
Integration Is The Killer App - Sam_Odio
http://startupmeme.com/2007/04/29/integration-is-the-killer-app/
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bilbo0s
You know I think that this means that people should probably think twice
before basing a startup on a feature or technology that Google could easily
implement. By implement, I mean either have their engineers hack out, or buy.
To assume that they will buy it from you is foolish by the way. I'm looking at
you two GUBA and Revver, but I may as well be talking about every web 2.0
startup I've had the misfortune of having to look at in the past 12 months.

Are there ANY original thinkers out there? Where are you at? Money is waiting
for you.

I would like, for once, for three kids to come up to me and say that they have
World of Warcraft or Second Life running with full 3D hardware acceleration
inside of the browser. WITHOUT A GAD BLESSED PLUGIN OR SECURITY WARNING!!!
This would be something compelling that is difficult to implement. It is also
something that would take people more than 2 weeks to duplicate.

Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's?
None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE?
The same thing will happen very soon with social networking, it will be
included with your hosting. Probably by leveraging open source. So everyone
will be able to start a story telling site with photo uploading for
illustration and social features. However, I think it will be more difficult
for someone to make a web based Joost with television recording and social
features. So if you can, your asking price just went WAY up kid.

The things I have outlined are hard, and that is the point. If I invest in
something, I don't want to hear about 35 other startups doing the exact same
thing.

I'm not just talking about the web 2.0 people here. You would not believe the
number of 'Second Life' knockoffs that are about to hit the market. They all
expect that 3 to 30 million people will download and install their plugin, or
click 'Yes' on their security warning. You know, the one to give this startup
you never heard of FULL access to your machine. That's OK though they tell me,
because they only need to get the early adopters to spread the word. The TECH
SAVVY early adopters. Yeah, you heard me right, the ones MOST likely to know
NOT to give a startup they've never heard of full access to their machines!

If ANYONE can find a tech startup that doesn't infringe copyrights and
actually has technology that would take a minute to develop, I think I would
fall over from shock.

Sorry about this rant. Just in the office on a Sunday looking at knockoff
after knockoff. But hey, I just work for consultants for investors, it's not
my money. It is frustrating that no one wants to listen to the minority report
though.

~~~
lupin_sansei
"Think of it this way, how many people get rich anymore by writing say, IDE's?
None, because we all use what Microsoft, Adobe, or Eclipse gives us, for FREE"

So how do you explain Dreamweaver's success over Frontpage?

~~~
bilbo0s
Dreamweaver is not successful.

Analyse Dreamweaver's cost/profit ratio. Remember, Dreamweaver is boxed and
sold at retail. The advent of AJAX gave Dreamweaver a little more life, since
to make an impressive AJAX page requires a ridiculous amount of not very well
structured code. Keeping track of not very well structured code is what IDE's
are good at, and what Dreamweaver's target audience is bad at. That said, as a
percentage of total revenues, Dreamweaver sucks. Check it out for yourself in
Adobe's latest quarterly report:

<http://finance.yahoo.com/q/sec?s=ADBE>

Dreamweaver sales were used to bump up the "Developer Solutions" line of the
quarterly report. Notice it is a small percentage. This would not be so bad,
until you notice that even the line in the quarterly report marked "Other" is
bigger!

Here's some free advice, do not invest in a startup that plans to make a
straight IDE play.

~~~
lupin_sansei
Seemed pretty successful to me:

"Adobe buys Macromedia for $3.4bn"
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4456895.stm>

"The individual products within the Studio solution also remained solid, with
Macromedia Dreamweaver MX standing as the company's largest individual product
... The MX family also continued to receive industry accolades."
<http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/ir/macr/news/2004/jul23_q104_results.html>

"to make an impressive AJAX page requires a ridiculous amount of not very well
structured code" ... ", do not invest in a startup that plans to make a
straight IDE play."

Why wouldn't an AJAX IDE make a good investment? People would be queuing up to
buy it if making impressive AJAX pages is as hard as you say it is.

~~~
bilbo0s
Also, do a search on Expression Studio. It can also be used to make a straight
AJAX page without all of the Silverlight CLR garbage.

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Tichy
I don't know these online email readers very well, but wasn't there another
post recently that said that GMail has only a very small percentage of users?
So I am surprised that GMail integration killed Kiko. Isn't there an email
service out there where you could plug in things? That used to be the trend
among web applications, to provide a Web Service/API so that it could be
extended?

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Latinflava
very interesting post, and even more interesting "rant" bilbo0s. Its that
knockoff are knocking off other knockoff its insane, lol seems inovation is on
vacation right now, lets hope it gets back soon.

