I enjoyed the validation that other people have experiences similar to mine, regardless of how they handle them. However, what is with the weird [0] citation etc.
Not all user generated content need be treated the same. As the article points out, a very small portion of consumers on a particular site turn around and create their own content. But, I think this mostly applies to general interest content sites. What if your site provides content as a result of providing a useful, provocative tool?
We have about 21k users on ridewithgps.com. The focal point of the site is the mapping functionalities for planning and logging bike rides. Users create this content by either drawing a prospective ride on a map, or, by uploading a log file from a trip they took. There are very few accounts that have no routes or recorded activities on them, because the site exists to provide utility to a user. With 134,000 maps, that's 6.4 maps per user. By creating an account, users are compelled to start creating maps because it is directly useful to them to do so! However, users can also add less important content: a mini-profile for their bike, photos, comments etc. The amount of this less utilitarian content that users create is significantly smaller. Photos, for example, are 0.3 per user. Comments are 0.1 per user.
What does this mean? Make sure your site provides a strong utilitarian aspect for your users! Provide them with value, not just another place register and store generic content.
Is there any reason to believe that the story he tells is true? Storybook retrograde amnesia is actually exceedingly uncommon; more commonly, this is used deceitfully. My first instinct, coming from the hospital setting, would be not to believe his story. I would then perform a battery of tests for retrograde amnesia (tests with which I am not familiar since this is outside of my primary interest).
Some people like to make an attempt to be in control of their life. If you just run your mouth, you end up revealing information about yourself that you didn't intend. Often people might not be able to tell that what you said was an accident and they could hold you accountable in that relationship for it. I don't really like to cut loose unless I have a point to make.
The author concludes, "The experience of Ms. Mann and others like her suggests that the technology industry may not be the savior of the American job market and a magic bullet for a moribund economy — even though the Obama administration has called for a revival of math and science training and emphasized the need for American companies to take the lead in fields like clean energy."
She assumes that insights from a subset of the tech sector (programming) will hold true for the entire sector. However, she has given me no reason to believe this assumption of hers to be true.
Hurd's only real achievement at HP was finishing Fiorina's work and applying the coup de grace to the HP Way. HPers loathe him. They'd have been dancing in the street when he left, if they didn't know that the board was so happy with his performance that his successor was guaranteed to carry on in the same style.
Of course, if there are Oracle employees who have a problem working for people with Hurd's attitude, they haven't been paying attention.
It is a bit funny seeing one Oracle exec who had an affair (Charles E. Phillips Jr) getting replaced by another. Someone could base a movie on them.
It's good to see Mr Hurd back at work so soon. He seems a good match and well qualified. Besides seeing how Oracle does under him, it'll be interesting to see what influence he has on decisions affecting the industry in general.
In particular, some wonder how much Android will be affected by the JAVA case against Google. Others wonder about the future of other open-source projects such as VirtualBox (development appears to be continuing)
If they need another exec with a colorful past, there's always former Broadcom CEO Henry Nicholas. He was accused of putting drugs in others' drinks; an airline pilot complained of pot smoke so thick that a gas mask was needed.
Bookstores don't pay for their books until they're sold, and they return the ones that aren't - so yes, they do have high overhead in terms of square footage / labour, but don't necessarily have the same inventory issue that other retailer operations to.
A more interesting question to ponder would be at what point in time (if ever) will it stop making sense for a publisher to print books and send them to bookstores? My guess is for niche publishers this has already happened, and it will never happen to the mass-books - it's the middle guys who will have to make the call sometime in the coming years...
For me, the chain bookstores are just a place to get a book when I don't want to wait for shipping. The only other store I visit is a local independent, which only stocks titles that the staff recommends. They're a great place to go if I want to read something recommended by people with taste. I don't go there very often, though. There are so many good books available, what I lack is time to read them all, not good recommendations.
I'm not sure how either gets by if ebooks really take off. The Internet is ultimately a better solution for recommending books and delivering them. They could turn themselves into coffee shops, as the article suggests, but at that point why wouldn't I just go to a good coffee shop?
Not sure if this thread is still live, but anyway:
1. Find a technical co-founder whom you can convince to build the prototype. Using vWorker to build the prototype before that is likely to be an exercise in frustration if you can't oversee it technically, and your technical co-founder is likely to want to throw that code away in any case.
2. Your blog uses the words 'me' and 'I', which is OK by me (being a "single founder" myself), but the landing page says 'the vivisystems team is working hard', etc. It's not hard to put 2 and 2 together to figure that this is still vapourware so you should probably change one of those.
It is a big problem, there needs to be content created but in the majority of cases this content can't be produced in an economical fashion, so it's down to people that love what they do, those using it to cross promote something else and the second rate cheap content farms.
I find myself torn around the value of content in web businesses moving forward.
On the one hand, there's the observations put forward (most strongly, in my encounters, by Scott Adams on his dilbert blog) that content is essentially in a race towards free. The value in this situation is those companies that can sort, aggregate, or point you in the right content direction (HN fits this group; so does Google).
But then there's the fact, and this article makes the point, that without content there's no value. Whether user-generated, expert-driven or otherwise, we do need some content, and no doubt some content is far more valuable than others.
My strength is undoubtedly in created meaningful content. Does that make me valuable, with the right connections, or a sucker with skills that are soon to be comparable to blacksmithing in NYC or making cars in Detroit?
I don't think I have ever heard anybody claim that repressing anger is good; just that it is better than expressing it. Letting things go is the best way to handle most strong emotions, even strong positive emotions can cause you difficulties if you act on them. But repressing anger is better than expressing it, because expressing it strengthens and reinforces both the feeling and the behaviors associated with expressing it.
