
Startups: your web site sucks - sant0sk1
http://scobleizer.com/2008/09/06/startups-your-web-site-sucks/
======
tritchey
Well, FWIW, I am presenting at DEMO this year. We do actually have a video
link right on the front page of our web site, and yet he claims that only one
did, and the one he linked to wasn't us. <http://paragent.com>

I was tempted to post a comment, but I would rather avoid directing his
vitriol directly at our company at this point. DEMO is a HUGE commitment for
us. 18K is nothing to sneeze at, and a substantial part of our budget.
However, living in the midwest, it is very difficult to form the kind of
relationships that occur naturally on the east and west coasts. DEMO is an
opportunity for us to meet face to face with many people we otherwise we never
get to meet, and have some chance of attracting attention. Who knows if DEMO
will have been worth it - I'll let you know after it is over. Undoubtedly, it
will either end up in a best-of or worst-of compilation.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Well, I'm no Scoble, but my opinion is that your site looks great. Best of
luck at DEMO!

~~~
sgrove
I second that. I can only hope we have some of the design sense your startup
has.

And good luck at DEMO, I look forward to watching your video once it's posted.

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pedalpete
Aren't most of these sites using 'Demo' as the launch platform? Therefore, why
would they be expected to have more than this up before they launched. Maybe
the policy of releasing the list of Demo presenters on the weekend before the
conference is more the problem than the presenting sites websites.

Would Scoble have been pissed if he showed up at the Olympics in June and
there was no sports going on? Patience young grasshopper.

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jmtulloss
Man, how is this guy so famous? This is poorly organized and poorly written.
It's one step above stream of conscious.

~~~
fallentimes
As others have noted in his blog comments - up until a few months ago his site
was absolutely terrible and now he's already on his high horse.

Glass houses.

Don't worry he's not actually famous he's just tech scene famous, which is
similar to winning the special olympics. Ask your Mom, non CS college
professor, Grandpa or neighbor who he is. They won't know.

~~~
ojbyrne
Well, except there is actual money to be made in being "tech scene famous." He
owns a house in Half Moon Bay, probably earns a nice six figure salary to do
whatever the hell it is he does, gets lots of freebies (he was at frigging
Davos), and probably speaking fees. Of course, I don't know, there might be
actual money in winning the special olympics.

And I'd bet any CS college professor (that's any good) doesn't know who he is,
either.

~~~
fallentimes
True, but eventually most talentless hacks are filtered out and even if Scoble
isn't, he's still an epic joke. There's money & free goodies to be obtained
winning the special olympics as well.

Also from my understanding, he used to be largely sponsored by Seagate right?
I don't get what value he brings to sponsors - seriously. When Arrington or
Fred Wislon recommend something I at least check it out.

When I think of Robert Scoble I think: "too many cheeseburgers, annoying
perpetual laugh and bad writing" NOT "I better buy whatever he recommends."

What does he actually _do_? I still don't understand. As far as I can tell
Robert Scoble is the Washington DC or Paris Hilton of the tech scene.

~~~
ojbyrne
My experience is that in the Bay Area, there's a critical mass of "talentless
hacks" that basically support each other and create barriers to entry for
actual talented people. Scoble is their king. Sarah Lacy is queen.

That being said, there's a ton of really talented people in the same area,
just that most of them have either cashed out, work for Google or Apple, or
are so busy building stuff that they don't have time to blog crap.

~~~
fallentimes
I'm going to quote you one day - that's a phenomenal line.

~~~
ojbyrne
I'm blushing ;-) Though seriously I was in the center of it all for 2 years so
I think my impression is, at the very least, an honest opinion. Which is
something that seems exceedingly rare in the Bay Area.

~~~
fallentimes
Maybe TicketStumbler should stay in Boston longer than previously anticipated
(we're already staying another year); I don't do well with bullshit.

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Breath
He is just trying to market himself by trashing newcomers. His # 1 reason for
the sucketivity of these startups is "Almost no company on this list is using
video". This comes from a guy whose job title is "video blogger". His entire
career revolves around camera and camera related stuff. Has this guy done any
real tech stuff other than 'assemble computers' ?

~~~
dcurtis
I would be very surprised if Robert Scoble has ever assembled a computer.

~~~
henning
His nickname comes from how he would configure machines with vigor, or
something -- he would "Scobleize" machines. He did plenty of putting together
machines, but he's certainly not a developer.

~~~
dcurtis
Interesting. I am surprised. His website's about section is, ironically
(considering the subject of this thread), almost 50% a disclaimer.

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omouse
What a twit. Most of those sites seem fine and the one that's not in English
is actually a company and there's an English version of the page (should be
highlighted, but still accessible).

~~~
Protophore
I agree that the guy is being way harsh, but after looking through some of the
sites I wasn't too impressed.

If I were an investor I'd want to see a little something more than what I saw
today.

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joao
2 years ago he wrote the exact opposite:
[http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti-
marketing-...](http://scobleizer.com/2006/03/04/the-role-of-anti-marketing-
design)

~~~
webwright
His point (a good one) is more about positioning and less about design. i.e.
How startups you describe what they do. I think he's right-- most startups
(most companies, really) are woefully bad at communicating in a way that their
customers understand. The closer you are to a topic, the less likely you are
to be able to put yourself in the shoes of someone who isn't.

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vitaminj
I went through all the company webpages as well... and I didn't think they
were all as bad as Scoble makes out. I have to agree with some of his gripes,
but on average, the sites were pretty good.

Some of these companies are genuinely cool too, mainly the hardware startups
like Adapx, microstaq, fusion-io. I also liked TravelMuse, GreenSherpa,
Quantivo and Telnic.

Side note - I noticed that quite a few of these companies are based on the
fuzzy social networking premise of "share this with your friends" (or "unified
collaboration environments" as QTask so eloquently puts it) plus a twist (such
as more security, creating lists, increased productivity or some revolutionary
algorithm to share important info). The way I see it, this is a tough space to
compete in. The twists usually aren't compelling enough for people to not only
migrate over from the big players (facebook, myspace et al), but also convince
all their mates to do so as well. One day a company may come up with something
that is, but I suspect it'll have to be a big innovative step change, a game
changer, not just small incremental baby steps.

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raheemm
Scoble's article might seem arrogant, but when I visited the sites that he
critiqued, I found them to be under par as well - they dont communicate what
they do and many are just plain ugly, IMHO.

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jrockway
What is the point of this article? It reads as "here's a minor nitpick about
everything." I can't think of anything else to say.

The article conjures up a mental image of a high school student at a party who
takes a shit in the punch bowl and expects everyone to be proud of him.
Instead, everyone ignores him. (Let's be that "everyone", eh?)

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axod
I disagree about video. You don't need video to explain what you do on the
front page of your site.

Video can be a bit 'spammish' IMHO Sure, have some video tutorial or something
linked off the front page.

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cperciva
My website sucks, too. And you know what? I really don't care.

I'm building a secure backup service. I'm not building a website. After
signing up and downloading the client code, there's no need for people to
visit the website.

Yes, a website says something about a company. I'd rather have a website which
says "I'm too busy writing code to make this look good" than a website which
says "I care more about looking good than about the service I'm providing".

~~~
colinplamondon
You're selling a service- if the design of the website fails to relate that
service in a way that draws people in and makes them want to purchase, you
fail. If the design of the site does draw people in and make them want to
purchase, you succeed.

It's a question of effectiveness, of if you'd be able to sell more effectively
via a good website.

~~~
catch23
That's probably only true if your customers are individual consumers. When we
were selling to enterprise customers, we realized most of them didn't even
look at our great website. Most of the selling were just done with good old
fashioned salespeople that contacted the Marketing VP and chatted with him.

------
sgrove
I suppose he has a point if you're a regular Scoble reader. I hardly know him
(I know of him though), so I'm exactly sure what his complaints are targeting.

Websites that aren't catchy enough, because they don't have videos? Or they're
not in English?

I would have taken to the article better had their been a bit of constructive
suggestions to correspond with the general whining. But perhaps the rest of
his articles always go over that kind of thing?

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vaksel
seems like for most of them his main concern is that the site isn't launched
before he got there. He seems to have dismissed them even before they
launched.

~~~
ojbyrne
I think his main concern is that they're not TechCrunch50 sites (he's a judge
or something, though he seems to have forgotten the disclaimer he used in one
of his first Demo-trashing posts).

------
callmeed
I think all these sites should put a picture of scoble in the header. Just
like he has.

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hello_moto
People should just be like Gordon Ramsay with his attitude toward food
critiques; he kicks them all out of his restaurants.

------
EastSmith
Scoble fan here.

I don't know how much pageviews these startups would get without Scoble
telling that they suck.

Scoble started conversation. Many agreed the thesis, many don't, everybady
CHECKED. It is like mini DEMO for these companies. How this could be bad for
them?

