

Betaworks, Conway, And Sacca Embed $250,000 Into Embedly (YC W10) - screeley
http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/embed-ly-250000/

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mdolon
I'm looking forward to seeing how this service will be monetized. I use it on
one of my websites and it's great, however I'm not sure it's something I'd pay
for just yet.

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davidu
Embed.ly is very cool. It reduces friction and makes embedding content and
accessing metadata a snap. The value it offers has tremendous potential.

That said, I think the company needs to explain to developers what happens if
they build a hugely successful site on top of the API and depend on the
embed.ly functionality.

For example, I see no Terms of Service -- So can I cache the output to reduce
requests? Can I re-syndicate it in other formats? Can I power my meta-data
scraper through embed.ly? Will they start to charge me? Will they release
stats on most frequent API request URLs? Will those be aggregated or per user-
agent?

I'm all for supporting new startups, but I'd like to know how they will
support me for using them as they grow up.

PS, Please don't comment about how building a popular site or service on top
of embed.ly (or someone else's API) is a bad idea – their entire business
depends on you assuming it's okay to do that, so I'm just taking that
assumption and rolling w/ it.

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arthurgibson
Great points, to answer generally, we don't have all those answers yet, our
immediate goal is to support the next generation of great sites and cater our
service to their needs. We are building out a pro service that is being shaped
by all the feedback we have received from developers and publishers. Feel free
to contact us.

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davidu
Part of supporting the next generation of great sites is giving them the
confidence to build on top of you.

IMHO, this is "problem" you solve which helps you gain traction, not a problem
you solve once you have traction.

Just tell people what happens if they build a great site on top of the service
you are offering today. Otherwise you're telling people to wait and see.
(which I don't think you want)

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arthurgibson
Agreed, we did spend some time thinking about this stuff and writing down
these points, but figured traction and proven work speaks for itself. If you
check out blog.embed.ly, we love to broadcast any site that is using us.
Always appreciate the feedback.

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joshunfried
Congrats guys! Nice line up too.

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bkrausz
YC W10, not S10

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allantyoung
Congrats to a fellow YC W10 team. Smart guys that work hard. The headache they
solve is very real and the analytics and data they collect will be invaluable.

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troyk
Congrats... Tomorrow, the world!

