

Joel Spolsky - A Unified Theory of Internet Startups - tansey
https://plus.google.com/117114202722218150209/posts/KhMRNmgGniP?hl=en

======
iamwil
Ahh. I get it now. Then the Unified Theory of Life is that I want to eat and
poop. Occasionally, I also want to socialize and have sex. People might go
about it in different ways in different times and cultures, but it's really
the same thing. Of course, architect-astronauting it really gives me insight
into the common nature of seemingly disparate ways that people live.

~~~
alexro
Funny that it gives you enough info to get by in any community - from archaic
to the modern one. But not to prosper.

------
tobobo
Entertaining, but I really think it's as simple as: all computer programs read
data, manipulate data, or output data. Internet startups create one kind of
computer program. Text is one kind of data.

~~~
evilswan
Bravo.

------
gabeh
Darn, someone in the comments section of the post beat me to the best zinger
of all. Please see Joel's 2001 post titled "Don't Let Architecture Astronauts
Scare You."[1]

"When you go too far up, abstraction-wise, you run out of oxygen. Sometimes
smart thinkers just don't know when to stop, and they create these absurd,
all-encompassing, high-level pictures of the universe that are all good and
fine, but don't actually mean anything at all."

[1] <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000018.html>

------
heyrhett
I love how the web is pretty much just a big printf statement.

~~~
chulipuli
You owe me a soda.

------
BasDirks
Or:

"How it's still totally profitable to provide services that do _nothing
interesting at all_ with user data."

Or:

"How highly praised start-ups are often just big ugly interfaces."

And sometimes, as is the case with both Twitter and Facebook, they still don't
get their easy shit right. The amount of terrible UI or just simply bugs in
Twitter is a joke.

"Yeah but scale blablabla"? Usually has nothing to do with shitty UI and awful
front-end coding.

~~~
bad_user

         sometimes ... they still don't get their easy
         shit right
    

That's because in software development, shit that seems easy ain't easy at
all, especially when dealing with real people that have to use your shit.

I don't usually appeal to an authority argument, but considering that your
statement is just a vague rant without any references or facts or even
anecdotal evidence, I do have to ask ... what have you done in your carrier
that is more challenging than doing a Facebook or a Twitter?

    
    
         The amount of terrible UI or just simply bugs in 
         Twitter is a joke
    

Considering how popular these services are, you should really consider the
possibility that their UIs are in fact quite effective.

------
freejack
I'm sorry I clicked through to read that.

------
dbshapco
Large parts of the Internet are simply a media clearinghouse, used to transmit
and store information between parties with little value add beyond providing
interfaces. Who controls the media and how it is structured, and how it
addresses its audience, is usually the interesting part. Throw in some
aggregators (which mine and organize the clearinghouses), some with search
indices, and online shopping and I think we've this thing covered.

EMail (SMTP), Usenet (NNTP), Web {Forums|Blogs|CMS|etc} (HTTP). All made from
the same stuff. But the interesting part of a book isn't usually that it's
made of paper, nor is it interesting to compare two books on that basis.

Joel's abstaction is ironic considering it comes from the person who
criticized architecture astronauts for excessive abstraction.

------
notJim
Joel's post is really about levels of abstraction (well that, and being
snarky.) At a high enough level of abstraction, what he's saying is precisely
true (iamwill points this out in a more aesthetically pleasing way[1])

Some people complain: "Images are not text!" But at a high enough level of
abstraction, images _are_ text, but interpreted in a special way by special
software that someone else wrote.

[1]: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2867214>

------
ma2rten
There are so many examples where this description does not really fit... Think
about google maps for instance.

~~~
pointyhat
It does fit. You type in some location metadata or a review and it appears on
a map on someone else's screen...

~~~
ma2rten
I that it mainly shows you map and satellite imagery and directions. Sure
someone has at some point typed in that data (or photographed it), but it does
not really sound like a fitting description.

------
bradshaw1965
If he's angling for a patent, I have prior art.

~~~
Create
Prior art becomes irrelevant, if he reckons and hires enough (il)legal firms
to convince courts that your design is too similar to his.

[http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-YP-E32-Yepp-
MP3-Player/dp/B000...](http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-YP-E32-Yepp-
MP3-Player/dp/B00003G1QT)

<https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/IPod_Classic>

(I presume Samsung made flat panels, FLASH, and embedded CPU-s before AAPL,
also combining them into a package years beforehand [ah! so they actually make
the ipads instead of just marketing them???])

------
keyle
Well that is obviously a mockery and a good one at that.

Here is a simpler theory: "Internet startups always do something with the
internet." Less funny but more unified(?)

~~~
jcheng
You went past theory, straight to tautology.

~~~
Meai
Joel doesn't say anything either. It's like climbing a ladder and neither end
leads to anything. I could just aswell go one step lower or higher, and
nothing would be gained. Lower = Internet startups just draw pixels on each
others screens. Higher = Internet startups apply design and critical thinking
on how to sort graphical objects and text to maximize usefulness.

------
Hisoka
The best startups are those that show their data in a way that feeds into some
psychological need, or become immensely useful as more and more people use it.

Anyone can also create a text box where you can type in 140 word status
messages, but noone would use it... but once you design it so that it looks
like a feed that makes you look like a Wall Street stock trader WHIZ, everyone
loves it.

Anyone can create a Facebook, but it's worthless until you got millions of
users. Same with Quora. Anyone can build a Q&A, but noone would answer any
questions if there ain't people to impress with your knowledge.

