Kavan's comments

Love this comment: The plans may draw other customers because “people don’t like bill shock,” he said. “Consumers will pay a premium for unlimited.”

So true. People will pay a premium to know that that is all they will ever pay.

Household brands like Twitter, Google, Nike, Zara, Walmart, Ford and KPMG will IMHO pay. This is not binary, it is a continuum. Will TechCrunch buy theirs? Will AirBnb, Path or Zaarly?

It is a risk decision for these businesses.

For a relatively small amount of money companies are removing the potential brand and legal cost risk of not owning their .xxx. The more important your brand the more likely you will be to pay.

I totally agree with you that this is 'extortion', but just because it may not be right, doesn't mean we won't be affected by it.

It can be super costly to legally gain control of a domain that contains your mark (tens of thousands of dollars). And there is no guarantee you will win it back. Trademarks are registered by country/territory, so even though you may have the mark in the US, it doesn't mean that someone else can't use it in another country.

My concern is that many people on HN are building brands, and the last thing you want is someone buying yourbrand.xxx and covering it with porn.

If you have an established brand, you almost have to buy the .xxx.

Congrats Liz, great little piece of kit!

Think we are seeing the start of a new uber cheap PC market. Almost zero cost. It will make a big difference in the developing world and I think will be a huge hit (at least amongst the tech geeks) in developed nations.

PS +1 on the comment for wifi in v2

I think we almost have to. If you don't grab your trademark now then someone else might, and you don't want someone squatting on it with dodgy content :/

They are super expensive though, 10x the price of a .com.

Nice post :)

Anyone used http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/? Seems like a good starting point for someone wanting to get going without creating your own CSS classes.

Nice, clean design and code. Think it will be perfect for mockups and user flow design. Going to give it bash, will report back if anyone is interested.

Unfortunately the best tech doesn't always win the battle. Thinking of VHS vs Beta, DVD vs BlueRay :/

Or a non-technical manager that trusts your judgement.

Got it, thanks Elliot.

Totally agree. Startups are bets. You may win or you may lose.

I think the point is that the upside is huge, although unlikely. While failure, the more likely path, still means you learn a lot and make a lot of great contacts that can help you with the next venture.

IMHO, as long as you don't bet too big (if you lose your job for a month you lose your house), the risk is well worth it.

Totally agree that TC will not 'make or break' your company. The beauty of being a startup is that you are judged primarily on your product. It is as pure a meritocracy as you will find. This is why I love it.

However, TC has become very powerful. Even Googles General Counsel speaks directly to them (http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/25/google-patent-fight). Yes the influence is not a binary 'pass' or 'fail', but it is significant enough for the CrunchFund to benefit from their writing.

I am a big fan of TC and of Arrington. Yes, he is not to everyone's liking, but he has built an amazing business from nothing. However, I have a problem with AOL & TechCrunch forming a startup fund.

TC has a huge impact on the startup market. They are the most powerful tech news business in the world and can literally move the market on a startup with a single blog post. If it is positive your user numbers sky rocket and the VC's are calling. If it is negative your investors are on the phone asking questions.

The CrunchFund gives them skin in the game. TC will determine to a significant extent the value of the CrunchFund portfolio.

We read TC because we trust them to give an unbiased view of our startup world. Yes, MG loves Apple and he gets a lot of stick for it. But what if it came out that all of MG's pension money and savings were in Apple stock. It changes things, right?

If the journalistic trust between the publication and her readers is lost, TC's influence and readership will dissipate.

IMHO the greatest threat to TC is not Arrington leaving. It is the CrunchFund, and the erosion of TCs integrity and credibility that will come with it.

AOL = TechCrunch and AOL = CrunchFund (as it is AOL's capital seeding the fund)

So even if the fund had a different name, and Arrington doesn't work for AOL directly, there is still a conflict of interest. As Paul Carr said in his article, are TC journalists likely to write a really negative piece on a CrunchFund company knowing that Tim Armstrong ultimately runs both?

Would the Wall Street Journal or the New Times start an investment fund and invest in the exact companies they are reporting on? IMHO they would not, as they realise their core business's need for independence.

If AOL want to follow through on their strategy "AOL is planning on being the largest high quality content producer for digital media." they need to realise that they are a media business and so need to follow the same rules basic rules for good journalism as every one else in their industry.

IMHO this is a very poor decision by Armstrong. For another glamorous dabble in the VC world where he will probably make about 10% ($2M) per annum, he could be betting the entire AOL business.

Not much upside and a whooooole lotta downside = bad trade.

This is a great video for anyone looking to develop new product. It parodies the design-by-committee and design-by-focus groups methodologies that too many companies still live by today.

Definitely think contextual awareness will be a huge part of of future. Loved the line 'right now you learn your phone, but if your phone learns you...' endless possibilities.

For example I was recently in New York, just wandering the streets just after midday and I was getting hungry. My phone I am in New York (an area I don't know), it also knows that it is lunch time. Lets say it new from my past behaviour that I like Thai Food, and from my bank account that I hadn't swiped my card for lunch that day. It could then send me a notification of a great Thai restaurant running deals as I walk past it.

Or if I am on my way to a meeting and the person I am meeting is running late (too far from meeting location to be able to get there in time), I could be pinged with a 'Expect Bob to be late notification' and his current location.

There are loads of augmentations that could happen in our daily lives that we could benefit from. The beauty is that all the technology is behind the scenes. If the usability is done right, it would seamlessly fit into our lives.

I have just blogged about this article at FounderandFriends.com.

Here is the text from it.

Steve Jobs, is someone I admire hugely. Yes, he has numerous personality floors but his obsession to follow his heart in all things in his life is extremely admirable. Watching his Stanford Commencement speech too many times in a job I didn’t enjoy led me to quit as a Derivatives Trader and sent me on my current path, back to the startup world I left many years ago. He has literally changed my life.

Steve’s obsession has led him to become a product perfectionist. And is why Apple is now the second most valuable company in the world. Almost every product that comes from Apple is spectacularly awesome. And Vic’s post illustrates the depths of Steve’s obsession. I have heard similar stories about Jack Dorsey at Square, tweaking spacing on receipts because he felt they were not beautiful enough.

In Vic’s post the comments are full of ‘the devil is in the details’ quotes of admiration for Jobs’ obsession. But the question for us is, ‘Should we as startup entrepreneurs have the same obsession with the details of our products?’.

My answer is that, unfortunately, we can’t. And I really mean it when I say unfortunately. I am a perfectionist myself in a lot of ways. When I do something I pour my heart and soul into it. I want it to be the best I can make it. I become obsessed and it is constantly in my mind. I go to bed and wakeup thinking about it. My girlfriend recently pointed out that 70% of our conversation is about SayMama. All the SayMama animations, transitions and buttons movements, design, logo and user flows have all been laboriously thought through and refined. The amount of energy myself and the team have spent on details has been immense.

The problem is that we misplaced our passion. We are currently pivoting the business, or rather accelerating it to where we wanted it to be in a year or so from now. This means that we will be putting most of our energy into a new product. All the details we crafted in saymama.com don’t matter.

Obsession is not the problem, the problem is where we focus the obsession. For us startups, the obsession should be placed in finding product/market fit and gaining traction. And in finding our product champions who will help spread the word. A higher level of abstraction of obsession. Not the details but the broader product.

Obsession with the details of a logo are only gifted to those who have viable product that serves a users need. Those like Steve and Jack who already have a viable business. Personally I can’t wait for this day, but until then all my energy will go into defining where SayMama and our subsequent product fit into the world of real time video communications.

We are still guided by the same compass, ‘to take real world human interaction and replicate it online’. But the obsession is not on the product details. It is on creating something that solves users’ problems in a way that no one else does.