

Voice - cwan
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/09/voice.html

======
mgkimsal
If _I_ put animated confetti on my myspace page, I'm laughed at. Tumblr does
it and it's a 'voice'. Hrmm...

~~~
dbuizert
There is a difference between a real celebration and whoring up your myspace
page.

~~~
pault
I think mgkimsal was making a joke.

~~~
dbuizert
Like I didn't know that. Sometimes internet, sometimes...

------
mathattack
Having style is knowing when confetti is "Voice" versus "Clutter."

Great small companies have more room to have Voice. It is very hard for large
companies to have it. Or the larger they get, the more they worry about
offending someone. Tumbler can have Voice. So can Tech Crunch. Hard for Wal-
mart to have Voice.

------
joshuamerrill
In its earlier days, Facebook had many hidden messages inside its app. See
<http://mashable.com/2007/09/10/facebook-easter-eggs>.

That said--and without having much other context for Fred Wilson's idea of
"voice"--having fun with a company's homepage may work for some organizations
and not for others.

(And specifically regarding milestones, Facebook has deliberately taken a much
humbler public approach. Let's see what happens when they hit a billion
users.)

------
AlexMuir
Note: There's a big difference between voice and cliche. Voice is not being a
bunch of rockstar, ninja, pivoting hackers who reach out to people.

------
phil
Facebook used to have a distinctively irreverent voice ("I don't even know
what a quail looks like"). It's slowly been whittled away as they've gotten
huge.

Google, on the other hand, maintains their voice but keeps it out of the main
flow - think doodles or bidding Pi billion dollars. So it's not just a
function of size.

------
mcantelon
"Personality" would probably be a more obvious word for it (although I guess
"voice" is specifically personality expressed through product rather than
through company actions).

------
moses1400
Who cares how many posts are porn and how many post images that are
copyrighted, right? That's the YouTube model that got them $1.6b :)

~~~
robryan
It's all or nothing though, either you have these sites which are free to
upload and try and clean up after later on or you have everything has to be
moderated which is completely unsustainable.

------
shithead
_That's voice._

Is it just me, or did he manage to attract a particularly disgusting set of
sycophants dribbling all over the comments?

Possibly even worse than the f_c_book stench now emanating from comments on
most any TechCrunch topic ...

~~~
larrys
"particularly disgusting set of sycophants"

Yes but it's typical.

sycophant seems to be the norm for the comments at avc.com On this particular
post I wouldn't call them particularly disgusting though. I've seen much
worse. And in general any disagreement with his thoughts are very nicely said.
You rarely see anything snarky or mean spirited.

People are hoping to get some of the pixie dust. I don't think this is really
different than the halo that surrounds any successful person.

In the movie "Born Rich" by Jamie Johnson, Ivana Trump was interviewed (it
took place 2003). She was surprised by all the people that wanted to be
friends with her and treated her nicely. She said something like "I mean I
don't have any money my parents do". That's the halo.

~~~
shithead
> it's typical.

... of the "real id" effect, under democratic conditions. The people who earn
their living elsewhere don't care to risk it telling the truth, so you get the
sycophants showing up trying to lick brownie points ...

Which just goes to show the Vivek Gundrota ( _real name_ , not the spurious
_Vic_ he sports) Google+ policy is dumb. And why the whole 'social' Google
should be taken out and shot.

