shakes

I'm actually in discussions with Shark Tank about appearing on the next season right now. I've passed the phone interview and am in the video application stage. No mention of equity thus far. I may drop a note to my contact there and see if I can get him to comment on this post.

So easy even my grandma could do it.

All signs here point to this being a huge prank. The site was registered 2 days ago. Dondamedia.com was registered yesterday. Plus the gmail they use doesn't match up with the e-mail kanye tweeted during his rant (DONDAMEDIA@GMAIL.COM vs contactDONDA@gmail.com ).

"I came to John with an idea of what I wanted to make–so I was personally motivated to complete the project."

I think this is a key point of learning. When someone feels ownership, it makes them have more motivation to complete a project.

I could see this being very popular. Whenever I wear startup swag (especially Twilio or Foursquare) I have people ask me where they can get it. When I say I got it at a user group or conference they seem disappointed.

(Disclaimer: Twilio sent me a basket)

I think Twilio this year has been a case study in how to handle a developer community: routinely running contests, putting together a kick-ass conference, having a developer evangelist at every freakin' tech event imaginable. And that's not even mentioning that their API is really slick. As a developer, I'm excited to see what they do in 2012 (and what I can build with it).

Taking a tweet from someone with 73 followers, throwing it front of thousands of people (maybe more) and saying that the tweet "reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement" is a personal attack to me. You can argue that they're right, but does the punishment really fit the crime? It seems in poor judgement to publicly shame some dude who's comments would of otherwise gone unnoticed.

Really? It looked to me like he did: http://twitter.com/#!/cloudgroupsyd/status/14253941437406412...

You can argue if that apology was enough or if it was a full apology. But I feel like saying "he didn't apologize" is an oversimplification.

My point is, they respond to the personal attacks by making personal attacks against the people who made them. An eye for an eye. In my opinion, they sunk down to the level of the people who were criticizing them. Making a good product speaks for itself, you don't have to have this petty back and forth.

Look, I hate racism. I grew up the midwest and saw the terrible things that racism can do to a culture.

But my argument is, what does Freshdesk gain from going back and forth with @cloudgroupsyd? Beyond that, @cloudgroupsyd apologized but still they chose to bring up this quote to rabble-rouse and make personal attacks against him. We all say stupid stuff, we all make mistakes. Especially in this world of 140 characters or less. What more do they want the dude to do? Become a crusader for Freshdesk? Apologize to them in person?

I'm a firm believer in forgiveness. Someone wrongs you and they apologize. What do you do? You move on. You don't write a blog post about.

Yeah, I think that's the problem with these kinds of flame wars. Is freshdesk right that the criticism about them was out of line? Yes. Does responding by saying the criticism "reflects poorly on the intellectual ability of the person making the judgement" and "[criticizer should] exercise better judgement and ethics when making negative comments about a company" seem heavy-handed and just as ridiculous as the initial criticism? In my opinion, yes.

I've had people call me every name in the book over my projects: a copy-cat, a sad and pathetic developer taking advantage of people and those are just a couple off the top of my head. Did I respond by calling those people ignorant or stupid or unethical? No. I just let it be. I feel good about what I'm doing and I keep trying to make products I'm proud of. Haters gonna hate.

Something about the whole freshdesk attitude really rubs me the wrong way. Not saying zendesk is in the right either. I just feel like I read the whole ripoffornot page and cringe. Definitely doesn't seem like the type of company I would want to give my time or money.

A couple people complained about their product on twitter and they built a whole page responding to it? In it, they respond to the criticism by making personal attacks against those who complained about them? Really weird.

Stop starting flame wars, start making a decent product.

Ha, General Assembly :)

> most techies in this area aren't that entrepreneurial.

I'm not sure where you get that idea? I've had the exact opposite experience in NYC. I think the tech scene is very entrepreneurial... IMO, it's why you see lots of people gravitating towards places like GA.

This is why, as a developer, I married a designer.

Ok, that's not the only reason why, but it's worked out really well.

Would love to see some kind of infographic after all is said and done. How many people contacted, how many interviews, etc. Good luck!

Even worse to me, they don't own @Qwikster and looking at the timeline of the person who has it now is just... scary.

This seems like an all around PR nightmare. Regardless of whether or not the name is terrible, why wouldn't they shore up their name on major social media players before making the announcement? Were they worried if they did this word may leak?

DonorsChoose, Skillshare, Tutorspree, General Assembly... are these not useful businesses? This list could go on.

If anything this article should be more of a critique of the list Business Insider put together than the NYC startup scene. Just because Business Insider isn't writing about "useful" businesses doesn't mean they don't exist.

Congrats! Seems like a really interesting concept!

The one thing that I immediately noticed was that there's a countdown on your homepage but it's not immediately apparent what it's counting down to.

There's a great book by Steven Johnson called "Where Good Ideas Come From" that talks about a lot about new ideas being the logical next step or a combination of ideas that have just been discovered/talked about. I'd highly recommend it.

Nice! It would definitely be great if that type of productive corridor opened up. Did Kogeto setup their own team there, or did they partner with a Rochester-based hardware supplier?

My wife is from Rochester so I end up there a couple times a year. It's pretty incredible what the decline of Kodak has done to the city. It's something everyone talks about.

I think the challenge is people worked at Kodak because it was in their town. And, IMO, a lot of these people remain jobless because they don't want to leave Rochester. Accessing this talent-base would require a company making an investment in not only the people but the city. In my opinion, the potential reward doesn't justify the risk.

When pitching a startup idea to investors I got some of the best advice I've received. One investor told me, "You told us you were going to help solve a problem, you asked a bunch of people 'would you like me to make your life easier?' and they said 'yes', but you never showed us how you would actually do it. We want to see HOW."

That would be my critique of this. Would I like to find hidden gems where I live? Sure. But HOW are they going to help do that?

I'd be interested in what data there is to back this up? I'm admittedly biased (as a NYC resident), but I just don't see DC carrying the same kind of weight as NYC.

I launched Twudge Report (http://twudgereport.com/). It's a novelty site, but it was a lot of fun to build.

Maybe I'm a bit too naive, but I think that if it was just about claiming credit for the compromise he could do that whether or not he takes his case to twitter.

I personally find this a more effective use of his twitter account than general meaningless PR. He's trying to initiate social action, I get that it can be annoying if you don't care. But if you don't care, you probably shouldn't be following Barack Obama.

I wonder who advised them against reimbursing her... their lawyers? It seems like a no-brainer.

I've been fascinated with AirBnB. I'm taking a week-long vacation in August and have been considering listing my NYC apartment to help offset some vacation costs. Their response in this situation totally turned me off from the idea. I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I'm all about startups having a sense of humor and personality. I think that their mistake is not following their answer up with something like this:

"But seriously, you rent at your own risk. Make sure to lockup or move all valuables to a friends place. If there are any problems, contact us 24 hours a day at XXX-XXX-XXXX"

Where are you located?