

Hamachi: A billion-dollar tech revolution that can still happen if you build it. - rantfoil
http://garry.posterous.com/hamachi-a-billion-dollar-tech-revolution-that

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dotBen
There is ripe opportunity for someone to build this technology again (perhaps
innovate in places, but not necessarily) and work to a free-mium model.

A great business could be made from $3-month pro accounts, as there is a
massive amount of people who would love to use this but are not going to pay
$200 year/seat for this technology.

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aaronbrethorst
I'd be skeptical of any product that guaranteed to keep my data safe and only
cost $3/mo.

Depending on usage, it could be really interesting to consider a Fog Creek
Copilot-like business model: charge a reasonable monthly fee for unfettered
access and a small fee for one-off usage.

That way, you could nail that $3 a pop sort of usage, and guarantee yourself a
steady stream of income at the $20-$30 range.

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wmf
Did people use Hamachi to keep their data safe or to ease NAT/firewall
traversal?

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noodle
i used it for gaming

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krakensden
Which is a large part of the reason new PC games don't support LAN play.

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noodle
wanted to point out a comment in the article that notes
<http://www.remobo.com/>

looks quite similar to what hamachi used to be. anyone have experience with
it?

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rantfoil
Trying it now, will update later when I get back in the office and setup the
other machines =)

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jasonlbaptiste
great article. I love when people put together in depth posts on businesses
you've probably never heard of that do really well + had specific insight
(mixergy excels at this in the form of interviews).

the picture of the hamachi homepage has the graphic of the guy writing
something on a glass board. what is it with everyone using stock clipart with
random people writing random things that are supposed to look really smart on
a clear board? ITS EVERYWHERE.

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metamemetics
downvote. Hamachi is still completely free for noncommercial use. You can
download it from their website\1st google result. Still works full-featured
and free.

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rantfoil
Besides the point. The product isn't marketed for noncommercial use, and part
of the way the entire site is built makes you think "oh man, this is going to
cost me down the line," even if it's free now.

Plus even look at how buried the product is. Its been subjugated to secondary
brand status, plus clip art. All you need are a set of white papers and it is
full-on enterprise sell mode.

If you make social software you have to sell the software and market the
software in a friendly, social way. Not in an enterprise-y way. The entire
promise of Hamachi was the potential for social computing to rise beyond the
authoritarian domain of IT administrators. Yet to position and build a site
that only appeals to IT administrators -- there's the rub.

But yes, secondarily, no mac client = non starter for me.

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robryan
Not to mention it used to work a lot better to, more recent versions have been
complicated resource hogs which don't just work with LAN gaming.

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gsiener
Was surprised when I recently tried to setup Hamachi and realized that it was
no longer free. Bummer.

Will IPv6 be able to fix any of this pain?

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wmf
Yes, Teredo does some of what Hamachi does.

