What is Digg?68 Comments
- RezSav, on 10/12/2007, -25/+125Anyone else besides me found the glitch in the comment system yet? Multiple clicks on the thumbs up gives the person multiple diggs... or maybe it just shows that for me.
- digitalgopher, on 10/12/2007, -4/+54Except this is coming from a guy who's company does not have a sustainable business model. Good companies with solid business models will always get funded and can make it through tough times. Flickr is a novel idea, but the business needs to show how it can be a business, not just a cool website.
- snoble, on 10/12/2007, -3/+45I'm sorry but are we talking about flickr? I mean I agree with you when it comes to tons of sites out there which seem cool but whose business is unclear (netvibes, gooey, 30boxes). But flickr? Here we have a company that is actually collecting money from subscribers. Sure this is no guarantee for long term success. And at the same time this is a company that has already been bought. It'll be interesting to see how well flickr survives with competition popping up all over the place but at the same time that question is sort of academic at this point. They are a yahoo! company now. This is like saying can Jason Calacanis really make any money with weblogs inc. He's already made a ton.
- Hyperion, on 10/12/2007, -7/+41Yeah, I just gave you two thumbs up. That is weird.
- jawadshuaib, on 10/12/2007, -5/+33exactly. The only business model web 2.0 startups have is their exit strategies. To make a viable company, rival to Google/M$/AOL/Yahoo, these companies need to start off with self-sustaining plan to continue their existence even after the VC money runs out. When the VC cash goes out the windows, so will all the great 2.0 companies.
Jawad Shuaib - clueless, on 10/12/2007, -10/+33cool... i just gave you 5...
edit: but it went down to 2 again (there is something definitely wrong) - chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -9/+32What does being homosexual have to do with starting a business? You really sounded like an idiot there, nice one.
- squeevey, on 10/12/2007, -7/+27Think about this...you digg someones comment. Your computer sends a request to change that person's digg rating. Next, the computer updates the database and then returns the current value of their rating. Pretty simple.
Ok..you all get that, but what you are failing to understand is that it's not a live value site (not until your system asks for a change). So from the moment you've opened the page to the moment you get the request from the database OTHER USERS have been digging up and down your fellow diggers. Thus accounting for the changes.
This Here intarweb is pretty fancy, heck even multiple people can use it. - Billistic, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Not that there's anything wrong with that.
http://www.veryimportantpotheads.com/main2.htm - clueless, on 10/12/2007, -14/+31that glitch in the comment system actually does work... the most i could get was 3, but still that's wrong.
- Athlwulf, on 10/12/2007, -6/+21What a bloody ignorant thing to say.
- FredSanford, on 10/12/2007, -8/+22The sustainable business model involved being bought out by Yahoo, so they really don't need to worry about how to be a business.
Yahoo, by the way, bought the company more for it's web 2.0ness than anything else. - vann, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14The comment rating bug has been fixed. What's happening is that each click increments the value being displayed, so it's changing on the client side. If you digg someone's comment multiple times very quickly and then immediately refresh you'll see that you've only actually dugg it once (unless someone else has also dugg it in the meantime).
- Misled, on 10/12/2007, -9/+21The guy is kind of true about the pothead statement, though.
- snarkey, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13Here's a simple truth: It's always a bad time to start a company. Most businesses fail in five years. Starting a company is a major, major pain in the butt. You end up spending all your time on stupid things like remembering to pay the coffee-service people and reviewing contract language. And the instant ulcer-maker? CASHFLOW WORRIES. You are going to make payroll this week, aren't you?
Apart from that, it's a better time now for tech startups than at anytime in the last five years. The author of this article is just being a bit self-dramatic and over-entitled. She must be very young. - rm999, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11I have submitted 2 stories about that comment digging bug and i submitted a bug report but no one listened to me. The reply from the bug report was basically that i was an idiot and not checking the cache. Yes, I checked that the diggs actually registered, and im fairly certain no one else dugg the comments i tested it on (I dugg a single comment 4 times in a story with only 5 diggs).
The problem is the bug is really hard to reproduce. I think it has something to do with the connection with digg (lag and whatnot) and maybe how many times you have viewed the page (i can only do it the first time i am on a comment page for some reason). Oh well, it really isn't a big deal because its so hard to do (and who cares how many diggs a comment has?) - phlux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Sounds to me like these people are just trying to discourage competition.
"Hey, I started a company - its Flickr, sure you've heard of *my* company. Well I am here to tell you that you *should NOT* *NOT* start a company!! Why? Well, heck - there are already so many people that started a company LIKE ME!"
Fark off - now is always the best time to act, so long as you are acting from a solid foundation. This applies to more than just starting a business. - Blujoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7There is never a bad time to start a company as long as you have something that people want. If people want it, they will get it regardless of what else is going on in the business.
- nickweb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Read the comments under the article and notice that Digg.com CEO Jay Adelson replied to Caterina's post. I agree with Jay.
- PlaidPhantom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Or they go belly-up. Either way, it's a good thing.
- jawadshuaib, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8wha? It is a great time to start a company because the web 1.0 style funding is back. Of course there is rising competition, but that results in more innovative products. So competition should be looked on as a good thing. Companies perform best when they are in a state of frenzy.
Jawad Shuaib - succubuskiller, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Her" first point is retarded. Anytime is a good time for business if you got something people would want that is not available. I agree web 2.0 is HIGHLY overated. AJAX is great, but it should not be the cornerpoint of a business model without some concept of lets make money with GoogleAds, etc..
Maybe everyone is getting advice from the underpants gnomes... Step 1: Collect Underpants.... Step 2: .......... Step 3: Profit - jayadelson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Why you think Digg didn't always have a "veritable 'CEO'" never ceases to confuse me, and why you think Digg's team can work someplace besides an office also leaves me puzzled. (I've been with Digg since the beginning, I guess you just never noticed me. I'm hurt. Ok maybe I'm not.)
- diggerphelps, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6
She hit the yahoo! lottery, and now she's a business genius?
Also, I find it funny that she uses gmail as her official blog. - forgetfulca, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"Vann" is correct. A) I can only get thumbs up to advance multiple times, and b) when I immediately refresh the page I can see that only one of my diggs has been accepted. tempest in a teacup.
- MrMickMan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7It's never a bad time to start a company.
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Great article. While it isn't a good idea to start up your own company, atleast there is compitition now, unlike the days when Microsoft, IBM and apple basically dominated the tech market. The internet is a wonderful, wonderful thing- especially for the consumer.
- aftk2, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think this bubble's burst will be more like a pop: there just hasn't been the same level of hype surrounding the web, outside of the web, as there was in the late 90s. No super bowl ads, no sock puppets. You'll probably just wake up one morning, the distant sounds of a thousand podcasts silenced.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Talent is scarce? *****
I have a 4 year college degree and I am unemployed because of lack of work in the industry. Every job I apply to says I'm overqualified. All the big businesses are closing down and moving to China & Mexico, everyone is getting laid off. It's a great time to start a business because right now people will work for pennies on the dollar. - kobs, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5It always amazes me, that once some people a nice lump of money, it's as if they now have all authority to spout about various things from politics, economics, etc.
- b7j0c, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4some notes:
you can note always wait for "good times". you are only young once. and to be certain, startups are mostly for the young.
that said, it is a bad time for WEB startups. have a solar energy breakthrough? its a GREAT time to deliver it
but getting to the web, the cost of putting up a website that can offer features and scales well is dropping towards zero. no cost means no barriars means no profits. - noGoodNamesLeft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Is "Web 1.0 style funding" where they give you loads of money regardless of whether or not your idea is any good, and when the whole bubble bursts they pull all your funding regardless of whether or not your idea is any good?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Wow, reading this was deja vu. I remember back in 2000 reading articles sounding exactly the same. Expect a big bursting bubbles within a yea maybe two. And I bet it goes exactly like the last one. For a year before the bubble burst last time everything I read was warning, "The bubble's gonna burst, the bubble's gonna burst look out." and then when it did burst "Oh my God what happened, noboby saw this coming." HUh???
- kordless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Being an entrepreneur myself, it pisses me off when another one of us dares advise "those that aren't" against giving it a go. Worse yet, every point in her argument against starting a business is flawed....
Point #1 - Just because other people are doing what you are doing doesn't mean it's bad to do it too. If you don't concern yourself with what everyone else is doing, and focus on what YOU need to do to make your company succeed, you will. Hell, look at Digg, it's *so* much better than Slashdot I can't stand it.
Point #2 - Flickr was funded on shoe string angel if I remember correctly. Assuming you need $4 million in the bank to be successful is a flawed, late 1990s thinking strategy. Good things can come from hard work and little capital.
Point #3 - Talent is easy to find if you can talk the talk and walk the walk. It's a bad idea to start a dotcom company that uses Python and AJAX if you yourself haven't a clue how to code an alert in JavaScript. If you can't understand or do a little of it yourself, you put yourself at a disadvantage when talking to potential hires and even a worse position when your people start to develop the product.
Point #4 - That operating in obscurity is somehow beneficial is flawed logic based on an assumed association between funding, media and the development cycle. Have an idea, figure out if it can be monetized, code a solution, find some customers, focus on customer's needs, repeat. You do this regardless of what the media says or wants. It's a separate beast and should be dealt with separately. Period. (I find this one totally amusing as Stewart was evidently up in the PR guy's grill 24/7 to get press on Flickr.)
Point #5 - Web 2.0 *is* all that and more. It's about people pushing the envelope with technology. Both Flickr and del.icio.us were successful in part because of the tagging technology - how it was implemented, and how it was wielded, and how excited people got about it. Yahoo bought Flickr for the hype, technology, people, and most importantly as a defensive measure. They sure as hell didn't buy them for the revenue....
Point #6 - If anything the statement that "there is too much going on" is more a warning to existing dotcoms than anything else. If you ***** around a lot trying to get press and attention, and that's all you got going - you're going to fail. If you sit down and bust ass all day then party all night, go for it.
There will always be room for great ideas and innovation to make it in a marketplace - regardless of the competition and funding enviroment. If you have a good idea, and a little support, live your dream and DO IT! - lukejduncan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Its always a good time to start a company. It may be a bad time to make speculative investments, but if you have a product that you believe in and there is demand for then its sounds like a great time to start. Breakthroughs don't wait for the business cycle.
- inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7> So from the moment you've opened the page to the moment you get
> the request from the database OTHER USERS have been digging up
> and down your fellow diggers. Thus accounting for the changes.
I think most of us posting here understand that, but have you tried it? It happens consistently. When it's a repeatable thing, it's most likely not other people voting, but a real bug. And besides, I've rarely seen the number change in unexpected ways due to other people voting on comments. Also, notice that the thumbs-down icon disables immediately when you click it, but the thumbs-up stays enabled until the digg count updates. Thus, you can add multiple votes with fast clicking before the digg number updates and disables the icon.
Try it a few times. You'll see. - AhmedF, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The glitch does *not* work - sigh. Basically the JS on your browser keeps incrementing it, but server-side they ignore subsequent clicks.
- xeeton, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5His points are so cliche' that they aren't worth refuting. If you think like he does, that makes two of you. People who don't run a business think it's "a pain." Most of those people are "self employed" and *think* they run a business.
They have no idea about the enjoyment and thrill that comes along with creating something. - Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@xeeton: Things are usually cliche for a reason. I don't think running a business is a pain but I do agree that there are administrative details that must be taken care of that are less than glamorous. If someone is self-employed than they run a business, pretty simple. Besides, my point was a business of any significant scale has to deal with the parent's point. It's people that only employ themselves that don't deal with it.
Everyone creates. I suppose you're some sort of authority on art and life. God is in the details. Details matter. Anyone can have a vision or "great idea". Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Who will implement? Who will secure financing? Who will ensure what is done is legal? Who will setup internal controls? Who will pay taxes efficiently? Who will do marketing and market research? Who will do all necessary functions, sell their butts off and rake in new clients while making sure financial statements are prepared, business plans are executed and cash is managed?
Most businesses fail because they got the details wrong; they go bust showing an accrual profit because their cash wasn't managed well. But I guess CPAs, controllers, cash managers are all a bunch of ignorant fools that don't know what it's like to create? No man is an island. - PaulOwen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Interesting how the poster has decided to qualify the statement at the END of the summary.
If the title was 'Flickr founder says "It's a Bad Time to Start a Company In the Bay Area"' then I suppose fewer people would read it, because the majority of Digg readers are not from the Bay Area "in the middle of it all" (lol).
This kind of selective qualification is bringing Digg down. It makes Digg sound like an RSS feed from Springfield Newreader Kent Brockman.
Examples:
Digg Article Title:
THE WORLD IS ENDING SOON
Summary:
The world of work is ending soon for people at Springfield's Nuclear Power plant.
Digg Article Title:
PENTAGON PUTTING LASERS ON 747's
Summary:
The Pentagon is working on putting lasers on planes at some point in the future. The pentagon's also working on spacefood tablets.
Oh hang on there's another thread for that last one. - Gottschalk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@xeeton: I'm sorry but it's you that has no idea what a business is. Snarkey is dead on talking about the concerns of almost any business of any significant scale. Most businesses are more than a fat guy in Mom's basement and a website.
- CaughtThinking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2come to washington d.c., we'll hire you on the spot.
- benpjohnson, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1There is never a bad time to start a good company... but sometimes there are good times to start bad companies
- C00001, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1LOL. DC's a great place to find work right now. In fact, i just got out of school a bit ago with a four-year degree, moved to DC, and got a good job pretty quickly. At a small company. I digg the city, too.
- geodanny, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1She has valid points, although it reminds me of Alan Greenspan warning of "irrational exuberance" in 1997. He was right, but that didn't make anybody stop to consider what he was saying. We all said he was full of it (which is what many of these comments here say about Caterina).
I think the comments she refers to in which other people say it is a good time to start a company in the SF Bay Area are regarding the increasing amount of hype for some products before they even come out, which don't turn out to be revolutionary, or both (think: Flock). It seems that anything that fits under the Web 2.0 label is being over hyped and a lot of companies are being created which are recycling ideas (some bad) but which don't have any monetization in mind. It is the lack of real innovation which I think she's commenting on; people who have latched onto one idea which will save the world, but won't.
The lack of monetization is what caused the dot com implosion in 2000. If you build it, they will come. But can you afford it?
Good ideas for services that were needed, had demand, and brought in money were incubated during that time period. Even though during the lows from the bubble bursting, most people felt it was the wrong time to create a company. Flickr came from that time period. Google search came of age during that time period. Overture and Google showed that sponsored links was a viable advertising medium during that period.
But remember to always take the "experts" opinions as just that, and take them with a grain of salt. - Agent0100, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's interesting how many people commented on these statements assuming a "company" is something that exists on-line. Not many people had anything to say about starting a non-web related company. Have people become so involved in the web world that they can't remember that businesses exist and make their livelihood on things other than web services?
I think this exact thing is what maybe makes it so difficult to start an on-line company. People have forgotten that there's a real world out there where people make things and provide services involving people in physical contact.
If you're looking for "new" ideas, try looking in a "new" place.
But that's just one nanoscience geek's point of view. I have never been involved in a web company and that limits my view of what qualifies as a company. - sbritner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It is what it is.
"Almost any idea is good if a [person] has ability and is willing to work hard. The best idea is worthless if the creator is a loafer and ineffective." - William Feather.
Got a good idea and the desire to stick to it? Go for it.
Think you'll wuss out as the first pot hole? Then stick your pennies under your mattress and pray. - fdelucio, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I guess Flickr founder wants to start a new company now, but don´t want any competitor around, so he is frightening any possible rivals.
- jesusphreak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Is Jay really worth listening to?
We are trying to avoid Web 2.0 bubble and burst, right?
Let's remember, Digg is the same company based off of Google ads yet now has its own veritable "CEO" and its own office space. - azermuffin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Why not try working for a small business instead.
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