Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• Innovation, Disruption and The Economics of Free

  Hank Williams managed to stir up quite the controversy with his recent post lamenting the rise of free and blaming the VCs . His assertion is that the venture capitalists have made free, ad-supported businesses the norm and effectively "ruined it for everyone else" (my words). I believe it should be possible to start a small business and to have a small number of profitable customers, and to earn a living. From there, it should be possible to work hard, and to grow your business into something substantial. Until recently, this was the American way, and it applied to technology as much as to any other business. But no more. In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small... Posted Apr 08 2008, 10:41 PM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Rants, Innovation, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Venture Capital, NextNY, Notches

• Dealing with Review Integrity

  Over on the Notches Blog , I wrote about review integrity , highlighting some of examples of abuse and how we're trying to deal with them. Posted Apr 07 2008, 05:31 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Notches

• Notches, a platform for reviews

  We've launched . Notches is a free, open, universal platform for reviews. We're building a network of applications, partners and cool tools. Reviews written in any of the network's sites will be part of the Notches system everywhere. All the pieces share a common back-end which handles the heavy lifting. Today, we have released our developer API as well as a Facebook application and Twitter interface . If you are interested in developing for our API, request a key and get started today. If you are a site looking to integrate reviews, let us know and maybe we can help. Posted Mar 04 2008, 04:49 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: NYC, NextNY, Notches

• Facebook opens up with a JavaScript API

  Facebook just announced a new JavaScript Client Library that allows you to make Facebook API calls from any web site . In other words, you can start building Facebook applications are live outside of Facebook. I agree with Charlie that this move " makes membership in Facebook that much more valuable ", and is probably a direct response to the openness promised by OpenSocial . Duncan calls it a clever move , but if their goal is to truly build the social OS - or what Charlie calls a "social dial tone" - then it's a necessary move. Henry calls the strategy "brilliant" . This move seems another smart step toward a hybrid strategy: Allow app makers (and Facebook) to extend social-graph functionality to the web, gather more app users, and recruit more members--but retain full control over the social graph itself. This is precisely the approach we are taking with Notches. A "walled garden" is nice because you retain all control, but these days you need... Posted Jan 27 2008, 12:38 PM by Tim with | with 3 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Web 2.0, Facebook, Notches

• Taking the Plunge and Rediscovering Passion

  In my first few years in college, I took a few gut courses that older friends assured me were easy, requiring only 4 hours of work a week. I did terrible in every one. The reason, of course, was that I hated those 4 hours and avoided the work whenever I could. After a couple of semesters of this, I just started taking courses that interested me. Instead of those random "gut" courses, I took various advanced computer science courses. They were easily three or four times as much work, but my GPA doubled. What I realized then is that my success was tied to passion. If my heart wasn't in something, I had a tough time pretending and putting in the hours. When I first joined Goldman Sachs in 1999 as an intern, I had the chance to work on some really cool projects. We built an AJAX framework with client-side calls to ASP/COM objects before there was such a thing as AJAX and SOAP. My career there had its ups and downs in terms of the projects I was working on - there were other really... Posted Jan 27 2008, 11:17 AM by Tim with | with 1 comment(s) Filed under: Personal, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Notches

• Passion and its role in evaluating new product ideas

  Evan Williams has an absolutely wonderful post up about evaluating a new product idea . I think Marc is spot on - the "personally compelling" criteria is the one that stands out. Last on the list, but probably the first question I ask myself is: How important to me is it that this product exists in the world? If I were evaluating a startup, I'd ask this of the founders. . . . In theory, you can get around this with lots of user research. (It's pretty clear neither Slide nor Rockyou 's founders are creating widgets based on their own needs and desires.) But you're more likely to get it wrong that way. When I've gone sideways, it's when I wasn't listening to my gut on this issue. Specifically, Blogger and Twitter were personally compelling, while Odeo wasn't. Clearly, you're better suited to build a best-of-breed product if you're intimately familiar with the space and "scratching your own itch". But perhaps more importantly, I think... Posted Dec 26 2007, 01:01 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Technology, Software Development, Personal, Business, Entrepreneurship, Startup, NextNY, Notches

• Why Notches isn't "Anti-Stealth"

  There's been a lot of discussion about being anti-stealth . A stealth startup is one that isn't telling anyone what they're building and being very protective about the idea. Anti-stealth is the polar opposite - broadcasting everything, from your long-term vision, project status, and even financials. Anti-stealth is, in its purest form, about complete transparency in the business. Being "stealth mode" was in part about protecting the idea, but also gives the impression that the idea itself is revolutionary. In a sense, it's At one point this might have worked, but we realized more and more that many of these companies in "stealth mode" had average ideas at best. Being "anti-stealth" has its own pros and cons. The real value in broadcasting your message is that you'll get feedback and opportunities that would otherwise go undiscovered, as Charlie discovered . There are many benefits I can see being completely transparent. Of course, you actually... Posted Nov 26 2007, 11:08 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Intellectual Property, Business, Entrepreneurship, NYC, Startup, NextNY, Notches

• Interested in working at a startup? Come to MatchupCamp

  Next week, nextNY and For Your Imagination are hosting the first MatchupCamp . MatchupCamp – matchmaking for startups – is all about startup networking, creating a place for ideas and talent to meet. There are many events matching professional services to startups – this one will focus on those looking to get their hands dirty and build something new. MatchupCamp has the sole objective of bringing together people looking to start, expend, or join a startup in New York (and the tri-state area). Corey and I will be there and we'd love to chat about Notches with any interested developers or designers. Either way, if you're feeling the itch to work at a startup, come by next Wed and see what others in the NYC area are up to. Event Details : When : Wed, Nov 28, 2007, 7-9pm Where : For Your Imagination, 22 West 27th Street, 6th Floor Posted Nov 21 2007, 10:50 AM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Entrepreneurship, Events, NYC, Startup, NextNY, Notches

• Distinguishing between a platform and a destination

  Charlie says that "the whole idea that you have a main site is dead". I couldn't agree more - I strongly believe that platforms are the future of the Internet. One clarification I'd like to make in this whole discussion is Facebook is both a destination and a platform. It's important to understand that these are discrete things - something can be a platform without being a destination and vice versa. Clearly, Facebook offers a nice API for integrating your code into theirs, but this to me is not what makes Facebook a platform. MySpace, iGoogle, and a plethora of Web 2.0 portals allow you to "embed" your code - Facebook just allows you to do it more seamlessly. If anything, these are all simply platforms - or rather, vehicles - for traffic. Of course, as Charlie and myself and countless others have said, traffic does not give you a business model. On the other hand, Facebook is getting flak for not being open enough with their data . As Fred says, being open... Posted Aug 21 2007, 06:15 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Software Development, Web 2.0, Business, Blogging, Entrepreneurship, Startup, NextNY, Notches

• Exploring the Startup Culture in NYC

  On the nextNY mailing list , there has been a great discussion about the NYC startup culture, what (if anything) is broken, and how to fix it. Google making NYC its second home is a good start (though I'd like to point out that 14th St and 8th Ave isn't exactly "the heart of Chelsea"). One of the recurring themes in that discussion was that we need an "anchor": once things get going, the ecosystem will feed itself, but until that point we need someone like Google to be the base. "Google's perceived less as a threat in New York -- one that might hire away top talent from surrounding companies -- than as a catalyst of good things to come." Cost is obviously an issue. The NYSIA gave cost in NYC a C- for cost, and some suggest that we are becoming "a trustafarian resort-town" . Office space (can be) expensive, but there are alternatives. It should come as no surprise that many startups are moving to DUMBO and Williamsburg which are (slightly... Posted Feb 28 2007, 01:18 PM by Tim with | with 4 comment(s) Filed under: Technology, Entrepreneurship, Events, NYC, Startup, NextNY, Notches