nowadays my legal name isn't the same name used by family members on a different continent.

Names are fluid, they're significant but ultimately just identifiers to tell us apart. I find the notion that there is a One True Name to be laughably geocentric and completely out of place in a social network (as opposed to say, the IRS).

For me the pseudonym policy was a minor annoyance, making me wonder just how culturally homogenous a team of product people have to be to cook it up. For others it has been much more damaging - trans people outed being probably the most memorable one, though not the only case where an idiotic policy has had unexpectedly severe consequences.

<comment><USER29> It puzzling also because in a tech company, surely there would have been a large number of people with experience from various communities who would know people primarily by a handle, and realise that in many sub-cultures people would be unable to connect with people they know very well if they were forced to use real names.

There are people who have known each other for decades that know each other by e.g. demo-scene handle only. In which case their real name has an anonymizing effect to the people they want to connect to online.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> >We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users.

Was their names policy ever unclear, or are they pretending that this was all just a misunderstanding?

<comment><USER31> Yes, it was unclear. The appeals process was always pretty opaque, and it was never clear what qualified as an approvable name.

<comment><USER32> What is unclear about "REAL NAME"? Google wanted whatever is printed on your driver's license or birth certificate. Anything else was not OK.

(which was such an obviously idiotic policy that I hope to hear a candid explanation one day.)

<comment><USER31> Ignoring the ethical question of whether or not Google deserved to receive your legal name, and the ethical question of whether or not it should have forced said legal name onto you as a real name,

The policy was more than just "put in your real name lol". It was also about banning accounts that _didn 't_ have a real name, even where those names were legal. It was about an appeals process when you wanted to show that your name was legitimate even when the algorithm disagreed.

And these things were not clear.

Don't get me wrong; I've regularly defended G+ and I've used the service since being an early adopter and I find the claims that it's a "wreck" or a "ghost town" to be completely bunk. But the names policy _was not clear_. This isn't an ethical or philosophical question. This is just flat-out clarity. And it wasn't.

<comment><USER32> I don't quite understand.

> It was about an appeals process when you wanted to show that your name was > legitimate even when the algorithm disagreed.

If you show your driver's license to Google, and they still don't accept it, then they are behaving irrationally. But their policy is clear as day.

> It was about an appeals process when you wanted to show that your name was > legitimate even when the algorithm disagreed.

Again, it sounds like their algorithm was buggy and wrong. But it doesn't affect their presentation of their own policy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> And yet it still expects you to put in a first name and a last name. How very Anglocentric.

<comment><USER18> That's a whole other can of worms. :) At least mononyms are supported (by entering a '.' in the last name field).

</comment></comment><comment> jack-r-abbit I had no problem with the "G+ uses real names" thing since I just viewed it as another option for Facebook that never really took off. I did have an issue with them forcing everything to use a G+ profile. I quit leaving reviews in the Play Store because of that. And not that I ever really commented on YouTube videos but once that change was forced, it never even crossed my mind to comment. I think they should have kept G+ as "real names" and split all the other stuff back away so they didn't require real names. But I do understand why people want to use other names. I just never used G+ like that.

<comment><USER19> I stopped engaging with Google properties when they changes the youtube comment system and broke it in Chrome. There's some setting about external sites or something that I could go in and change to make it work, but why should I? If they can't create a _comment system_ that works with their own browser, and double posts everything to my g+ account I don't use, why should I bother?

It was like shoving peanuts down the throat of a person with a peanut allergy. No means no.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Funny how they make it sound like it was all planned, rather than "This was stupid idea that made many, who wanted to stay anonymous, avoid using G+". I remember when G+ launched and almost everyone was criticizing this idea - maybe they should listen to the majority of potential users and G+ wouldn't be such ghost-town?

<comment><USER35> If I were to speculate, it has probably been in the works for months now. G+ changed leadership back in April, and the winds probably changed direction with it.

[1] [http://bigstory.ap.org/article/googles-top-social- networking...](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/googles-top-social-networking- executive-departs)

<comment><USER36> Yonatan Zunger claims that Vic Gundotra approved the change.

<comment><USER37> I won't believe that unless Vic can prove it.

edit: I'm being downvoted, but remember that Vic is the one who pushed the names policy in the first place.

<comment><USER18> It's still possible to change your mind. Also, some things to consider: (a) Yonatan is the tech lead for G+. This is something he would be an authority on. (b) I also work for Google, have no particular reason to be loyal to Vic [I've opposed the names policy from the start], and I'm also willing to vouch that Vic approved it.

So if you still don't think that's enough to believe it, well, that's your prerogative, but I doubt anything is going to convince you in that case.

<comment><USER37> Vic has been particularly offensive about this. The restaurant analogy comes to mind. He also stonewalled for a long time, was kind of a dick about it, and refused to budge when presented with evidence. If something magically made him change his mind, I would love to know what it was.

That said, do you know what evidence made Vic push the names policy in the first place?

<comment><USER18> I don't think anything "magically" changed it - more just it evolved over time. See the quote from Yonatan I posted elsewhere in this thread regarding the original motivations and successes or lack thereof.

No idea on evidence question.

<comment><USER37> Surely there were discussions which lead to the names policy, as well as more discussions that lead to the repeal of it?

I have a hard time believing that a single person at Google (Vic) would be given so much free reign to make policy changes based on how it "felt" without having a shred of evidence. Unless I'm misunderstanding?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Now the handful of people who've been waiting on such a change to start using G+ can see be immediately disappointed with how half-assed it is.

I say this as someone with what seems to be an above average engagement with and opinion of G+.

Circles and communities are solid concepts that could work well, but the busted functionality for posting and commenting severely limits content and conversation.

Nobody, not even Google puts effort into G+ profiles. It's just another target for dumping links and hopefully driving some clicks back to your actual site/community.

</comment><comment><USER39> Great, now my online friends can find me by the name they know me by, rather than my real-world name.

Or they could, if I hadn't deleted my G+ profile a year or two ago, in favour of just hanging out with them in the original venues I met them in.

</comment><comment><USER40> I wanted to like Google+. Hell, I still _want_ to like Google+. And it's still better than Facebook in some ways, IMO. But there are just a couple of nagging issues that are such big turn-offs that I can't stand visiting G+.

For one, the two-column stream layout is a steaming pile of shit with no rhyme or reason to the layout and selection of items you see. And the single-column layout wastes so much space with those huge empty spaces on either side of the stream, that it just about drives me batshit crazy.

Add in the fact that they have shown zero interest in giving the world a usable API, and no support for open standards (no RSS/Atom, no OpenSocial, no ActivityStrea.ms, no FOAF, etc.) and G+ - for me - falls so far short of its potential.

It makes me sad, as I was really hoping Google would come along and give us a truly awesome alternative to Facebook and they fumbled the ball.

<comment><USER18> For the single-column layout, [https://userstyles.org/styles/87624](https://userstyles.org/styles/87624) can help. (Though I get it - it's not a built-in thing, which reduces the value.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Is there an opposite of "Streisand effect" ? If not then we might as well call it G+ effect.

Google took some unreasonable steps to make G+ popular that is precisely why I stopped using G+. After G+ I have not commented on any of the YoutTube videos. When Google started uploading every photo on my android device to Google+ and downloaded all PicasaWeb albums on my phone I switched to a fake Google id to be used on my phone. I now use Flikr instead of Picasaweb (now G+).

I now have around 6 fake Google Ids just to make sure Google+ does not put all my info in 1 place.

I am waiting for the day Google will make G+ Compulsory for using Chrome.

<comment><USER29> You can turn off the image upload. In fact, I believe you're asked if you want to enable it in the first place.

<comment><USER41> I was very early adopter. It was by default enabled. Yeah, we can turn off features but it is hard to explain how to do it to my father.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> So they got to a meeting and said: "Listen guys, if allowing nick names won't jumpstart Google+ then I don't know what will. It's either this or we'll close the damn thing." 18 months from now, we'll read about the all-along-planned integration of G+ into Gmail, Drive or YouTube :P

<comment><USER43> You mean un-integration?

<comment><USER44> Were you looking for disintegration?

<comment><USER42> Disintegration! into pieces spread around gmail, drive and YT. That's probably what'll happen :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> While a step in the right direction, Google's move to force real names AND the integration of G+ into their various services over the past few years has killed all of my goodwill towards anything Google. So, what I'm wondering is how does Google plan on rebuilding that lost goodwill? An apology is a nice gesture, but it doesn't make me trust the company. Nor does it fix any of the various screwed up UX issues due to the forced integration of G+ everywhere.

</comment><comment><USER46> I have an anonymous identity on YouTube as well as a readily identifiable one on gmail and it's been ticking me off no end the way, it seems that, google is always trying to trick me into replacing the former with the latter on youtube.

Will this end now too?

<comment><USER47> The design tweak they did 2-3 weeks ago to the Account switcher on Youtube makes it readily apparent which Google account/gmail address the channel belongs to.

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> Wow the whole post reads as if they planned it all along.

When it reality it seems like this is a last ditch attempt to save the wreck that google+ has become.

</comment><comment><USER49> I almost never read posts on G+. Looking at this one reminds me why. Only 16 (16!) percent of the available area is devoted to the post content. On larger screens it would be worse. What a nightmare.

<comment><USER50> I find it much easier to read when the text is in columns of that width (like newspaper) than when it's full width. According to Wikipedia, it's actually recommended to put your content in columns of about 60 characters[1].

And it's not that narrow; facebook's newsfeed is about the same width as that post on my 23" monitor.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_%28typography%29#Typogra...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Column_%28typography%29#Typographic_style)

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Bwahaha..

Okay, now which number do I call to get my account (moved _from_ my full name to 'Ben .' in protest during the nymwars) unblocked? I mean.. I'm not even sure I'd care at this point but are they even thinking of all the blocked users? Or do I need to send in my government issued ID to get my profile unblocked so that I can .. move away from my real name..??

Actually I just visited plus.google.com and surprisingly enough I wasn't greeted by the loop of death (previously I had a page that said that I'm blocked, with a link saying "You can check here why", which redirected to the very same page). Now I can "upgrade" and enroll. It seems.

I .. need to provide a first name and a last name though.. How does that compute? Why can't I be "Ben" or "Randomthingyhere"? Real names aren't required, but first and last names are?

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

<comment><USER18> You can be "Ben". [https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1228271](https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1228271) Enter a '.' as the last name to use a mononym.

<comment><USER52> If you enter a '.' as your surname, will G+ omit this when displaying your name?

<comment><USER18> Yes. It will be rendered in G+ as a mononym.

<comment><USER53> If it does, then it does so inconsistently. For me it doesn't on the About page: [https://plus.google.com/u/0/115709092170300569371/about](https://plus.google.com/u/0/115709092170300569371/about)

<comment><USER18> There was a bug uncovered as part of the launch today where some of them aren't rendering properly - there's a fix in the works; the dot should disappear when it goes live without any action on your part. (Don't know when it will go live yet.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> So this seems like a first concrete sign of a change in direction since Vic's moving on. After arguing passionately against their real name policy for so long it feels strange now that they have actually done it. On the one hand it's a hopeful sign, but on the other hand it reminds me of companies that open source their products only after they decided it failed. Is this a sign Google is positively steering G+ in a new direction or have they just given up and decided now they don't care any more they should just off load the bad PR of the real name policy? At least now I might start reviewing and rating Android apps again now that my real name isn't going to be publicly displayed to the developer.

<comment><USER18> FWIW, this policy change was in the works long before Vic left (and Vic was the one who initially approved it). G+ hasn't been given up on.

<comment><USER54> Interesting info, thanks! And good to know. I like G+ and I don't want Google to give up on it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> what is the fuss about? My version of "Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov" (translation: "John J Johnson") was ok on Facebook, Google+, etc... yesterday, ok today and will be ok tomorrow :)

I have never used my real name on Internet except for the LinkedIn (where obviously i have nothing that can be construed as an opinion of any sort :) and cases where i had to enter my CC/bank info.

Ability to maintain several identities is the gift of the Internet, an additional virtual dimension added to our lives. Why wouldn't we explore it? Why voluntarily confine ourselves to the plain boring and sterile world of "real name policy" places like FB?

<comment><USER56> Facebook is asking for official ID for new accounts in some places.

I have had to change my Facebook name also. "We see you're not using your real name".

I just changed it to a real sounding name that is also not my real name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> What does this really change? I mean seriously. Google is the company that lets you "turn off web history", and then goes ahead and _tracks it anyway_. Do you have Do Not Track enabled in Chrome? Tough luck. It's just for show there, because Google doesn't respect it.

So how am I to believe that using a different name and e-mail address on Google+, Google won't know I'm the same person, because of all of their tracking from Chrome, Youtube, search, and so on?

And if they do that, then how is this any different than using an "alias" right now on Google+? This seems more like a PR move from Google.

<comment><USER58> If you're worried Google is tracking you through chrome, you might consider switching to a more privacy centric browser you can trust, like Firefox.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> My favorite part, is when they tried to sell us the idea that the real name enforcement was the best improvement that could happen to youtube.

I would had preferred a sincere apology for screwing things up, was it really hard to admit failure??? Even Microsoft has apologized for previous failues like Windows 8 and Internet Explorer!!!

But anyway... with this announcement Google+, and in general, any Google-owned public website like Youtube has lost any credibility to me.

<comment><USER59> I once even got a product manager apologize for the woefully substandard test automation tools built into Visual Studio. Perhaps my finest hour.

<comment><USER60> The people who work at Microsoft are just regular humans, too, you know. Why does it make you so gleeful to hear this?

<comment><USER4> Because, unlike the other 99.99% of tech companies, they acknowledge publicly the frustration they have caused with the issues of their product.

The least I want is a company that claims everything they do is perfect, and pretends nothing is wrong.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> I wonder if this was done to appease the existing YouTube users that refused connect the account to a Google+ account with their real name.

Anybody who was already on Google+ didn't mind the real-name policy, but they certainly weren't going to tell millions of YouTube people "Sorry we don't have a place for you anymore."

I am still skeptical that many YouTube members will create Google+ profiles as a result of this.

<comment><USER62> _" Anybody who was already on Google+ didn't mind the real-name policy"_

...because those that did didn't join up in the first place. Nymwars.

<comment><USER31> Both of those statements are untrue. The nymwars took place _on Google Plus_ as much as they did anywhere else.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> Man, this is way too late. Definitely feel bad for Google about Google+.

<comment><USER64> yes - it must be a harrowing time for sergey and brin

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I still like G+ but this comes a little too late

</comment><comment><USER66> Great, now I can use my secret identity there. Admittedly, pretty much anything is effectively secret when I use G+.

</comment><comment><USER67> Google still won't allow their users to use the url name as my nickname

for example, my email is email@example.com, i want to use url plus.google.com/+guest666, but google won't allow me to do that, even when guest666 is available to be claim. They force me to use +(my name)

<comment><USER68> That was the final blow to me. That day I removed G+ account from Google Apps mail. It is just stupid.

1\. My name is "Firstname Lastname".

2\. I've checked and for plus.google.com/+<URL>, both "FirstName" and "LastName" aren't used by anyone. Hell, even "FirstnameLastname" is not taken, or even the part of my first name which is my nickname let's call it "First" is free.

3\. But Google wants me to have a stupid URL like plus.google.com/+FirstnameLastname<some stupid characters or numbers here>, just because some algorithm thinks "a lot of people might want that name".

Well, then fuck you Google!

IMHO they just want to shut-down G+ with little grace or sth.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> I wrote this submission, notice I emphasized the irony: [http://slashdot.org/submission/1778830/google-is-gagging- use...](http://slashdot.org/submission/1778830/google-is-gagging-user- advocates)

And for the record, I don't like real name policies but I also don't like it when people have to use throwaways or pseudonyms either. For example, I still remember this: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7809766](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7809766)

</comment><comment><USER70> I want to be able to change my Google+ name to a nickname, not showing my real name at all. And I want my gmail email to still come from my real name. As far as I can tell, there is no way to do that.

</comment><comment><USER71> And once again they miss the point that so many of us never touched google plus over.

The name thing was a big deal for many, but for far more was the banning itself.

Getting banned on google plus for whatever google decides on a whim is against its terms of use that day (e.g. stupid name policy) will also nuke your gmail.

Far too many people were dependent on a free service with zero guarantees back then, many still are - there is just no reason to risk losing your gmail over cat updates when facebook is completely separate.

<comment><USER72> False. In the past, if your profile was suspended (for example, because of your name), it _only_ affected your Google+ profile. Your Gmail still worked exactly the same.

Some people spread rumours in the early days of Google+ that your Gmail would be shut down if your Google+ was suspended, but that was never the case.

<comment><USER71> I recall the suspension thing being the whole reason the name thing came to light, perhaps I am mistaken?

Edit: Seems you are correct:

> Horowitz also took time to dispel the rumor that a suspension of a Google+ > account means that a user loses his or her access to Gmail, Google Docs or > other Google services. "When an account is suspended for violating the > Google+ common name standards, access to Gmail or other products that don't > require a Google+ profile are not removed," he said.

[http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/google-plus-common- names/](http://mashable.com/2011/07/25/google-plus-common-names/)

<comment><USER73> Except there were a shitload of reports of it happening anyway.

<comment><USER72> I believe that in the early days, one or two people had their whole account shut down and went around complaining that it was because of Google+'s name policy when really it was because of something completely unrelated (distributing illegal content from their account, I think). The rumours spread from their, making it seem like it was happening to a lot of people, when it really never happened at all.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER74> > but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without > using their real names.

And people who didn't mind using their real names but were worried that Google won't think they're real enough and block their access to all services they used for years. They failed hard on that one, but now it's not even mentioned anymore. I'm slightly disappointed they just want to sweep that under the rug...

</comment><comment><USER75> Maye they finally reached a critical mass in their social graph of real people that it might be possible to match the anonymous, active people.

</comment><comment><USER76> I won't say that having my name keeps me from saying stupid things, but I do tone it down and work towards more positive posts because of it. Just like I _try_ to do here (and often fail due to a huge, yet stupid, ego). I think everyone should have a choice but I encourage everyone to use their real name.

</comment><comment><USER77> I'm not interested in using a web service that "lets" me do things I can already do without it.

</comment><comment><USER78> > We know that our names policy has been unclear

No, Google, your names policy was never unclear, it was crystal clear and also completely moronic.

Glad to see you finally see the light, even if you won't acknowledge that you're simply correcting a mistake that everybody else but you saw.

</comment><comment><USER79> ah the final act before G+ is shut down in favor of G++

</comment><comment><USER80> Next step, remove G+ from Youtube. More specifically, use G+ for authentication but bring back Youtube accounts. Alternatively maybe add a site/application specific alias option to G+.

I don't want to have 2 G+ accounts (like I have now) for no real reason.

</comment><comment><USER81> I refuse to become emotionally invested in G+ because Google is infamous for shutting down products that aren't used by the majority of its users. Reading all the negative comments from this post reaffirms my decision.

</comment><comment><USER82> Twitter = Perceptions,

Facebook = People,

Google+ = Passions.

Each have their respective place. I like G+ and I actually get quite a lot out of it. It took some real time investment to fully appreciate it. I hope it doesn't go the way of the dodo or reader though.

</comment><comment><USER83> Ah, they finally realized that there are non-trollish cases where people want to express a thought online without having it indexed and searchable by everyone they ever meet in life.

Or they just want to compete with facebook...

</comment><comment><USER84> Just as the NSTIC was defunded, Google changes it's real name policy.

</comment><comment><USER37> Happy #nymwars anniversary, Google!

Finally.

</comment><comment><USER85> I'm actually really starting to like g+ .. Took me a while but it far superior to any other social network.. The problem for me is still trusting google with that much Data.

</comment><comment><USER86> Thank you, no. My account is going to remain deactivated.

</comment><comment><USER87> Why bother, it will be shut down by years end anyway.

</comment><comment><USER88> This wouldn't have been that bad if they didn't accept obviously fake names such as 'agu monkey'.

</comment><comment><USER89> Really? Diaspora* did that from the start.

</comment><comment><USER90> Thanks for leading the way here, Google.

<comment><USER91> If leading the way is making a bad decision that has a huge public backlash, sticking with it for 3 years while the service languishes, and then reversing it in a last ditch effort to save face... I really hope no one else follows.

<comment><USER92> Woosh, that's the sound of sarcasm flying past you.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER93> This will be a great feature for 2011!

</comment><comment><USER94> So Google+ wants to pivot to become MySpace? The only problem their G+ brand is weak and uncool.

</comment><comment><USER95> Just changed my name to Northern Lights. They still pissed and whined when I tried.

</comment><comment><USER96> "We shoved this product up your ass real hard, but we still failed to compete with Facebook. Today, we are taking the last step: allowing you to choose any name you want. We hope to gain a little bit of Internet karma with this before we become irrelevant."

</comment><comment><USER31> Wow. That's a lot of comments being unhappy about the change.

<comment><USER97> Yeah, and I find it funny how many people equated to the policy change being a harbinger of an onslaught of trolling.

Meanwhile I have at least three Google profiles, all with obvious (to me) fake names that I've used for a long time, since G+ ever asked me to merge my Google Mail with them.

I think they're latching onto the wrong aspect of social networks, identity, and such in their complaints.

The real issues are that there's no signifier for "verified" individuals (like on Amazon, maybe by way of Google Wallet?) and no way to limit +1s or comments to such users. I think that's the only way to really impose the feeling of non-anonymity on a user's comment or whatnot.

Also, some of the complainers are just idiots who don't understand how to use circles to restrict interactions or comments on their content... which sucks because I actually dig Google's model there.

</comment></comment><comment><USER98> Too little, too late.

</comment><comment><USER99> Backpedaling is the name of the game...

</comment><comment><USER100> Awesome changes, just 3 years too late.

</comment><comment><USER87> so YouTube comments are back?

</comment><comment><USER19> Whatever.

</comment><comment><USER84> I don't know about you, but I have no problem using my real name. Anywhere.

<comment><USER101> Good for you. This isn't about you, then. The people who it is about are listed here:

[http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Rea...](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F)

<comment><USER102> Not only those. I don't want to use my real name ever and I'm definitely not on that list. I just want to be anonymous and be able to write whatever I want without it harming my real persona.

<comment><USER103> On the flip side, I don't want to be anonymous, I want my achievements tied to my real persona --- but my real persona is "Shish" (with no surname), and G+ didn't allow that... (And apparently it still doesn't -- despite the policy change, "surname" is still a required field)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


SML# version 3.0.1 has been released - <AUTHOR> http://www.pllab.riec.tohoku.ac.jp/smlsharp/ <comment><USER2> SML needs a roadmap forward.

</comment><comment><USER2> changelog?

<comment><AUTHOR> Couldn't find any official changelog.

Biggest feature of this release seems to be 64bit multicore programming.

My experience with this release so far:

\- installation on ubuntu 16.04 worked \- it was very easy to create a statically linked executable and run it on my server \- excellent foreign function interface \- separate compilation mechanism \- multicore support \- record polymorphism

For me it is just great to see how SML# matures as a platform.</comment></comment>


Kano – A computer you make yourself - <AUTHOR> http://www.kano.me/

<comment><USER2> After trying to scroll down a little bit with the mouse wheel and then trying the space bar as an alternative and finally just grabbing the scroll knob and adjusting, I gave up trying to read this site. Immensely frustrating.

</comment><comment><USER3> Very interesting. I'll be buying a few, for my nephews and nieces. Thanks for posting.</comment>


Steve Jobs Lives on at the Patent Office - <AUTHOR> http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532841/steve-jobs-lives-on-at-the-patent-office/

<comment><USER2> Yet another article that conflates a design patent (akin to a trademark) with a utility patent (for an invention.)

I'm starting to believe this is on purpose so people will be fowled into thinking you can get a utility patent on a "glass cube" or "rounded rect".</comment>


SSR Framework for Riot.js - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/nesterow/frontless <comment><USER2> I've always been in love with riot.js. It's take on web components is super simple and elegant. This looks like another really neat library.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is really cool, congrats on shipping!</comment>


Fitness giant sues exercise app developers - <AUTHOR> http://www.bicycleretailer.com/news/newsDetail/6671.html?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

<comment><AUTHOR> Incredibly vague patents, used against two companies that have produced innovative fitness products. I hope this doesn't stick.

<comment><USER2> It doesn't have to "stick". The results have already been achieved. These app developers likely don't have the means to defend themselves.

This is another excellent example of patents being issued for implications of technologies, instead of actual inventions. The inventions were USB, wifi/bluetooth, and online databases. Collecting data and storing it was simply the use of those technologies for their intended purpose, and a stupid- obvious one in this case. Its like patenting "driving my car to grandma's". The car was the invention, not deciding to use it to go to grandma's.

<comment><USER3> I'm pretty sure Garmin and Polar are pretty capable of fending for themselves, and I hope that by extension the smaller devs will be able to defend themselves more easily. But I agree on your second point</comment></comment></comment>


Why do programmers where headphones? - andrew-lucker https://medium.com/@andrew_subarctic/why-do-programmers-where-headphones-5ca3a2f81266#.klydikz6q <comment><AUTHOR> Programmers use similar techniques as memory palaces to navigate code? Nothing more than the claim, no examples or explanations? Just changing the subject to "flow", as if it were the same as a memory palace?

This is simply an author trying to fluff up a piece of banality with some serious-sounding concept in the hope that the reader hallucinates a deep connection between those.

Or in other words: intellectually dishonest and worthless.

</comment><comment><USER2> Isn't it Wear not Where? or do I miss some sort of joke/thing?

<comment><USER3> not a joke, i think, just an example of the quality of medium articles.

<comment><USER2> well that is much simpler than what I thought it was

I thought it was that you sort of go to your own world when listening to music</comment></comment></comment>


Researchers find that one person likely drove Bitcoin from $150 to $1,000 - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/15/researchers-finds-that-one-person-likely-drove-bitcoin-from-150-to-1000/ <comment><USER2> Wow, this paper's conclusion is delayed by 3 years. Willy and Markus bots are old news for anyone who has been following bitcoin closely. The source of all these allegations was this blog appearing in 2014:

[https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy- repor...](https://willyreport.wordpress.com/2014/05/25/the-willy-report-proof- of-massive-fraudulent-trading-activity-at-mt-gox-and-how-it-has-affected-the- price-of-bitcoin/)

<comment><USER3> Any recent manipulations ? especially in 2017 end ?

<comment><USER4> Most recently, there's the tape-painting bot Picasso: [https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/meet-picasso-the-painter- on-g...](https://medium.com/@bitfinexed/meet-picasso-the-painter-on- gdax-c478ff8f50e5)

If you were paying attention in the week that followed this post, the spread between GDAX and the other major US exchanges narrowed from $1000+ per coin to just about $11 right now, and trade volumes on GDAX plummeted. Maybe theres's some other reason, though there's some crazy correlation there at least. I'm surprised more people aren't talking about that.

<comment><USER5> Looks like that article was written on the 23rd of December.

That's the same time period around which Coinbase abruptly released Bcash. That time period was a barrage of negative kerfuffles for them.

Historically Coinbase/GDAX has enjoyed "inflated" BTC/USD prices because of their trustworthiness. Contrast with Bitfinex which does not serve US customers, has been hacked in the past, and is (last I heard) in debt from said hack. Or contrast with any of the other exchanges which are either questionable or located outside the U.S. Gemini is the only other state-side trustworthy exchange besides them.

(I say inflated, but it's probably more appropriate to say that the price is a discount on all other exchanges; a discount which accounts for the counterparty risk and difficulty moving USD in/out of them.)

The late December fiascos that Coinbase suffered has likely shaken that sense of trust, at least in the short-term, resulting in both reduced trading volume and reduced prices relative to other exchanges.

So the question is, which theory is more likely? That a single trading bot has complete control over Bitcoin's price and its discovery has resulted in the dismantlement of the program? Or that traders are reacting to the news of "insider trading" by Coinbase employee's? Or maybe it's as simple as being the end of December. The winter holidays slow down markets.

<comment><USER6> Serious question: Why does hackernews seem to be biased towards BTC over BCH?

In my opinion, any honest examination of the tradeoffs between block size, orphan block rate, cost to run a non-mining node (which do not contribute to network security except indirectly via serving SPV wallets), and mining fees, will show that a 1-1.7MB block size limit is just too low for current tx volumes.

The current BTC network is unusable due to the massive fees. Even worse, those who actually used the currency (sorry, I mean store of value?) get penalized for having so many UTXOs. UTXOs directly increase the size in bytes of the transaction, increasing the fees you pay.

I've paid probably an average of $30 fees over the last 2 months, with the highest fee being $100 on a $4000 transaction (fee is related to size in bytes, not dollar value transmitted, I'm giving those numbers just to show how ridiculous it is)

EDIT: Also worth mentioning that the Coinbase CEO does not like blockstream because they censored Brian Armstrong (the CEO) for supporting BIP 101. Bitcoin Core has used a lot of heavy handed and very sketchy tactics to wrest control of the ecosystem in Satoshi's absence. They view themselves as the sole guardians of "consensus".

<comment><USER7> Increasing block size is not a sustainable solution for scaling transactions. Transaction fees are too high and BTC should move to 2MB as a short-term fix but the long-term fix is off-chain solutions like Lightning.

<comment><USER8> Then why is even a harmless increase to 2 or 4 refused? The current confirmation time and fees are beyond any worst case scenario, but yet there are still people completely brainwashed to argue that Bitcoin Core is perfectly fine.

Bitcoin Cash scale what it can scale, that is, blocksize. That's it, it is a pragmatic approach absolutely obvious for anyone with more than 2 year of experience in programming.

<comment><USER9> > Then why is even a harmless increase to 2 or 4 refused?

A side-effect of SegWit is a partial increase to up to 4; the average block size is already above the previous limit of 1.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Study: Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem

Citation: Neil Gandal, JT Hamrick, Tyler Moore, Tali Oberman, Price Manipulation in the Bitcoin Ecosystem, Journal of Monetary Economics (2017)

Link: [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.004](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.004)

DOI: 10.1016/j.jmoneco.2017.12.004

Abstract: To its proponents, the cryptocurrency Bitcoin offers the potential to disrupt payment systems and traditional currencies. It has also been subject to security breaches and wild price fluctuations. This paper identifies and analyzes the impact of suspicious trading activity on the Mt. Gox Bitcoin currency exchange, in which approximately 600,000 bitcoins (BTC) valued at $188 million were fraudulently acquired. During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity. Based on rigorous analysis with extensive robustness checks, the paper demonstrates that the suspicious trading activity likely caused the unprecedented spike in the USD-BTC exchange rate in late 2013, when the rate jumped from around $150 to more than $1,000 in two months.

Highlights:

• Suspicious trades on a Bitcoin currency exchange are linked to rises in the exchange rate.

• A single actor likely drove the USD/BTC exchange rate from $150 to $1000 in 2 months.

• Trading volume on all exchanges increased greatly on days with suspicious activity.

• Unregulated cryptocurrency markets remain vulnerable to manipulation today.

<comment><USER11> To be fair regulated markets are vulnerable to manipulation today

<comment><USER12> That's like saying the recent California wildfires are equivalent to the Great Chicago Fire.

Both are tragedies and both have a certain element of scale to them, but the Chicago fire was actually much much worse. It killed far more people, made far more people homeless, and destroyed far more economic value (adjusted for inflation).

Yes the current regulated markets have serious problems and are in need of reform. But the scale and scope of fraud and manipulation on all crypto currency markets is vastly larger and far more pervasive.

<comment><USER13> Just some interesting trivia. Two days after the Chicago fire which killed ~300 people, there was a much bigger fire in Wisconsin that killed 1200-2500 people. Over 300 people just from the town of Peshtigo died. It was a town with only about 1700 residents. It didn't get much media attention, however, because of the Chicago fire.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peshtigo_Fire)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I suspect this is going on today. Cryptocurrency traders place a lot of faith in the exchanges. A bad actor at an exchange could manipulate a price upwards:

\- Create a ton of volume and potentially and upward trend (two bots trading with one another, increasing the price each time)

\- Generate hype around a coin

\- Let FOMO take over

If things start to go south, disable withdrawals, deposits, or freeze the market until you can get it under control.

I doubt any of this manipulation is even illegal?

<comment><USER15> >> I doubt any of this manipulation is even illegal?

That was my first thought also... in stock/futures trading world, this is 100% normal business as usual. The idea of buying all the available XYZ to run up prices is a valid move for a hedge fund with sufficient capital to do so.

<comment><USER16> In the MtGox case, the exchange was (allegedly) fraudulently buying BTC with cash that didn't exist, which could theoretically continue for as long as they have enough cash on hand to satisfy withdrawal requests. IANAL but in the US that sounds like blatant wire fraud at the very least; I'm not sure about the relevant Japanese law.

<comment><USER17> Of course the cash existed. It was their depositors cash and cash from their depositors Bitcoin

<comment><USER16> Right, I'm saying the exchange isn't actually solvent. The "cash balance" on the fraudulent buyer account wasn't backed by any actual cash deposit or proceeds from BTC sale, it's just a column in a database table.

Theoretically, the exchange buys up a bunch of BTC with non-existent cash, raising the price tenfold, until their real cash deposits are too low to meet withdrawal requirements, then they do as the grandparent post says and disable withdrawals, deposits, or freeze the market until they can get it under control.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> The paper is written rather... colloquially. Not necessairly a problem. But it seems mostly concerned with telling the story, and that a huge buyer in the market causes prices to go up. That's not market manipulation.

However, there is also the claim that the buyer did not actually have to pay for the BTC they bought. Well, that's certainly a (very strong!) form of manipulation, but it's not what people traditionally mean when they use the phrase. There is normally an expectation that you have real money and are following exchange procedures, but simply behaving in a way that is frowned upon or considered unfair/detrimental to the reputation of the market. As far as I can tell, people are still worried about traditional manipulation in Bitcoin markets, for things like marking the close. The behaviour described here is more akin to hacking/traditional fraud - it is not zero-sum.

<comment><USER19> I agree, the version of the paper published for the Workshop on the Economics of Information Security [http://weis2017.econinfosec.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/3/2...](http://weis2017.econinfosec.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/3/2017/05/WEIS_2017_paper_21.pdf) has a large number of small mistakes and the statistical analysis performed is pretty poor and badly explained.

And you're right, it is not really market manipulation, it is blatant fraud by Mark Karpeles and he will almost certainly be found guilty of that charge in Japan. It is strange that the paper makes no mention of his conviction for fraud.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> Bitcoin topped out as soon as the futures went live. Massive contango on a regulated futures market may have been a factor in "reeling in" price. The spot market is so thin that it didn't seem to take much open interest in the futs to whip the underlying.

It's conceivable that some spot exchanges are or were still from 2017 to now, either malicious and/or incompetent, which would facilitate the continuation of such behavior, likely by more players than one or two.

<comment><USER21> On contango: I would not call what the futures market is experiencing "massive" contango. There is a very slight premium to further dated futures ($35/btc Feb over Jan, and $5 Mar over Feb contracts on CME), but this is very normal for a commodity and logically in place for exchange/spot holding risk. I would call the average settlements over the past month of futures being listed very normal contango. And I don't think the contango itself had anything to do with "reeling in" price. The futures finally being listed perhaps.

"The spot market is so thin" I also think is incorrect. GDAX is normally 0.01 USD wide (albeit for small amounts) and often-times under $1 wide for many BTC. I would call the spot market very thick, if anything. You can get off what appears to be very large amounts of BTC with minimal slippage most times of the day.

"didn't seem to take much open interest in the futs to whip the underlying" \-- are you saying a futures move would lead the market? I respectfully disagree. All the entities I know price futs from spot and are generally putting on the arb in this order, not the other way around.

<comment><USER22> > You can get off what appears to be very large amounts of BTC with minimal > slippage most times of the day.

I wrote a script[1] that pulls down the public order books for Bitstamp, GDAX and Bitfinex, because I was interested in seeing the depth of the BTCUSD market, and right now you can offload:

258, 301 and 325 BTC on GDAX, Bitfinex and Bitstamp, respectively (total: 884 BTC), at 1% slippage for 3,544,921, 4,152,783 and 4,452,134 USD, respectively (total: $12.1m).

[1] [https://github.com/runeksvendsen/orderbook](https://github.com/runeksvendsen/orderbook)

<comment><USER23> Those market depth numbers are probably thinner than they seem, there is no regulation of spoofing/layering and it would be instructive to look at the cancellation rate of passive orders originally placed deep in the book when market price subsequently approaches the resting limit price.

Of course if you want to move larger amounts there are specialized OTC markets that handle large block trades, e.g. Cumberland Mining. Of course the lit exchanges are important for price discovery.

It would be interesting to compare the BTC market depth as a percentage of market value to other exchange traded assets.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> The paper is available online at [http://weis2017.econinfosec.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/3/2...](http://weis2017.econinfosec.org/wp- content/uploads/sites/3/2017/05/WEIS_2017_paper_21.pdf)

I wouldn't call it a particularly rigorous analysis and it provides no more incite than what has been published about Willy before.

Mark Karpeles fraudulently buying up $112 million worth of bitcoin in two months when there was no fiat on the other side of the trade pushed the Bitcoin price up. It's as simple as that.

</comment><comment><USER24> If you haven't read the recent NYTimes article on the topic of cryptocurrencies, you should check it out: [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/bitcoin- millionaire...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/13/style/bitcoin- millionaires.html)

At the end of an article is an anecdote about an older (for Silicon Valley) woman who states "And maybe I'm going to lose [my investment of $12k].. Maybe I'm going to keep cleaning houses. But something is telling me I can trust this generation."

My worry is that (1) people like this woman who don't understand markets, let alone cryptocurrencies, will get burned by this, and (2) some small set of people who do understand markets will take advantage of those who don't.

This could result in a situation in which techies are blamed, like Wall Street, for causing lots of people to lose money (and -- let's face it -- lots of people will lose money, if not now then at some point).

<comment><USER25> When my 70 year old neighbor who can barely operate an iPhone wants to buy crypto, all I can think of is that scene in the Wolf of Wall Street where they're selling people penny stocks. I do think there is a utility for crypto and I do think some cryptocurrencies will be good investments long term. But I also think the hype is outpacing the utility and a lot of people will be left holding the bag

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> Explains a lot. A casual review of many coin price histories gives you the sense that something might be "off," although that is just my subjective view.

Another one: coins in general would have been far better off without this current pricing bubble.

<comment><USER27> I invest long-term into a couple of interesting projects and you're absolutely right. Most popular alt coins suffer from near daily pump and dumps and and a casual look at hourly charts will easily reveal this. I can't even imagine what a nightmare it is trying to do technical analysis and make sense of the market for those who day-trade cryptocurrencies.

<comment><USER28> Yup. The worst thing is that coins are pumped without any technical backing at all. For example look into Ripple, Cardano, Tron or Verge.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Is this serious scientific research? Looks like a joke to me, or very bad journalism:

>During both periods, the USD-BTC exchange rate rose by an average of four percent on days when suspicious trades took place, compared to a slight decline on days without suspicious activity.

So price action happens based on trading activity, wow what a shocking conclusion. Here I was thinking prices went up and down randomly for no reason!

>The team found that many instances of price manipulation happened simply because the market was very thin for various cryptocurrencies including early Bitcoin.

Hmmm this seems to imply supply and demand also have some sort of effect on price movement. Another shocking discovery!

>As mainstream finance invests in cryptocurrency assets and as countries take steps toward legalizing bitcoin as a payment system (as Japan did in April 2017), it is important to understand how susceptible cryptocurrency markets are to manipulation.

And they came to this final fantastic conclusion about the present (2017/2018) based on alleged manipulation that happened 4 years ago on an exchange that no longer exists. Fascinating research indeed. /s

</comment><comment><USER30> Interesting. I am curious to know who drove up the Bitcoin price to $18K.

<comment><USER31> You can see on a regular basis that South Korean exchanges are always paying 25-50% more than Western exchanges.

The Bitcoin pump to 20k, the entire history of Bitcoin Cash, and recently the Ripple pump to $3 were all pumped by Bithumb, Upbit, etc. Hence the controversy with Coinmarketcap removing Korean exchanges for a second resulting in the marketcap dropping 50 billion.

Even right now, almost 50% of XRP volume is in SK all paying > $2, but there's no Western exchange trading above $2. See: [https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/#markets](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/#markets)

<comment><USER30> That's interesting. Why would they buy it for more than $2? Is it because the exchange is selling for more or just problems with international currency.

<comment><USER32> There's a high demand in S.Korea (mostly FOMO) and it's a bit hard to transfer a large amount of money out of S.Korea for some legal reasons, which makes arbitraging hard.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> It's interesting to imagine this being "good" from the chains point of view. It is "using" predictable human greed to create a situation where it absorbs more and more value. The game Go's complexity cascades from very simple rules and has a "life" to it sustained by human energy. Blockchain's may be the first of games that are tied into reality via economic effects. Games do this already, but not at these levels of global mindshare and value.

</comment><comment><USER34> As an interesting thought experiment, consider that VC is a tiny asset class. Now consider that if the amount invested in crypto were the same as is invested in VC, the market cap of crypto would be over 100 trillion dollars. At least if you assume a fixed ratio of dollars invested to market cap.

<comment><USER35> And, it would produce literally no value (unlike VC investment in companies). There are so many ways to look at crypto that makes it seem like it's incredibly undervalued and this kind of thought experiment has been done many times in different ways (with the example for the thought experiment changing over the years as the crypto market cap has grown to surpass the example...e.g. gold, Western Union money transfers, etc.). But, unless and until crypto provides value to justify it, it's all just speculation.

Right now, BTC is a basically useless asset. You can't buy things with it (without paying more than using dollars). You can't cost-effectively transfer money with it (fees are too high and transaction times are too long). What can you do with it? Sit on it, and hope it goes up. (Which is what I'm doing with the small amount I still hold.)

I'm vaguely optimistic about cryptocurrency, in general, but the current state of things makes me think there's too much money chasing too little value...all that money could be going into companies that make or do useful things. But, instead, it's just burning electricity.

Not directly a Bitcoin issue, but 99% of ICOs are blatant and obvious scams, most small altcoins are blatant and obvious scams. Even some major altcoins are blatant and obvious scams. I feel like there's a more than even chance of this whole thing ending in tears in the next couple of years, even if cryptocurrency _eventually_ (like five, ten, twenty, years down the road) wins.

I don't mean to say you're wrong. More money will likely pour into cryptocurrency as people with money either fall for the ponzi schemes that surround it, or as it actually begins to produce some kind of value and becomes a useful tool for normal people to do normal things with it. We can't begin to compare crypto to the internet (as I've also seen people do...suggesting crypto adoption is now where the internet was 5, 10, years in, or whatever, just because the same number of people are hoarding coins as were on the internet at some early point) until you can actually buy pet food using it (or do something else of value). It isn't a revolution if it just sits in a vault like gold.

<comment><USER36> >Right now, BTC is a basically useless asset. You can't buy things with it (without paying more than using dollars). You can't cost-effectively transfer money with it (fees are too high and transaction times are too long). What can you do with it? Sit on it, and hope it goes up. (Which is what I'm doing with the small amount I still hold.)

Illegal activity, dodging capital controls, etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment> happy-go-lucky Not to sound pedantic, but the singular verb _finds_ in the title needs an edit please :)

</comment><comment><USER37> What's the nature of the suspicious trades?

<comment><USER38> For example, 10mil shares decided between market makers sitting on both sides of the bid that goes at a price they agree on which is not in the interest of fairness or the public. Another reason for the crypto movement.

Source: Me, former hedge fund algo dev

<comment><USER39> Can you elaborate? Say Alice and Bob are market makers. They are colluding on some target price, say $10k. What's the spread, how does the trading proceed, and what is the effect on fairness and the public?

<comment><USER15> I'm not the OP to your question, but I observe what you are asking about each day. Here are the steps that can facilitate your example. If you are imagining stocks(instead of futures), replace the word "contract" with the word "share" in the example below.

1) The last trade price is $9950

2) Alice calls Bob, confirming she wants to close 500k long contracts by selling them to Bob

3) Bob bids up the price to $9999

4) Alice says "Ok Bob, let's go", and offers the maximum limit offer quantity at $10,000. This maximum varies by instrument(example 5000)

5) Bob bids 5000 at $10,000, consuming all of Alice's offers

6) This process repeats(very, very quickly) until 500k has been exchanged, or until another participant with size starts knocking out Alice's offers.

Edit: When you see this behavior on the volume profile, it looks like a long horizontal bar that doesn't belong. When you see it live as it happens, it's pretty scary if you have a position open. That's when you realize that you are a rubber life raft, and there are 2 gargantuan oil tankers colliding in the space you occupy.

The other way these happen(in futures at least) are called "upstairs" deals. It's when you want to exchange a quantity of contracts large enough to disturb the market, and the exchange will facilitate the trade to avoid Bob or Alice(accidentally) knocking the market several ticks. I don't know how crypto currencies could have a similar scenario for those deals, but since CME is involved with BTC futures, it might be possible.

Source: me, active futures trader in NQ/ZB/CL land.

<comment><USER17> How does Bob raise the price $49 without actual paying a lot of people and creating a real new price?

Or is that the entry price of the scam? And the profits come from everyone else willing to buy at 10k (instead of 9950) because they are placing market orders and don't know what the real price is? Seems like this "scam" is just taking money from people who have no idea what price they want, which gets us back to what investors think they are entitled to 8% /yr for purely passive investments backed by no loan contract.

<comment><USER15> No one is really getting scammed in the example. Bob buys whatever liquidity is available between 9950-10000. Keep in mind, Bob's goal is to buy _at_ 10k. If he is able to get 100-200 of those contracts on the way up to 10k, he's buying at a _lower price than he intended_ , which is a great deal for Bob.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Right. Now to drive it from $14,000 to $100,000.

To the moon! /s

<comment><USER41> Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

<comment><USER40> It's partly substantive. The 'too the moon' part was snark, but Bitcoin went from $400 to $1,000 in 2016, then from $1,000 to $14,000 in 2017, and I guess the same people driving the market who enjoyed 1,000% returns 2 years in a row will attempt to do it again this year too.

This time next year if Bitcoin hasn't imploded it will be up around $100,000.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER42> Winklevoss?

</comment><comment><USER43> Good ol' pump and dump.

</comment><comment><USER44> The number of seemingly throwaway accounts (created in the last few days) commenting on this thread is interesting too:

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=astund](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=astund)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=simplemath__](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=simplemath__)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=zhjansbnas](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=zhjansbnas)

\- [https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=barbegal](https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=barbegal)

<comment><USER45> Thanks for the info. To me, just about any HN post about XYZcoin is a minefield these days. The sentiments seem to all be unrealistically positive and the derision of the glaringly insane XYZcoins are just swamped in whataboutism and thread-derailing. I know it's a hot market and there is a lot of stuff going on, so these threads themselves are warranted, yet the comments in them are just clownshoes.

<comment><USER46> There have been a lot of low-quality comments posted on both sides of this hot topic. That's because hot topics attract low-quality comments. It's certainly not true that "the sentiments" are all positive, and I guarantee you that people who hold the opposite views to yours see "the sentiments" here as all the other way. We really need a name for this cognitive bias.

Also, "whataboutism" has become the worst internet cliché in recent memory and I'm starting to feel like we should add software to just autokill comments that use this word, since it's such a strong signal of unsubstantive bickering.

<comment><USER45> Thanks for the reply dang.

Upon further reflection, maybe it is just the 'top' comments in a thread that have the unrealistically positive sentiment. Yes, down-threads do tend to be more nuanced, but those also tend to have less comments and sub comments. I don't have the data, and I do have my own biases of course, but I feel that I see large comment blocks of thread derailing and bickering at the top. The more 'reasonable' comments then get shoved to the bottom (in XYZcoin threads).

The bias is the Semmelweis reflex ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semmelweis_reflex))

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> All crypto markets have always been shallow and rife with manipulation.

It's still almost a total free-for-all.

<comment><USER48> It is a bit nerve racking seeing the distribution of coins to such few addresses: [https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin- addresses....](https://bitinfocharts.com/top-100-richest-bitcoin- addresses.html)

I wonder if there is any collusion among the top 2000 addresses. Mind you one person can even have multiple addresses.

<comment><USER49> What's interesting is the rhetoric around cryptos as a populist movement. There's so many people on reddit that claim that trading cryptos is how they're going to get out of the 9-5 working man grind. That it's a way to end the dominance of the wealthy banking elites.

And yet, the wealth inequality in cryptos, especially bitcoin, makes our current economic situation seem like child's play. If bitcoin ever does go "to the moon", we will have a small, few mega-wealthy elite who did hardly anything to build that wealth, while the rest of the world missed the boat.

<comment><USER50> That's one reason Bitcoin won't "go to the moon." Real currency represents a claim on current production in the economy. If Bitcoin were to continue its exponential price rise, we would have a situation where the people who amassed Bitcoins early could claim wildly disproportionate amounts of the current wealth of society.

There is simply no reason wealth holders are going to turn over real wealth to folks who happened to get in early to Bitcoin.

This reflects that Bitcoin is not real currency. It's a digital token, with artificial scarcity. Since the core protocol has remained relatively secure, it allows it to serve as a pure commodity for the purpose of market speculation.

That's the only thing driving the increase in price. Exponential gains (in dollar price) cannot continue. Therefore, the speculative motivation will leave the market. Probably the price will fall very soon.

Once the price resets to a lower price point,speculative demand could pick up again.

I suspect that there is massive, almost indefinite amount of demand for this type of speculative gambling. So, unless government steps in, we will see this constant, churning rise and fall distributed between the population of digital tokens suitable for this purpose.

You can see that attempts by early crypto coin holders to "cash out" and lay claim to their nomitive wealth in the real world, in any significant amount, hasten the "break" in the speculative mania cycle.

I've called the top here for Bitcoin, I don't think it will break $20k.

People active in Bitcoin find this hard to believe, but as an example from "meat space," the price of Beanie Babies never climbed after its big crash. (My to the shock of these "beanie bag" holders, I presume.)

<comment><USER51> There's a lot of people who think it's a way to get rich... and I'm just wonder where the money would come from? You can't just withdraw $1M from a bank account for doing nothing and have nobody suffer for it. You're either duping ignorant people or you're the ignorant person being duped. Which looks is predictably like a pyramid scheme.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> FLUX-YOU >The bottom line is simple: if Bitcoin wants to be taken seriously it probably should be this easy or legal to manipulate the markets.

wat

<comment><USER52> Who needs copy editors in the age of new media?

<comment><USER53> Doesn't the spell checker take care of that?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Why is this news? Back in the early stages of Bitcoin this was the reason people bail on bitcoin.

</comment><comment><USER38> People do not realize how manipulated the traditional financial markets are otherwise known as Wall Street. Cryptocurrency is less manipulated as it's run by a different culture of people.

<comment><USER20> It's not technically incorrect to say there is manipulation in the US markets, but comparing bitcoin exchanges to US exchanges is a bit laughable.

The US Federal Reserve has (had) what amount(ed) to a printing press, associated with "working groups" a.k.a. PPT. However, major US exchanges themselves, whether stock, futures, etc., are far more regulated and mature compared to a bitcoin exchange. The manipulation to which you're referring is far more indirect.

<comment><USER38> Lets talk about QE-1-4, the printing of money and bankers being bailed out. Your argument does not stand by any measure of reason or logic. Lets also talk about investment bankers and VC's who are completely being disrupted.

<comment><USER55> We know about that. Let's not bother to talk about it; it smells like trying desperately to change the subject. We're talking about how, with all that you said about financial markets, bitcoin is _worse_. Saying "but the financial markets are manipulated" doesn't refute the claim we're talking about whatsoever.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Zaarly: How To Get 100,000 Subscribers In 3.5 Months – with Bo Fishback - <AUTHOR> http://mixergy.com/bo-fishback-zaarly-interview/

<comment><USER2> This is a great interview. But, the guy that started Zaarly worked at an organization for a few years that allowed him to get in contact with huge stars with lots of followers. He even mentioned emailing Ashton Kutcher well before starting Zaarly.

This is similar to how Kevin Rose was able to get Digg insanely popular within a short amount of time (through Cnet).

The morale of the story? Know how to utilize your connections.

The idea is genius and I can see why it's successful. It fills a very real need that otherwise hasn't been filled with services like Craigslist and Ebay.

</comment><comment><USER3> I tried Zaarly, encountered a bug, and -- for the first time ever -- had someone actually respond in the Olark chat widget when I said something about it.

(After googling them, the person who responded was a "marketing coordinator", so hopefully my bugreport gets passed on unmangled to the developers. Still, very cool to have anyone at all actually responding to me.)

<comment><USER4> Glad we were able to help!

Members of the Zaarly team from pretty much every department sits on the livechat at different times. Everyone from marketing to design to development spends time on there to learn from actually talking to users first hand.

Your bug report will be delivered untarnished, I assure you (=

David Spinks Enforcer of User Happiness

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> tl;dr - get ashton kutcher and demi moore to tweet about it.

<comment><USER6> That's where I stopped reading.

<comment><USER7> You're not curious about how he got those two people to invest in his company? Or how he turned their support into subscribers? Or how Zaarly got those subscribers to get their friends to try its service?

Even if you don't like me, I hope you don't lose sight of what Zaarly did or what you can learn from it just because it has a few well-known backers.

<comment><USER8> Okay how about "have a founder who knows Levar Burton & have him tweet to a landing page before you're even live...". This is such a huge boost out of the gate, I don't know why you try to downplay it.

<comment><USER9> I'm one of the first engineers to join Zaarly, I've been with the company since pre-launch (late April). I can tell you from analyzing the traffic statistics myself that these traffic bumps are extremely short-term. Tweets from celebrities give you a spike for a few minutes, but that's about it. That's useful for sure, but it won't get you to 100k users by a longshot.

Still, if you're looking for a _lesson_ to gleam from the whole celebrity thing, it's that networking is important in business (shocker). Networking and connecting with people -- especially those who are well connected -- who are excited about your business can be beneficial, but only if you do the other things right (building the product, attracting users, etc).

But seriously, you're _completely_ missing the point if what you got out of this was "find some celebs to rep your brand".

<comment><USER8> Regardless of how you slice it the celebrities were integral to the marketing strategy of Zaarly _from the start_. They added credibility & interest that would not otherwise be there, not just on twitter, but on a national level. You talk to some news editor and ask them "some tech startup that's going to do some marketplace thingy just launched..." & they're going to say "yeah, so what?" if you respond "well Ashton Kutcher liked it" the editor is going to say "Now that's somethin' we can write about!". Also every fluff piece in the future is going to mention the celebs, who knows what that does for SERPs & traffic.

Yes there were other social media & offline marketing strategies. Yes there was a lot of hard work but you cannot escape that the title should have been "Successful & seasoned founder with cash to burn & celebrity connections garners 100k users in 3.5months." It's still impressive & he used his connections & resources wisely. Kudos. My beef is less with Zaarly & more with the title of the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, what a sensationalist headline, how's the CTR?

<comment><USER5> Yes, and then in the interview, Mr. Warner says something like "if people think they can just watch these interviews, take notes and then replicate the success, they are delusional". So he's pretty much admitting the article is pure link bait and there's not much chance another startup will have the same luck. Bo Fishback himself says in the interview that it's unlikely it could be replicated. The thing is, I actually _do_ want to be able to watch, take notes and repeat the steps other founders used to get traffic and users. So give me realistic and concrete examples of what is possible for the average founder to do to get users. For example, the other day I went on Yahoo Answers and answered a bunch of questions with links to my website. It was boring and tedious, but the next day I had about 100 referrals to my site from Yahoo Answers. That's the kind of thing I want to learn about - it's simple enough, repeatable and it works. Just doesn't make for sensational headlines.

<comment><USER7> Here are some of the things they did to get to 100k members. (I couldn't squeeze them into a headline, but the substance belongs in the interview, not the headline.)

\- Bo got well-known backers because he did something that many other founders put down -- he got a job. He worked for the Kauffman Fund, which introduced him to the startup community's founders, investors and other supporters. He built up a reputation by helping the community. That helped him get top investors and supporters.

\- When some of his famous backers tweeted links to his site, he converted those hits into email subscribers so he could build a relationship with people who were interested in Zaarly's vision of the world.

\- He converted early fans into communities. These communities met both online (Facebook) and offline (meetups) and helped introduce others to Zaarly.

\- Zaarly cultivated evangelists, some of those evangelists came up with promotion ideas that Zaarly's team couldn't have come up with on its own. One guy lived on nothing but what he could order on Zaarly, as a way of dramatizing how helpful the service could be.

\- To ensure that new users who wanted to hire help on Zaarly got service, it partnered with other companies. At SXSW, for example, they teamed up with rickshaw drivers and paid them to fulfill requests. (If anyone reading this is trying to build an online marketplace and is having trouble solving the chicken and egg issue, I think our discussion of how Bo activated his marketplace through partnerships like this will really help.)

I don't want to turn this comment into a rehash of every point in the interview, but I _promise_ that I care about useful tacts and ideas. I give you my word that I go after them and pack them into my interviews.

That headline is backed by hours of research before the interview, and a mutual goal with Bo during the interview.

<comment><USER11> Andrew, I just watched the video and reading your summary here actually helped me a lot in synthesizing what has been told in the interview.

I just wanted to let you know I got a lot of value in reading your summary too. The tactics outlined in the interview stood clearer when you wrote them in a list.

Thanks for everything you do with Mixergy.

<comment><USER7> Thanks. I'm looking to hire a writer this year to do this kind of summary for my interviews.

I can see that it'll be helpful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Wow, the Zaarly story blows my mind. It rivals the Airbnb story. Since their launch I've always wondered how they overcame the initial "chicken and egg" problem.

Get past the first 15 minutes or so, and there is a ton of value in this video. I highly, highly recommend watching the entire thing.

</comment><comment><USER13> Balancing the two sides of a marketplace is one of the toughest tasks for an early two-sided platform. Great work!

<comment><USER14> You're right David but, as someone who has built a couple of marketplaces, I find that founders often don't spend enough time on the "tougher" side. The common mistake (been there, done that) is to spend something like 60% of your time building the harder side and 40% of your time building the easier side. Instead, you should probably spend something more like 98% of your time building the harder side and 2% of your time building the easier side.

Which is the harder side? Generally, it's the people with the money. :) However that's not always the case. If you've stumbled into a massive market with high demonstrated spend it might actually be harder to build the supply side. I'd side that's likely the case with a company like AirBnB (they've done a great job building both sides of course).

If you can build the more difficult side (usually demand) it will typically pull supply out. It typically doesn't work the same in the opposite direction.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Mixergy looks good - can anyone comment on if it is?

<comment><USER16> I've been a paying subscriber for a few months. It's hit and miss. The value you get really depends on how well the information lines up with your particular business model.

A lot of the courses feel more like product demos ("here's the hard way to do it, or you could just sign up for my service, look how easy it is"). Not that they're worthless, but it's hard to give impartial advice and pitch your product at the same time.

(And you can't really expect people to just give away their best secrets. The best tricks are the ones that would stop working if everyone was doing it...)

That said, a few of the courses have inspired me to explore ideas I would have otherwise dismissed, and some of those ideas have worked out pretty well. Ultimately, $25/month is not a lot, if I bring in one extra sale, I've made a profit.

Just don't expect pre-packaged miracles.</comment></comment>