Hacker News Reader

malbiniakon New Steam beta replaces Trident/IE with WebKit

Great! Maybe now they'll update counter-strike.

malbiniakon Mint.com should be a platform

This is part of the reason why stores have "frequent shopper" cards — to help understand what people in their stores are buying.

I've done BI/BA work with an agency for major big box retailers (let's call them HomeBuyColaCo). You'd think they'd be monetizing the poop out of that data, but they're not using the data anywhere to the level they could be, should be, or most people think they are.

malbiniakon Excelerate - YC-like program in Chicago, Summer '10

I'm really, really excited to see something like this kicking off in Chicago. I'm going to throw an app at it and would be stoked to get in, but I'll play all important for a second: I'd like to see more about what the mentor phase looks like, who the experts are, etc. You know, just a little more information. But again, it's great to see the VC community pull together and offer some reasons to keep groups in the midwest.

You listening, Groupon? ;)

malbiniakon Google changes Buzz to be opt-in and adds easy delete button

Thanks! I didn't mean to be confrontational, and I appreciate you recognizing that.

Do you think Buzz could replace your FF usage, or do you think they're serving different purposes?

malbiniakon Google changes Buzz to be opt-in and adds easy delete button

Can you articulate why you love Buzz?

malbiniakon Is Om Malik sad?

So that's the measure of success? If I were Om, I'd be sad about being compared to the sensational journalism of Mashable, or the world according to Arrington.

Om's content is far better than the other 2, but that's just my opinion.

malbiniakon ScaleWell grant for Entrepreneurs. We're having a party.

clearly you need to come to more HN-Chicago meetups ;)

http://groups.google.com/group/hn-chicago

malbiniakon Location-based apps: Flook, Gowalla, Foursquare - a review

First time I've heard of Flook. Very, very interesting, but agreed that it's a disconnect from Foursquare, Gowalla, and Brightkite.

Good points on the user base, too. According to Compete data for November, Facebook is pulling in south of 130M unique visitors/month, and Twitter is pulling in around 22M. By comparison, Foursquare is pulling around 368K, Brightkite is around 228K, and Gowalla nearing 80K. Amazing what downtime in an airport can get you ;)

There seems to be some evidence that users are willing to share their location with micro-conversations (the reason Mashable called Foursquare the Twitter of 2010), but unlike Twitter, none of these guys have really robust APIs built out. Hell, Gowalla still doesn't have one, and Foursquare only let's you grab at per-user data, not per-location (beyond 3h).

I'm anxiously watching to see which network grabs the most users, and have my fingers crossed that the winner will have a way for the ecosystem around it to develop. Maybe it will be Twitter w/ Geo, but does that assume users will change their behavior and start using Twitter more while mobile? (see: Twitter usage over weekends. Most of the usage is us bored at work)

malbiniakon Google In Discussions To Acquire Yelp For A Half Billion Dollars Or More

you'll never, ever, ever hear me say this ever again: i thought scoble made some interesting points (when he talked about facebook acquiring yelp). http://scobleizer.com/2009/03/26/facebook-is-lucky-it-missed...

but what does google have to gain? extend google maps/local? aren't they already scraping reviews and ratings? screw the "don't be evil," what's in it for them...especially at $500M?

and as a random peanut gallery jab, it kills me how "past the term sheet stage" indicates an 80% probability. isn't anything past .01% "past the term sheet stage?"

malbiniakon What Makes a City Startup Friendly?

relative to the SF bay area? yes. (currently in chicago, moved from bay ~2 years ago)

malbiniakon What Makes a City Startup Friendly?

bust ass for the rest, then don't bail out to the Valley when you get funded. yes, i'm looking at you, groupon. please don't leave us.

in my opinion, this article is answering the question "what makes a city easier to find vc money." we really need to break the mentality that palo alto and boulder are the only places where technology and web-based startups can go to market.

malbiniakon FlightCaster (YC S09) Takes Off With $1.3 Million In Funding And A New API

I'm a frequent business traveler, but I don't see being able to expense flight change based on predictive analysis.

Is there anyone within the travel industry that can speak to the market demand for this? Does this cost the airlines $x/year, or booking services?

malbiniakon Google Has Acquired Gizmo5

I was in the same boat, but managed to get around it by verifying a friends a physical line (cell), leaving it in my account, but disabling it from receiving future calls.

malbiniakon Ask HN: What is the going rate for developing an iPhone app?

It wasn't clear in my first comment, but it is representative of a company, not an individual. We're fortunate to have a great team estimating and scoping projects and great developers on staff staying on budget; it's rare that our actual rate is less than what I've cited, and we don't cut scope to stay on budget. Estimating, by far, is the hardest part.

If the app isn't to our internal standards, we'll do whatever it takes to get there, even if it pushes us over budget (ie, staying up until 4am).

malbiniakon Ask HN: What is the going rate for developing an iPhone app?

I'll second the rate. Adding more, most apps we see are typically around $40k (+/- $10k) but as high as $100k.

malbiniakon Google Wave's Phased Beta is Disappointing

Yeah, I was given 20 nominations, and decided to pass them to most of my team, then realized our team is way too big :)

I'm also a little surprised by the author's criticism of having no one logged on at the same time. In our limited application of it, the value is not exclusively in real time communication, but in a better organized (non-linear) communication timeline.

malbiniakon The Next Generation Bends Over

I'm no 37signals, but I work closely with the advertising and marketing world. If I were to extend Jason's comments, I'd be shit nervous of making my primary revenue stream based on an ad model. It signals that the product/service I'm making doesn't provide enough value or utility to a single customer (even 1 out of 100) to compel them to give me some money. That's something to avoid, at least in the context of mitigating risk going to market.

malbiniakon Google ready to unleash spiders and expose your Google Docs

How's this play out if one organization (with subsidiaries) has multiple FQDNs? Sharing across those domains makes the doc public?

malbiniakon Tell HN: Am hosting a meetup for 40 journalists in Chicago. Hackers welcome

I'm at ad:tech. There was an amazing session yesterday that I had no business sitting in on, but did, and oh yeah, it was amazing. I'll try to regurgitate the ideas the smart folks on the panel shared. And I'll bring my drinking hat.

http://www.ad-tech.com/chicago/session_detail.asp?refad=1...

malbiniakon Poll: Do you smoke marijuana?

Pot affects everyone differently. If you haven't smoked, don't. If you have, great.

But if you start smoking because of an online poll, you should reassess your decision making process.

malbiniakon Nearest Subway App Overlays Subway Directions On the Real World

Seems like everyone forgot to mention this app has not yet been approved by the App Store.

But yes, rad nonetheless.

malbiniakon Augmented Reality is the killer app for the iPhone 3GS

if this were anywhere but the iphone ecosystem where ifart is/was all the rage, seb lee-delisle (papervision 3d team, http://www.sebleedelisle.com/) would be absolutely right: "augmented reality has no practical use. but it IS fun."

malbiniakon Declaring the ‘Long Tail’ Dead

Isn't the success of Amazon, CD Baby, or Netflix supporting the long tail? Granted, there are additional dynamics contributing to the success of each, but...

malbiniakon Launch a Business, Not a side Project

I absolutely agree with your first point (re: arbitrary number), but I think the point the article is generally making is "time spent marketing is more important than most web-based startups consider." Maybe not.

Point number #2? High5. Well put.

malbiniakon Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

that, and the high density of crack/meth heads on the island. i checked a few places there that made me feel like i was living the american version of trainspotting (down to the baby scene).

i'd recommend avoiding treasure island.

somewhat related, scratch the north bay off your list. i never was able to find a cheap way to commute from there.

malbiniakon Ask HN: Any tips for living cheaply in SF?

live in the east bay (oakland, berkeley, alameda), not the city. look for roommates, not a studio. move near a BART station. whenever someone starts the sentence with "hey want to go..." involuntarily say no.

malbiniakon Honda Insight's immersive ad on Vimeo

The power of the consumer is the choice to support the vendor they identify with. Spoiler alert: each content host, vendor, business has an agenda, it's just a matter of how quickly you can identify it.

And please - hold it against a business for trying to add additional revenue? How's your balance sheet?

malbiniakon Honda Insight's immersive ad on Vimeo

Fair point, but I'd like to think that if Hummer came to them, they'd say no. Something about an affordable hybrid car seems aligned with the personalities running Vimeo.

malbiniakon Ask HN: Best Micro Payment provider?

pretty basic amazonfps question - do customers have to have an amazon account to complete their transaction?

malbiniakon What do hackers think of PHP?

@RoR "but does it scale?" cough twitter cough