fb is the premier social product in a world going social. they have a great foundation. everybody needs to take a step back and allow them to make some mistakes as they build a better product. think about some of the most revolutionary companies out there. everyone of them has a hiccup or two.
If you plot concussions over helmet size you'll see the problem. Bigger/stronger helmets means more concussions. Its fairly obvious, go back to leather helmets or some softer material and players will lead with their head less. Which will mean lesser concussions. I am not saying they should play with leatherhelmets but the bigger harder plastic helmets make no sense. players just become projectiles using their heads as weapons. The helmet should be a silicon jelly ish type of material.
Leading with the _crown_ of the helmet will get you a 15 yard penalty. The second infraction should get you ejected from the game. Leading with the front of the helmet (e.g. planting your facemask in the opponent's chest) is still perfectly legal.
If I recall correctly, this rule ("spearing") was introduced to avoid _neck_ injury, as leading with the crown of the helmet puts an incredible amount of strain on the vertebrae in the neck.
Good observation, bad conclusion. The solution is not mushier or poorer protection, but something very much along the lines of "you get one helmet per game and thats it". Made outta styrofoam or something.
Look, here's the big startup lesson. Say you've got a generic engineering challenge. Look at other industries. In the 50s they made car chassis that were so strong they could survive a 50 mph crash and look pretty much drivable afterward. Of course the passengers were dead jelly. Solution? Crumple zones, crush zones... Do the same with helmets. When that styrofoam cheesehead helmet is crushed or breaks off, you're done for the day. And everyone else has the same limitation, so hold back a little, else you get kicked out by everyone else, ok?
Their strategy seems so shortsighted. The trend towards mobile and screens of many sizes is fairly obvious. I would imagine that if they put a little more time into their work they would have come up with a great RWD solution. They copped out.
Hm, I disagree with that statement. You could give away functional swag. For example, a startup building a web browser for tablets could give away winter special material winter gloves that you can wear while still using the touch screen interface.
I think you should specify what type of critique you are looking for. The hacker news community might not represent who your early adopters are (Do we play sports?). In that sense, we might not be able to critique the market validity of your startup. And, we may not be interested in "critiquing" your new startup.
On the other hand, if you specified that you are looking for a critique on your site's design, usability, etc. then I am sure you could get feedback.
That being said, I responded with this insight because I fit into both categories (I design products for mobile and I played baseball at a D1 school).
The critique I was hoping to get was more aligned with the technical and UX aspects (design, usability, etc), of which I've seen numerous high quality examples (and discussions of) demonstrated by the HN community.
People do not seek problems. People seek experiences. Experiences uncover problems. Problems do not instantly lead to ideas. Ideas are created when the mind takes quantum leaps in thought to create. The feeling of having a business idea is so profound, the ahha moment is so strong, and the quantum leap in thought feels so unique that we tend to speak about ideas not problems. In reality, they are 2 sides of the same piece of paper (think mobius strip).
