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trajan's comments

trajan | 16 years ago | on: An Android Success Story: $13,000 Monthly App Sales

My team has a game that's doing well on the quality side (~100 reviews and 4.74 average rating), but the marketing is pretty tough. We've got a near-perfect substitute for a massively popular game that's missing from Android - if we could only put it in front of the casual gamers who only look at the featured and top ranked list, I'm sure it would be a bigger hit than most of the games currently featured. I'm hopeful that the great feedback and very good sales relative to our position that we receive will eventually catch someone at Google's notice, but until then we'll just keep making the game better.

On a down note, the recent rating reorganization seems to make it tougher for newer apps in our position to move up the list - a lot of poorly rated and abandoned junk from early in the Android platform's life is above us again now that the ranking algorithm seems to value raw sales above all else.

Still, things are worlds better than they were 6 months ago. We'll continue to bet on Android for the future.

trajan | 17 years ago | on: Thank you, Adobe Reader 9

There is a lot of support for niche features (3D, etc) pushed into the base reader because it provides a significant business advantage to Adobe.

For example, they stand to benefit tremendously if a government agency decides to go with PDF as their document review format over Autodesk's DWF. The fact that the average consumer already has everything they need to use these solutions is a big bullet point in their favor.

They don't stand to lose much if some picky internet folk (not criticizing - I'm one too) decide to use a free alternative because Acrobat's too heavy.

trajan | 18 years ago | on: Ask HN: What are some good biographies to read?

I second this - I've never really found Steve Martin funny, but I thought his book was very interesting and different from most biographies in that it was about success achieved not through prodigious talent but just years and years of grinding it out and slowly improving.

trajan | 18 years ago | on: Are MacBooks Just Trendy?

I've seen other players that do more, but nothing I really need and they lack the iPod's killer feature: ubiquity. Seriously, it's great that any time I want to use my iPod with any high end electronic I can plug it in and the device's manufacturer has already provided an interface. My Xbox360, TV, stereo and car all came ready to work with the iPod - how many other players can say that?

trajan | 18 years ago | on: Crunched

I could be wrong, but I don't think you've done many Yahoo fantasy drafts if you think people are really OK with the draft interface. The reason I've continued to use the site over the years is more that the rest of the interface isn't that bad and that the alternatives are worse.

trajan | 18 years ago | on: Founders at Work - Xobni Beta!

Are we allowed to pass on the installer like this? I would have been doing the same thing but I thought the NDA prevented it.

trajan | 18 years ago | on: Windows Live SkyDrive

No such luck. The 'More Info' link explicitly says that it works on Mac OS with Firefox.

trajan | 19 years ago | on: How did you guys name your startup?

We focused on making sure our name was memorable and easy to spell. It's a bit goofy, but I'm pretty sure if you saw it briefly in an article or overheard someone talking about the site you'd be able to easily find it later.

And no, I'm not ready to share the name yet. :)

trajan | 19 years ago | on: Rejected Y Combinator company Bandsintown.com is now Live!

FWIW, I like bandsintown a lot more at first glance. I didn't have to click anything, and I instantly found out a lot about what's going in my area.

It looked like I had 5 or 10 more clicks at least to get anything good out of sonicliving. I'll probably never go there again unless someone I trust strongly recommends it. I'm sure I'll idly pop into bandsintown a few more times over the next few months.

trajan | 19 years ago | on: When will we see "ball cams" in sports?

I think it could make both these sports more fun to watch, but then I'm not a fan of either. It seems to me that a lot of people following golf and baseball are purists easily turned off by this kind of thing. I could be wrong.

I am a fan of basketball and football, and do know that the innovative camera angles introduced so far fail the pub test; whenever I'm at a bar and the TV switches to one, people either complain or say nothing. I've yet to hear any support.

trajan | 19 years ago | on: When will we see "ball cams" in sports?

This would be the exact opposite of "making something people want". Ask your average sports fan how high they are on the NBA's below-the-basket floor cam or (even worse) the wavering camera that floats down the center of the court over the action.

Thanks, but no thanks!

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