olivercameron

Not at all. Groupon is cementing it's position as the market leader by spending a huge amount in expansion, thus it's going to result in losses for the foreseeable future. However, that doesn't mean they're not going to be profitable in years to come.

Why is that ridiculous? It's ridiculous to say that Groupon doesn't have a "strong" plan to become a profitable business. Of course they do.

The market they are in is becoming intensely crowded, and since they are the current market leader, they need to spend a lot of money (yes, even if it results in losses) to stay in that position. If they stay can cement that position whilst their competition falls at the wayside, then they will become extremely profitable as the market leader.

The difference is that Groupon is generating revenue near billions, whereas in 2000 companies were IPO'ing without any significant revenue or traction.

I feel that this is a part of a major Camera.app overhaul. Right now, it's been left up to third parties to create the best camera experience (see Camera+), which Apple has never liked any developer doing. Something very similar to iPhoto for iPhone would be my guess.

I'm just saying that it doesn't sound like their goal is to have rooms in generic hotels, see their mission statement:

"We are a community marketplace for unique spaces."

Of course, they could expand in that direction in the future, but I wouldn't say the Holiday Inn is a unique space.

I think a lot of startups put too much weight on what an investor thinks of their idea. Airbnb is a prime example of carrying on in the face of rejection, even if people are saying "it's a stupid idea". I know a lot of founders who, after being told by many of the Valley's finest angels that their idea is no good, would just give up.

It just goes to show that you can create a $1 billion company, even if no one really gets it in the beginning, and in my eyes at least, they are actually justifying it (making a lot of money in a lot of different places).

Isn't the point of Airbnb that you don't stay in a hotel?

Edit: By hotel, I mean generic hotels like Holiday Inn's. I'm just going by their mission statement: "We are a community marketplace for unique spaces".

This was incredibly awkward and painful to watch. It goes to show why you should avoid buzzwords as much as you can when pitching, it just looks like you're compensating for a lacking product. Startups can learn an absolute ton from this, namely:

- Only demo when you actually have something to demo (an animated start menu does not count).

- Drop the buzz words, and just describe why the hell it's going to improve my life.

- If you're going to put up a pre-launch website[1], don't just list your investors like that is some sort of indicator you'll be amazing, at least put some product information on there.

Cullen's performance here intrigued me, especially his self-noted notoriety in the Windows community. A quick Google search unearthed this: http://www.bluescreenofdeath.org/?p=85, where he discusses "Project Copenhagen" in 2009. It's pretty much the product they claim to be building today, but now with the backing of SV Angel and the Founders Fund. According to their website[1], "It's gonna be big. Really big.". My personal feeling is that there just isn't enough people who will go out of their way to skin their Windows PC, even if it does improve the experience.

1. http://lumier.com

It's not released yet, but that doesn't mean it's shelved.

From what I have read in the lawsuit, PayPal doesn't seem to be complaining that people have the right to seek better jobs, in fact that statement from Google comes across extremely childish. Their argument is that Bedier used trade secrets from PayPal to create Google Wallet, and used his knowledge of secret and upcoming PayPal products to sell it to the retailers (comparing an unfinished PayPal product to the finished Google Wallet).

Thanks, updated.

It's not that PayPal want to control their employees after they move on, it's that they want to maintain their trade secrets and make sure the employees actually stick to what they agreed to in their contracts.

After reading briefly through the lawsuit[1], it seems that Osama Bedier was working as a senior manager at PayPal creating a product similar to Google Wallet (referred to as a "mobile payment" point of sale). He then interviewed and left for Google (whilst PayPal and Google were in negotiations for a separate business deal), and PayPal claims that he used trade secrets from PayPal to help Google create Wallet.

Stephanie Tilenius broke her contractual agreement with eBay after she recruited Bedier (and attempted to recruit many other PayPal employees).

"Bedier was the senior PayPal executive accountable for leading negotiations with Google on Android during this period. At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android—PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for job at Google without informing PayPal of this conflicting position. Bedier’s conduct during this time amounted to breach of his responsibilities as PayPal executive."

I'm not a lawyer, but it looks like they have pretty good reason to be upset.

1. http://www.ebayinc.com/assets/pdf/fact_sheet/2011_PayPal_DOC...

Read the lawsuit, it says everything you need to know: http://www.ebayinc.com/assets/pdf/fact_sheet/2011_PayPal_DOC...

Just the birds to beat now.

Great read. Though the same story has been told many times before, it still amazes me that 4 people, in a garage, created a company that is now thousands of employees big and generates many billions of dollars in profit quarterly.

I thought the same thing at first, sadly.

Yes, it's only $5. A good cup of coffee is only slightly less than that, and it takes all of minutes to create. It's not like we are talking about $1000 enterprise software here.

Why is that not a legitimate justification? The vast majority of the world's population charge a monetary fee for their time, so why is this any different? The guy put a lot of effort into making an app, as such, if you like the app, you now reward him for that time by paying him.

People are complaining about $5? Really? Someone has put months of effort into this app, more than justifying the "high" price. If you think it's too expensive, just don't buy it.

I just bought it and think it's great (nice icon too).

If any industry was waiting for a startup to come along and revolutionize it, it's the banking industry.

They list all the advantages here: https://banksimple.com/#vision

In short, no surprise fee's and simple online banking (with extensive mobile support).

That is incredibly short sighted. The web is universal, iOS is not.

Twitter has actively advocated using xAuth in mobile apps and has never said, until yesterday, that they prefer developers using OAuth. Twitter themselves set the precedent with all of their official apps using xAuth.

The official apps get an exemption (some would say unfairly) from the new permissions model.

Yet another developer hostile move by Twitter. Developers get two weeks to switch to OAuth (with app review), and to top it all off, Twitter's official apps don't have to abide by the new permissions model. Ridiculous.

I can't wait for all the 1 star reviews third party apps get when users have to login again.

Here is an overview of the technical changes required: https://dev.twitter.com/pages/application-permission-model

The biggest change is that third party apps that use xAuth to authenticate have to switch over to OAuth, otherwise they lose the ability to read or write direct messages. I can't help but feel there is another motive to this.

Oh, and the best part? Developers have two weeks to introduce OAuth support (including getting past app review): "We know this will take some time so we are allowing a transition period until the end of this month".

Zero.

A lot of my friends are "geeks", and none of them have a jailbroken iPhone. In fact, the only person I know who has a jailbroken iPhone is a regular teenager, and that's because he refuses to pay for apps.

Just by looking at this organisational chart, you can see why Apple's industrial design is so amazingly great and consistent: http://www.macstories.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Photo-0....

Notice how Jonathan Ive does not delegate any work to any Vice Presidents. Compare this to other corporations and you'll see why this works so well (no giant chain of command where every member of staff is trying to put their stamp on things).