

5 Things that will Kill your Startup [in 2008] - nreece
http://startupearth.com/2007/11/22/5-things-that-will-kill-your-startup-in-2008/

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koolmoe
re: Web 2.0 being out of style, perhaps some of the trendy things like
gradients, etc. may have fallen out of fashion, but, IMO, simple interfaces
will never fall out of fashion.

For the last ten years, I've programmed user interfaces for folks with high
school educations to run complex chemical plants and refineries, and I've seen
that an easy-to-understand interface has at least as much importance as the
algorithms that underly the interface.

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henning
"but you can learn from the backlash seen from YouTube and Facebook users who
felt cheated when the sites built a loyal userbase, got bought out and
suddenly the user experience drops in favour of advertising revenue."

I think ads are lame. Power users block them with AdBlock Plus, anyway, so if
you cater to savvy users you'll get shit clickthrough rates and annoy everyone
else.

Are people making $40-100k a year really too cheap to pay $9/month for
something they use everyday?

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dr
yes, they are too cheap, especially when they can find something else for
free. People nowadays think that they're always entitled to digital things for
free for some reason.

~~~
JulianMorrison
People think they are entitled to continuity. They despise bad faith such as
bait-and-switch. Therefore, start as you mean to go on.

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breily
It seems to me that the 'emerging monopolies' wouldn't kill your startup, but
be a good thing, as getting bought seems to be a worthwhile goal.

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samson
Nice article. Found it refreshing and forwarding looking, without trying to be
too futuristic.

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DanielBMarkham
Don't use the dollar?

I'm not sure what he's getting at. Use a payment service and quote in whatever
currency the use prefers. It's not like you have to do your own currency
exchange or anything -- all that stuff can easily be handled.

Also the "there won't be a Web 3.0. Web 3.0 is a Web 2.0 meme" seems a little
flip. The 2.0/3.0/4.0/etc meme is from software versioning, not Web 2.0. So I
imagine whatever comes along big on the web next people will naturally call
Web 3.0 -- for the same reason the next big wr will probably be called WWIII.
That's just the way numbers work. Of course, "Web 3.0" may never catch on, but
that's a different story.

