

Top Startups of 2010 - rafaelc
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_startups_of_2010.php

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dabent
Three Y Combinator startups included - an impressive feat, even with the large
number of YC companies. There's a lot of quality companies.

I have to wonder if Chatroulette belongs on the list as a "startup." It seems
more like an internet fad of 2010, possibly the biggest one, but is it on the
path to being a company with revenue?

~~~
rafaelc
Three Dogpatch Labs companies included as well.

[http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/12/02/3-dogpatch-companies-
in...](http://ryanspoon.com/blog/2010/12/02/3-dogpatch-companies-in-rwws-
top-10-startups-of-2010/)

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sachitgupta
What is the criteria for this list? Some questionable inclusions that stand
out: Chatroulette and Diaspora. Shouldn't companies included in a top 10 of
_all_ startups of the year be profitable, or at least be on the path to making
money?

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brianwillis
I hadn't heard of Rapportive (<http://rapportive.com/>) before. Very
impressive piece of work form a technical standpoint. It will be interesting
to see how they monetize the product.

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ariels
The only ones worth of this list are Quora and Square.

~~~
zalew
and instagram? people are crazy about it

~~~
larryfreeman
One thing that's weird about instagram is that there are 0 reviews in the
Apple app store. For an app with 2,778 ratings (as of Dec 2), you think there
would be at least 1 review.

If anyone has an explanation for this, I would be glad to hear it.

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duck
Seems like this post is 29 days too early.

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sfard
In the case of Hipmunk, I'm not sure why it's being touted as such an
inspiring story of usability. I may be biased because I work at one of the big
online travel companies, but I think hipmunk usability is terrible.

Their simple search wizard is great but it ends there IMO.

~~~
yarone
One thing about Hipmunk that mystifies me: the date-picker widget on the
homepage. A friend of mine says "Have you seen it!? Check out Hipmunk.com.
Awesome new user interface for booking flights." So I go to the site expecting
some awesome, clean, super-thoughtful UI and actually got stuck for a second.

1) There isn't a direct visual relationship between the "depart" / "return"
fields and the date picker (i.e. I didn't see a standard dropdown or calendar
icon or way to pick a date)

2) I didn't realize that the date picker widget is one calendar, spanning two
months. I thought it was two calendars: one for depart, one for return.

Wondering: Am I the only one? Did they actually test this? Would a
"traditional" design with two fields, each with a calendar icon / dropdown
perform better? OR, maybe two fields and one calendar beside or beneath each?

~~~
spez
I really hate the way other sites have hidden calendars that pop-up. They all
try to be too smart about it, and often ends up with me switching back and
forth between mouse and keyboard. IMHO, some guy had a bad idea 10 years ago
about how to do calendars, and everyone has been copying it since.

I think our version works really nicely if you know how it behaves. So, the
challenge to us is to make its behavior more obvious.

Hipmunk's calendar has changed quite a bit since we launched, and I haven't
heard much complaining lately. Maybe we just scared everyone away.

~~~
yarone
Here's an idea. See: <http://i.imgur.com/vTOKr.jpg>

What I did:

\- Increased priority of "depart and return" calendar.

\- Added "click or type below" to make instructions more clear.

\- Added a small indicator beside mouse pointer (when hovering over a date) to
indicate the current mode of the mouse pointer (two modes: you're either
hovering and ready to click on a depart date OR you're hovering and ready to
click on a return date).

\- Subordinated the depart and return fields. Selecting from the date picker
with a mouse should automatically fill these fields.

Why?

\- I assume (maybe wrongly so, I am not sure) that the date picker is the most
common / popular / usable way to enter in the dates.

\- Compared to the current home page, I think this addresses my complaints
(see earlier comment) in that it (1) significantly reduces the disparity
between the date pickers and the fields, and (2) makes it more clear that the
two calendars are in fact for the entry of both the depart and return dates
(and not two separate calendars).

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earle
I'd like to see what the total revenue for all ten of these are, because for
the most part, almost none of these should be on the list of Top Startups of
2010...

~~~
mlinsey
Considering that the list is limited to "launched or founded" in 2010, I'd
disagree that using revenue is the best metric.

