dejan

I couldn't agree more. There is so much commodization of innovation going on the web, absurd as it sounds. You don't have to manufacture, just do something really new we have not seen before, and beyond the obvious. (goes for all of us)

I am aware of this story. However, if you were to take a look into what he was writing about (as mentioned in some of the left notes), you'd see such claims are just plain silly. If he were to build a weapon, the history would have taken a different shape.

The health, yes that is a fact, he was "weird", but show me a great mind that wasn't - Mozart, Beethoven? However, he didn't hurt anybody, unlike Edison, who invented the electric chair "just for fun."

Thus, I wouldn't trust anything US and War departments says. They knew he was capable of a lot of stuff, so they normally seized everything.

Thus, you have to understand that such claims that he was working on some kind of "weapon" were coming only from the government of the US. If I were Tesla, I would have been going crazy myself - everything stolen, no credit, no name, no money, no support and publicity of crazy scientist - this was of course a great plot to demoralize and ruin credibility of Tesla and takeover his patents, since no one would support or fund "a crazy guy". Edison was taking the credit for his work for years before.

You know the US govt credibility? The same guys who said that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, that socialism and communism were the same as witchcraft while adopting all the systems, that broke Yugoslavia apart, that Serbs were doing mass killing of Albanians in Kosovo, bombed Serbia, with depleted uranium and cassette bombs, schools and hospitals, passenger trains, biggest factory of cigarettes (later bought by Philip Morris for $1), and of course denied everything...The list is long, and this is only my perspective, there are many others.

Since the Kennedy assassination, US has been the most corrupted country and non-democratic in the world, so I wouldn't trust what they say about the greatest scientist of our time. For the name of God, they've named a corner after him, yet have done everything to "fight immigration" while they have become what they are because of the immigrants.

Sorry for the rant, the topic is just distasteful once you gather a lot of facts. Also, encyclopedias are not really based on facts, but on what majority agrees (public opinion), and you have to keep in mind he was left as a "mad scientist" in the public eyes.

Jesus! The comments are terrible! They made Tesla as if he was crazy, stupid, mad...

Most of them heard about him from the movies. I guess that is what you get when you are not looking into making the world's biggest companies, but into contributing the society. No one will hear about you.

In Tesla's museum in Belgrade, his notes are absolutely stunning. He invented the radio (later development leading to TV), remote control (tele-commanding a boat model), generator and polyphase AC... It is interesting to note the work that is leading towards the revolution Einstein is known for.. Tesla was a mean hundreds of years before his own time, and while moving towards the final "theory of relativity", his work suddenly stops, and is being scratched off. He never was an inventor of weapons, and it is claimed that he knew where such invention could lead. After all, what good did Einstein do? Millions killed, and devastating nuclear waste from energy extractions.

The only war-kind of invention was the EM shield that could protect a whole country from attacks, and he was proposing it to the Serbian king in Belgrade.

Basically he is behind everything we geeks care about today. Yet, he is considered "American"??? Until his last day he was loyal to the king, the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians later to be Yugoslavia. He was not born in Austro-Hungaria, as the region was invaded by them at the time after the lengthy wars, later to evolve in the WWI. He was a Serbo-Croatian.

Americans used him, stole all of his patents and made an image of him in public as a crazy man. Not a monument or anything until much later at Niagara through the efforts of the Yugoslavian immigrants in the US.

I want to high school in the US (senior year). Not one single person knew who he was, and everyone thinks Edison invented "electricity." Not much to complain actually, they also don't know who Alessandro Volta is, speaking of US education.

Thank God we've all heard of P Diddy.

Advertising is by default subliminal.

Not necessarily true. Example: when your credit is about to expire, you get a notification that the other side won't hear. Two sides in a call can hear two different sounds.

I don't understand what you're saying. This is supposed to be a plan that you get. Basically you choose it, and then get a free call or lower cost. You have noises in the background anyways. Blurring them with something better isn't really disrupting the call?

Could you elaborate why?

It is a great list, but I have this itch. Some of the advisors are major investors in the winners' list. Also, I don't really know what counts in, the design, the value, the potential, number of users.

Also, seems that most of the winners have taken investments. I wonder why the awards went to those that have somewhat put themselves on their feet with major investments, while the others that have not, or not disclosed any have ended up low in the list.

It's not to complain, but if Europe wants more entrepreneurs, those that start up should be supported and preferred more than those who passed the investment age.

Personally, I didn't even think we'll be there among the finalists, and it's great success for a 2 months old "idea" (won't even call it a startup yet). However, I see a lots of "investment protections" and commoditization of startups and innovations.

However, it is the first round, hope next year it'll get bet better and more precise why these have been chosen. I'd like to see a written opinion from the advisors why, and disclaimers of the stake taken. Otherwise it seems like a show for the masses, a propaganda for own investments (nothing new though) :)

There is no "vs". Think '+', it's not easy, but who ever said it would be?

Try to get her involved. Startup is as personal as it gets to life aspirations and she should see it. If not, you might not be for each other. You shouldn't ever make such choices.

btw. I am in absolutely same situation, and I got her involved as much as possible. Don't ever assume she will be as interested in the startup as you are, but give a lot of praise and credit.

well, I got to say that I like your idea. It explores the other possibilities of representing self and own achievements, as well personal attitudes and interests. I am not sure if this is the right form, it is not mine to judge, but you are on to something. The CV/resume needs a significant change and should be rethought of. It needs to be highly personalized, but yet to have a somewhat standardized form.

I see that your interests are in UI and you found out the perfect one that has not been altered in almost a century. All kudos for initiating the focus on this topic. Just remember that people really do not want to figure out your resume. They just want to quickly compare (main purpose of CVs/resumes), and if that quickly isn't there, you might only end up quickly in the trash unfortunately.

However, I am also thinking of how to re-implement the CV/resume so that it reflects the creative capabilities of people on www.aleveo.com. In this case, I want it dynamic and involving ideas and public ratings. Currently I am playing with timelines and weighted image scaling for ideas to reach a functional form.

If you are interested drop in the idea of visual resume on aleveo.com?

Anyway I encourage you to explore it further, finding balance between written and visual form.

Cheers!

I somehow believe according to personal value of Facebook (read none) that it's aiming for its peak. It is a time waster in the time where constructivism is a necessity to overcome all present issues. Just take a look at the feeds, it seems to me that it is social gossiping and social gaming rather than anything to do with friends. As (an older) student, I can see the trend that most students are falling in the already mentioned time wasting. Those that graduated though, I don't even see them on Facebook, they are busy doing something, working, building and using their time with physical friends and family.

Facebook's crowd will always be difficult to monetize. I am already pissed of by the banners I see around (never ever clicked one), so the only reason I go there is to notify people of something from time to time. It really has taken the functionality of an Address book, and hell it is annoying climbing up that www for a small piece of information. The board of Facebook says that if they placed more ads they could start earning a lot. I say if they do that, I am a goner same moment. Same if they try to sell me something.

Valuing Facebook in 5 years? Ridiculous. I doubt it will even exist in 5 years in the form of today. I see a major shift in computing coming up in the next few years, and Facebook and Google and all those disconnected clusters of multiple identities merged.

Value of Facebook currently is (-) minus all the money they've spent. I doubt they will ever compensate for that. Investing in Facebook though is a good scheme to launder money.

I also see the next bubble. Overestimation and over-expectations of "startups" and websites that will never create value. I see a clear shift to desktop computing again away from the ill-responsive web.

sure thing. but you have an issue with two links. See, you have to have a mean of identifying links, and that is why there should be ability to either add custom title or fetch real page title.

What kind of support have you applied for? FP7? I am a little bit disappointed how little support is given for research by the EU.

Has there been any form of prototype implementation?

exactly, just you have to keep in mind that you can't allow html posts, while the links should also be able to have the names. I think RedCloth notation for link will do "title":http://link.com if in need for a link name, but if not, then definitively you need to shorten the links somehow.. You don't want the whole screen of a cell phone covered in a single link?

I agree. There is also a bigger issue that concerns me. Clouding is not any different than having a single server from the user perspective. The data still is centralized, as one central entity owns your data, even though they organized the back-end as a cloud.

Regarding the privacy issues- as long as one such entity hold/maintains your data, they dictate you what you can and can't do, what you can say or not, share or see, thus what is legal or illegal.

China and Iran - cut services, while the US (and Europe in somewhat) try to protect conservative methods so that their backers (read companies) can earn more money. Copyrights are coming to their dead end, while new business models are emerging. What you do with your data is your own business, and laws need to be rethought as gravity laws do not apply to electrical current - the forces that pull are different.

We need democratization, decentralization and de-copyright of the Internet, where we own a slice of the global cloud and data can be shared over it no matter what its contents are.

I'll soon post an open source project I am working on to tackle these issues. Hope to hear more comments.

Interesting, I have not heard of this before. How does it work?

I'm curious how different it is from aleveo.com

Hmm.. I see he missed on something BIG time.

How will his data persist if he is not paying the bills for hosting, Amazon S3 and so on. His legacy might not live up a few months after death.

I think this is a serious issue. What you blog and write today wont exists after you unless you are a company. Soon I'll post an idea soon on aleveo.com for this, be sure I'll post back on HN. Securing the data is the easy part given it is persisted.

Here is an idea for you, I won't go into criticizing your idea. If I knew what will work out, or for that matter ANY of the people here, we would be doing it. We can spend hours and hours talking about the idea, telling you the problems why it wouldn't work, but still be way off course of the reality. Recently I spoke with my ex boss who has been in IT for so long, now retired and he said, quoted "If someone asked me back then if Facebook would have worked out, I'd say no chance."

I think, we entrepreneurs shape the world around us to tune into new ideas. Persistence and continuous mutation/evolution showed to work for life, why not business too? Whenever someone asks a question here on HN, you get 90% of critiques and ways of discouraging. I say screw them. The spirit of real hackers and entrepreneurs is to just do it, be perseverant and have no fear of failing, but if it is to happen, fail fast and learn from it for the next iteration. No other can influence the success or failure than the entrepreneur himself, so I think you should hear the tone of only those that give you suggestions which way to go. I am sure you know what the problems are.

My suggestion. Build a prototype, use something that you can build it very quickly e.g. Rails and then hear out what the people are saying about it. Then modify it day by day from what you hear, and I guarantee you that you will eventually end up with something great. Your idea might be brilliant or stupid, but it is not on us to judge. Also, when you get discouraged, remember it is not on you either to judge.

I personally believe that is indeed needed and a great thing and has been going through my mind by reading a bunch of stuff. If I can somehow help, I'm in. I recommend you read this, that you would help solve:

http://www.strategy-business.com/press/enewsarticle/enews053...

Cheers!

Dejan/Aleveo.com

Ok, I got on #3... Kicked out that personalized bitterness as you say =) Diplomacy will have to wait :D

Well, I like the tone of this post also much better :) Yes I am the poster, I got the insults there previously a bit personal :)

I agree with you that it is a sociological problem being tackled here. Indeed, if we succeed in this it will be a great social innovation. I am far from seeing it easy and obvious, but a bumpy ride we're all going to learn from. As I see now, we'll either become a full fledged channel for embedding constructive feedback to companies, or a new recruiting place with a different, proactive method.

However, I am not the one inventing this thing up just to prove something to companies. My statements are based on Eric Von Hippel's work from the 80s: "The Sources of Innovation" and "Democratizing Innovation" - The Lead User Theory. And you need to see that this is not something new, as many are already doing it. The only thing is - they have to ask for it - explicitly like Dell and Starbucks, implicitly like Lego and Harley Davidson. What we suggest is something to enrich it a bit more - self initiated input, whether it is a current user or not. Moreover, we are giving back for the input, they aren't, while they still get the input? People want to contribute, Open Source, wikis, this discussion we are having here (thank you).

You are right that most people do not want to participate and as you say out of those that have ideas most lack the willingness to act. We are trying to make them share, and maybe when others see they'll change their mind? I don't know, that is truly brave thing to ask, so lets see where it goes?

The target audience are young people and students, who are given incentives and awards for it. I guess for money and recommendations as well visibilities, students "want to be inventors, journalists and musicians." If it helps them get closer to companies, why not? I truly believe that student ideas should be seen by companies, and others.

Also, we are not founded as a company yet, and maybe we'll take the route of a non-profit. Call this a big experiment, we'll all learn something from it.

I do not expect anyone to agree with me on the blog post, those are truly personal beliefs. I didn't attack anyone in particular but processes, so I don't see a reason for any revolt from anyone.

Thank you for these insights, and regarding #3 I will rewrite the tone later so I don't get my head chopped off, served something else rather than coffee in a bar, or hit by a bus :))

Thanks vitovito, I knew I would get such response from somebody, sometime. Glad it happened in such elaborated way.

Although I have explicitly expressed to ignore prejudices, you started with one assuming you knew everything about this kid. Moreover, you compare yourself and your biases with me. We're not the same, and especially seems we grew up in different centuries. That makes a difference. The world is not the same, since this moment I write until you read it.

I accept I am a kid. I am, and hopefully will stay forever as passionate and young minded =)

- I am not bitter, especially regarding the job searching thing. It is a personal reflection on the process. A lot of my friends are going through even worse things, yet many of them ended up with jobs they hate. I am having much more luck than it seems in the text. - The website I've built is far from my first project, and I don't expect a stampede. - I've had full-time jobs in different countries, as well built a successful non-tech (finances) company. I have great social skills. Want a copy of my CV? :)

There is a big difference between GetSatisfaction, UserVoice and Aleveo. If you find a real engineer's solution and not a complaint or feature request on those, I'll accept. If you show me that they are helping people get jobs, I'll send you a pack of beer wherever you are. If you show me that they are not Marketing/PR but Open Innovation tools... I'll send you a Chianti from here in Italy.

1. I am aware of this. However, your focus is on the wrong thing. I am talking about lead-user innovation and open innovation. The users >want< to contribute, but companies are not listening. Would you say a young kid needs to get a job to have a great idea? If you didn't at the time, that doesn't meant someone else doesn't: Facebook, Microsoft, ViaWeb, Apple, FedEx... The list is long. And of course these kids have to prove people like yourself that they are capable, as all they get is discouragement and "NO" from people.

2. Exactly. You don't seem to see a problem in that, how the company is losing?

3. Rant is a proof of passion and determination I hold. We need more of that in the world. Go read Tom Peters' "Re-Imagine."

My post has not a single line of complaint. I am glad you responded, I wanted to make sure it didn't sound like that so I left the starting disclaimer. Truly, I haven't even read it yet.

The points that are made are that: - everyone holds knowledge how to improve the world, companies and their offerings - everyone can be an inventor in the same way he can be a video producer, journalist and musician. The web allows that and the world should adapt to it. - external ideas are a proof of a need to rethink some stuff. - there is no clear channel for companies to reach external ideas that people >demand< to give. Websites are built by designers and IT people. There is no business strategy beyond presence and online sales. There is more that can be done through the web. Accept it or be crushed by it. - the way of recruiting is wrong, as people do not enter companies. Ideas do, so why not take a look at those a little bit for a change, you might find your gold fish, as Apple and Google did. If you don't care about people's ideas, you will lose the people, whether your customers or employees. - companies should not be "faceless" as you say, and should have same "people" skills you mention in their attitude. - companies need more "intrapreneurs" / entrepreneurial spirit as a way to establish an innovation culture that embraces agile methods of testing ideas against reality.

I believe that a viable business opportunities can be found in the lines I've written. I have taken one, not out of bitterness, but passion to test against the world.

If I do attack businesses, than every single business book (good one at least) does.

Thank you for your sincere reply, you gave me space for a reflection on my thoughts. Your points are clear and valid, but that is exactly why I want to stand up to them. They shouldn't be. Not today. Not ever again.

I don't know even if you have noticed what the guy says: "Another of Finland's major exports, besides the Opera Web browser, is paper." - OPERA comes from Norway!

Aren't people supposed to do a research before they write?

My God, do you even know who "this guy" is? Stop and give it a thought a bit.

He is right about the point, straight on. I've been thinking about implementing it on our web app at aleveo.com like that. Let me elaborate.

We all know that having a simple and usable register/login form increases signups. Let that aside, I've kicking out everything of our forms until really only the necessary. Among those things is the repeat password/email field, username (enough with those) etc. However, what if caps is on, or the keyboard layout is other and so on, the person will signup for your service, but next time he wants to login, if he is having issues with the form, you're done. He'll blame you, as he think he knows what he types as a password.

It is essentially wrong not to see what you are typing. If you noticed, Mr.Nielsen didn't go into implementation. He said that the concept is legacy. A good implementation would be having a checkbox next to the password field "[] show text" or similar, default unchecked.

An older person would definitively appreciate that, but it is not only for them, as it happens to me too (24 year old) to mistake until I figure out what I am really typing in (first keystroke swallowed, typing mistake, caps, wrong layout, etc)

To me this seems ridiculous. A real programmer would not answer stupid time-wasters like that, as should have a sense of pragmatism. Want to show how good programmer you are? Show me what you did just for fun of the problem. Show me a problem others have not recognized yet and tell me how you can solve it.

Programmer is not meant to be a problem-solving machine, unless a narrow one that loves a life in a cubicle, as a mad scientist. Those days are over.

Don't give me ridiculous puzzles that do no good to anyone - I use my time to do greater things. A challenge to me is not an algorithm, but turning something difficult in something easy. An idea, not algorithm is what should be taken in consideration. An engineer doesn't know everything about everything, but knows enough to recognize and quickly learn more on the topic. Solving a problem like this is just a time waster, and the one who created on the other side just thinks he is so cool because he is creating puzzles. Solve a real problem, not made up to show how good you are. But I guess those puzzles comply with Facebook values...none..

These puzzles seem to me just as if they want to hire people who are desperate to work for them. It seems it's the new trend in recruiting.

Although I have lived in the US, and love it for many reasons, I have to say that this stuff is "Only in America"..Here is my rant on this..

US is all about the money, screwing up someone, suing someone and going to court. It is one big capitalistic system that hurts only the people worldwide. Everything is messed up, starting from IRS, government, army and politics, education, food, patents, and especially things like this - "copyright". Yes, my life goal is to make someone rich. How about some honor and doing something for the society without "profits first"?

I almost puked when I saw that John La Grou smart power outlet - we will save lives etc...and we filed many patents. Save lives? Give the technology as free, and build other means around it for sustaining own costs.

Should have Tesla patented his inventions with the US approach, most of the world would have been in the dark ages, where computer is not possible, Internet doesn't exist and healthcare is power-less. Should he have dictated the progress of the world? No. The world as we know it, is made from minds that think of social progress, not this invented thing called money. US dishonored Tesla, (most even think Tesla is a car now!!), and named a nice little corner in NYC, instead of teaching real values in schools.

Laws do support growth of startups indeed, but that is the side-effect which truly should be taken as an example. Everything else, plain wrong.

I do not think reproducing material or sharing is something that is wrong. People in the US just wrote that it is, while in nature of the Internet it is not. Let me guess, downloading youtube video is also illegal? Than sue my browser's cache.

I really feel sick when reading stuff like this, for goodness sake, this is not the first time nor the last, meaning something there is broken, so change it.

I am boycotting buying CDs from those retards calling themselves artists. They are all about the money, not art. Real artists do things for the love of it, not the money. And when I see that, I feel great donating my money directly to them to hear more of that.

Disclaimer: I am some nationality as Tesla, but that is no reason why I mention him. He is the most important scientist of all times.

I don't like that Opera is trying to fit in everything into the browser. I prefer apps per tasks, don't want a OS in a browser, nor browser with the OS.

Was expecting more of Opera, I don't find this very innovative.

However, great job on the publicity :D

I still have to come across better book than Tom Peters - "ReImagine". It's amazing look at markets that are under-served, problems that need to be solved in B2C and B2B environments, managing talents, creativity and innovation..

Trust me, besides that the book is colorful and everything but a typical business book, it is an insight in what will happen. These are all opinions of Tom, and a book doesn't get more personal than this. A load of startup ideas as you turn pages.

http://www.amazon.com/Re-Imagine-Business-Excellence-Disrupt...

I think you should drop this paranoid fear that someone will steal your idea, you'll get a lot more information coming your way. You can use this feedback to really build something people want.

What's the added value you are providing? Why is it a startup and not a website? Why not use ning.com or lovdbyless.com? What is the revenue model? How will you attract people? There are not many of people in that category, especially that age (congrats to you!), so that monetizing on ads would make sense, so you really need a strong business model.

Anyway, I encourage you to pursue whatever you got going on, but I really think you can build a prototype on your own, creating more grip at the beginning.

I am always for launching as soon as your thing is operational. Real users and critics need to shape your startup and technology, and nothing can replace that.

I agree. It will be fixed. We can't get it right the first time. =) At least not with the time and 'no money at all' constraints we face. So far, Aleveo has been a true story of perseverance and entrepreneurism. It can only get better.

Thanks for the honest comment.