SuckyStartups

Blabnote: Thank goodness it’s the only voice social network.

Me — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:03:25 +0000

You gotta give these guys and gals credit for being funny! That’s hilarious–a voice social network. Perhaps the only slower and worse thing than working on a mobile phone browser is trying to navigate voice recognition. This is gonna be great. I can’t wait until they get out of “private beta!”

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

Gigaom forgot one crucial step

Me — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:11:50 +0000

Here, Gigaom discusses the lifecycle of a startup. But they forgot one crucial step:

Being featured on SuckyStartups!!!

One day an entrepreneur is chatting with his friends, gets an idea, writes about the idea on his or her blog, and then starts coding. A few weeks or possibly days, a beta — increasingly a euphemism for a not-fully-thought-out-product — emerges.

THE LAUNCH
Then the buzz builds and the company opens up the beta far and wide. Maybe TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, WebWorkerDaily or WebWare write about the product.

The missing sentence:
“Then SuckyStartups blogs about it, telling it like it is. No differentiation. Me too. No business model. No chance.”

THEN…

LAUNCH A SOCIAL NETWORK WIDGET
If the user adoption press releases, the widget and subsequent coverage can’t get your site growing again, it’s time for the big guns…the open API.

In between

Yocial–They Mixed Business and Pleasure

Me — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 03:29:26 +0000

They should have listened to the old adage…

Yocial’s whole shtick is having a single site to have both work and personal friends.

Now your colleagues at work can see how you spend your drunken after-work hours. And your friends can see how you’re a corporate drone from 9:15 to 4:45. Great. What innovation!

Update: so, apparently, you can keep your two sets of friends separate. I’ll stick with facebook and linkedin personally.

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Pet Peeve - Pet-Files.com

Me — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 03:50:12 +0000

This is good…a social network for pets! I’ve seen it all now.

The thing is, there ain’t anything more to say…enjoy…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

DumpUSA is closing all their retail stores

Me — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 02:17:23 +0000

They ain’t a startup, but it’s worth a mention anyway…CompUSA is closing all their stores. I wonder what took ‘em so long. I remember getting my 386 there and upgrading the RAM from 4 to 8MB. Good times. Even then, the employees didn’t know what they were talking about.

Google

Me — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:30:51 +0000

Just kidding–Google rocks.

A Ding for Ning

Me — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:52:50 +0000

Ning Stinks — any “platform” that enables people create social networks for people that have letter Z fetishes shouldn’t exist, in my oh so very humble opinion.

They’re all boasting that they have 115K social networks, but like 8 of them are mine and have 1 member. I know, I know–I’m sure the other 114, 992 rival Facebook and Myspace in their scale & usefulness.

Why not just create a group on a real social network? Why does everyone love it just ’cause it’s Marc, who created Netscape? Netscape isn’t cool–it was Mosaic that was cool. LoudCloud isn’t cool. Why would Ning be cool?I think I’m going to create a Marc Fan Club network on Ning.

Rating: 1 out of 1 stars

Come join the iPartee (beta)!

Me — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 01:22:50 +0000

I had kind of a crappy day, but iPartee completely turned it around.

I haven’t laughed this hard in a while!

What is IPartee?
In their own words, “IPartee is a place to find events and venues you and your friends want to attend. We let you plan, publish, promote and monetize your events for free.”

That got me chuckling, but I lost it at:

“What’s are the benefits of signing up?
What makes IPartee really useful is the ability to use it with your friends [emphasis mine]. By joining IPartee, you’ll be able to use features that help you plan events with friends, as well as post events, venues, polls, reviews and photos.”

I seriously want to invite all my friends, so I can use features! The part I’m most excited about is posting venues! It’s so funny…because I actually have a list of venues by my computer that I’ve been compiling over the past months, and just waiting for the right outlet! Now that I have iPartee, and I’m going to feel much more fulfilled!

iPartee made me so happy that I went to their careers section–I’d really enjoy a career at a place that makes me laugh every day. Alas, I got a “not found” error.

OK, OK–I’m being too harsh…I’m just jokin’ around…

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

GetItNext - It helps you search ebay in the off chance ebay’s search functionality is broken…

Me — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:08:33 +0000

GetItNext is a whole site devoted to searching ebay. I tried it out and it does provide some decent search results. But nonetheless folks, a whole company around this?!?!

My favorite part is that they have multiple offices! “Headquartered in Canada, we have offices in Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, New Jersey and New York.” I would guess there isn’t enough of a business model for an unemployed coder who built this in his bedroom–I can’t imagine what they are doing with FIVE OFFICES!!!

Maybe there’s something I don’t quite get. Maybe you’ll generate some nice returns if you invest now. It just so happens they are raising money.

“Dear Prospective Investor:
Let me invite you to join an exclusive group of individuals who have been caught up in the excitement of GetItNext. Currently, we are in the process of raising additional venture capital to finance the continued marketing and ongoing development of a new service that will revolutionize how people use the eBay marketplace.”

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Web 0.2

Me — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 01:52:08 +0000

Kleiner Perkins ain’t investing in Web 2.0. Instead, they’re goin’ back to basics and investing in Web 0.2.

SiliconValleyWatcher has the details, but Randy Komisar said it himself: “We have absolutely no interest in funding Web 2.0 companies.”

Not willing to take them at their word, I took a stroll through their portfolio. One company that stood out is called “Pinger,” which enables “people to communicate with their voice in new and remarkably convenient ways.” Notice the spelling of the company. If this were a web 2.0 company, it would be called Pingr and it would be in beta.

A different portfolio company, Aggregate Knowledge, doesn’t get off so easy. They’re described as definitively web 2.0: “Unlike enterprise software that takes months to deploy, Aggregate Knowledge is a real-time Web 2.0 service that deploys in days and offers customers a performance-based pricing model.”

If people stop investing in web 2.0, what the hell am I going to write about?!!?