Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivankirigin on Thursday December 04, 2008 @08:02PM
(#386438)
I'm really excited about this because of where we can go with this.
The idea of a "rtip" or tip/retweet is the biggest innovation here. It's exactly how twitter is already used to disperse information, but adds a social gesture with monetary weight. That's pretty powerful. If you like a tweet, just say "rtip $1 @username the awesome tweet".
Lots of sites use Twitter credentials, and this means they can initiate payments. It also makes those payments inherently social, as they are broadcasted - so in ways it is better than an OAuth system. But we're planning that too.
We're going to open this up to an API, meaning sites based on twitter credentials can convert their whole user base to tipjoy users. I'm really looking forward to see what can be done with these tools.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by omakase on Thursday December 04, 2008 @09:53PM
(#386528)
The potential for this idea is what got me excited the minute I saw your post.
As an aside, I think twitter still needs to release support for OAuth, there are too many sites out there storing twitter credentials in plain text right now. Careful developers should be hashing the passwords with some secret salt so at least their users passwords aren't at risk if someone ever gains access to their db.
These aren't really your issues, but twitter needs to add proper authentication. Anyways -- this is a great from tipjoy -- looking fwd to what comes next.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by drusenko on Friday December 05, 2008 @05:05AM
(#386856)
welcome to the real world. i can't tell you how many times people have taken UI and concepts we spent a ton of time developing and copied them directly, even some of our well funded competitors. even yahoo (they completely ripped off our theme choosing interface). hell, we've even had direct feature-for-feature copies of weebly commissioned in india. life's not fair, and neither is business.
coming up with an idea isn't going to get you ahead, it's your ability to keep coming up with good ideas, execute on them, and make the right choices that steer the company that will. and eventually, some day, you get a big pile of users that becomes increasingly hard to lose, even if you try to fuck it up (just look at geocities. yes, it's still the 124th biggest site on the internet...)
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by bdr on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:00PM
(#386374)
I'm sure it wasn't. Knowing the tipjoy people, I'm sure they've been planning this feature for longer than 15 days. It's pretty obvious in their space.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by sanjayparekh on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:25PM
(#386401)
Guess that just goes to show you what competition will do in a space. If it took a few days of work, why didn't you do it before since you considered it "for months"? Oh wait, you waited until someone else did it and then decided to try it out. Well, guess the competition will help create some innovation in the space. Good for everyone in the end since I'm hoping the Twitpay team out executes.
Tipjoy is about more than payments in twitter. The main reason I'm excited about this is what it allows for services that use twitter, like http://www.stocktwits.com/
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivey on Thursday December 04, 2008 @10:16PM
(#386549)
No one from Twitpay is complaining. Ivan gave me a heads-up about this a few days ago.
TipJoy is a social platform for tipping people, that now has a Twitter hook.
Twitpay is a payments platform built exclusively on Twitter, with some other interesting features in the works.
It seems like overlap, but we're in pretty different spaces. I wish the discussion here had focused on TipJoy, and not veered off into this side of things...although I'm happy people know about Twitpay, too. We'll have our own HN threads for cool announcements soon enough.
Congrats to Ivan and Abby for getting this out there.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivankirigin on Friday December 05, 2008 @09:52AM
(#387039)
The biggest threat to those that implement this functionality is twitter itself. If Twitter chooses to do their own payments, I doubt any efforts from Tipjoy or Twitpay could change behavior.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivankirigin on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:51PM
(#386428)
You tweet sometimes. They're usually pretty funny, so you should do it more. I'm pretty sure twitter will be closer to an ecosystem of tips, considering everyone is a "blogger" - though some with greater followings.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by webwright on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:36PM
(#386332)
Yet another reason on the long list of why execution matters a helluva lot more than the idea, especially when it comes to easy/simple ideas.
I'm not convinced it was "stolen", and I think it's pretty crappy of you to suggest that it was unless you know something the rest of us don't.
TipJoy almost certainly has a product roadmap of some kind. Theoretically it's possible that they pushed what they were in the middle of aside 15 days ago to attack this and managed to get it done and launched by today... But I think it's just as likely that they were already working on it.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivankirigin on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:52PM
(#386430)
Tipjoy is all about super friendly fun time. Like at our poker nights. Come by if you're in the Boston area (and a startup hacker/foudner): http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Startup-Poker/
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivey on Friday December 05, 2008 @03:14AM
(#386796)
Ivan, I assume you saw @tensigma's invitation on Twitter to play poker if you're ever in Atlanta, but I'll mention it here, too. He's not any good, though, so go easy on him.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by ivankirigin on Friday December 05, 2008 @08:04AM
(#386953)
Even people that think they are good are still usually just playing by intuition, like me. I'd love to play. We should set up a network of startup poker games across the country. Poker is the new incubator.
Given this fundraising environment, it might be a good financing strategy too.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by mattmaroon on Thursday December 04, 2008 @06:46PM
(#386355)
Idk, the feature is definitely a little too obvious to call theft. Also, when you see someone launch 15 days after someone else, you can't assume copying. Features often take longer than that to develop, especially on sites that involve money transfers.
Not saying it's impossible, just saying it's far from a slam dunk.
Re:Tipjoy (YC W08) now allows payments via Twitter
by sanjayparekh on Thursday December 04, 2008 @07:12PM
(#386388)
Errr.. Twitpay was developed over a WEEKEND at Atlanta Startup Weekend. I'd say it's pretty easy to copy this idea in 15 days. Heck, I'd have expected more features. Maybe the extra days were used to do more key words.
The idea of a "rtip" or tip/retweet is the biggest innovation here. It's exactly how twitter is already used to disperse information, but adds a social gesture with monetary weight. That's pretty powerful. If you like a tweet, just say "rtip $1 @username the awesome tweet".
Lots of sites use Twitter credentials, and this means they can initiate payments. It also makes those payments inherently social, as they are broadcasted - so in ways it is better than an OAuth system. But we're planning that too.
We are also accepted new signups via twitter credentials http://tipjoy.com/createaccount/platform/twitter/
We're going to open this up to an API, meaning sites based on twitter credentials can convert their whole user base to tipjoy users. I'm really looking forward to see what can be done with these tools.
As an aside, I think twitter still needs to release support for OAuth, there are too many sites out there storing twitter credentials in plain text right now. Careful developers should be hashing the passwords with some secret salt so at least their users passwords aren't at risk if someone ever gains access to their db.
These aren't really your issues, but twitter needs to add proper authentication. Anyways -- this is a great from tipjoy -- looking fwd to what comes next.
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/how-twitter-will-be-worth...
Or maybe it came from one of the 1.2 million pages that has the phrase "twitter and payment" somewhere in it but no mention of twitpay:
http://www.google.com/search?q=twitter+payment+-twitpay
Or inspired by TextPayMe, which did the exact same thing with phone numbers instead of twitter usernames?
http://www.askdavetaylor.com/0-blog-pics/textpayme-welcome.p...
coming up with an idea isn't going to get you ahead, it's your ability to keep coming up with good ideas, execute on them, and make the right choices that steer the company that will. and eventually, some day, you get a big pile of users that becomes increasingly hard to lose, even if you try to fuck it up (just look at geocities. yes, it's still the 124th biggest site on the internet...)
Tipjoy is about more than payments in twitter. The main reason I'm excited about this is what it allows for services that use twitter, like http://www.stocktwits.com/
Unless you also have a patented technology, being first to market doesn't really matter.
Execution matters. Bragging rights don't pay the bills.
TipJoy is a social platform for tipping people, that now has a Twitter hook.
Twitpay is a payments platform built exclusively on Twitter, with some other interesting features in the works.
It seems like overlap, but we're in pretty different spaces. I wish the discussion here had focused on TipJoy, and not veered off into this side of things...although I'm happy people know about Twitpay, too. We'll have our own HN threads for cool announcements soon enough.
Congrats to Ivan and Abby for getting this out there.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with that.
Eg.
"I'm not going to pay @joe $1000 for an old ipod!" or
"Everyone! Give @bob $10 to buy beer".
So this would indeed count, "Give @bob $10 to buy beer" but that is clearly a closer to a command.
More importantly, this is an opt-in option, so it would be hard to do it without knowing.
Go Abby & Ivan
I'm not convinced it was "stolen", and I think it's pretty crappy of you to suggest that it was unless you know something the rest of us don't.
TipJoy almost certainly has a product roadmap of some kind. Theoretically it's possible that they pushed what they were in the middle of aside 15 days ago to attack this and managed to get it done and launched by today... But I think it's just as likely that they were already working on it.
Even if they DID steal it from Twitpay, the idea certainly didn't originate there. http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/6/how-twitter-will-be-worth... (from June)
He didn't say you had to be part of a viable startup to play.
Anyone reading this is welcome to the game. And if you want an excuse to move to Boston, tipjoy is hiring: http://tipjoy.com/jobs
Given this fundraising environment, it might be a good financing strategy too.
Not saying it's impossible, just saying it's far from a slam dunk.