

VentureBeat: The Y Combinator List - jcwentz
http://venturebeat.com/2007/08/16/the-y-combinator-list/

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zach
All the "but there are a lot of competitors" caveats got tiresome.

Just go ahead and say "they haven't done enough to stand out" or "it doesn't
have much you couldn't get any number of other places" or even "there's not
enough new here." I assume that's what those comments really mean.

~~~
bootload
_"... The question is, will the innovation demonstrated be enough to attract
users? ..."_

Thats where the markets come in. Markets efficiently decide the wheat from the
chaff, good from the bad. The beaut thing about the yc approach is that
minimal capital will be expended. Live or die, the development, marketing,
launch and uptake is efficient.

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rokhayakebe
My winners are Anywhere.fm and Dropbox. The minute anywhere goes mobile they
will truly change the way we listen to music or anything audio. If you think
about it one day people will laugh about the Ipod. I never really grasp the
concept of putting all your songs in a box. It is like carrying all your
savings in a briefcase rather than a debit card. Anywhere will soon ( i hope)
start streaming your tunes using edge, gprs or wifi enabled phones. wacth out
Jobs.

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tocomment
I don't get anywhere.fm. Isn't this what mp3.com tried to do and got sued out
of existense for? I.e., you verified what CD's you owned with them and then
you could listen to the CD anywhere.

What am I missing?

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pg
The difference is that with anywhere.fm you upload your actual music files,
instead of them playing back a single copy to everyone. So if anywhere.fm is
illegal, the iPod would be too.

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tocomment
But they are storing a copy of your files. Wouldn't copyright law forbid any
copying as such? Like I couldn't put a copy of a song I had on my friends
computer even if I said "only play this when I'm here". Or is that example not
analogous?

(I'm sure this is a dumb question, I don't know much about copyright law.)

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tocomment
Hmm, on second thought, they are only storing the file for you. So I guess if
they were illegal, then online backup apps would also be illegal.

So I guess as long as they keep everyones' files seperate they would be ok.

So does that imply that if two people have the same file, they still have to
store it two times? And still have to do the upload twice?

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staunch
The difference with online backups is that it's dedicated to music. No one
wants to share their online backup account, but they might share or even sell
their Anywhere.fm account. The legit use for the service is probably legally
safe, but things can get gray quickly.

They should definitely requite all new uploads and store entirely separate
copies of everyone's music. Doing optimization based on a file's checksum,
like you'd do for a straight backup service, would be harder to explain to a
judge.

They should very quickly implement a mechanism for locking accounts that get
too many logins from different IP ranges in a short period of time. It
shouldn't be too difficult to make it annoying for naughty users without
impacting legit users. Staying on top of abuse and not letting their site get
overrun like Veoh is key.

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forgotmylastone
The difference with a backup hard drive is that it's dedicated to music. No
one wants to share their backup hard drive, but they might share or even sell
their MP3 player. The legit use for the MP3 player is probably legally safe,
but things can get gray quickly.

Since this particular MP3 player can only hold MP3s, not arbitrary files, they
should be required to implement a self distruct feature, even though a device
that could store MP3s _and_ files shouldn't need one.

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dpapathanasiou
Interesting that this latest group includes a photo-editing service: won't it
compete with a similar company (slipshot, IIRC) which was funded earlier?

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david
snipshot

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aston
Yay dropbox. But when are you guys launching?

