necrecious
Ask HN: Are startups too safe?
Is joining a startup risky? I would say no.http://www.quora.com/Engineering-in-Silicon-Valley/As-an-employee-of-a-early-stage-software-startup-what-are-the-disadvantages-if-the-startup-fails-after-1-2-yearsConversely, is joining a startup financially rewarding? Probably not.http://www.quora.com/Startups/What-startup-could-make-me-a-millionaire-in-four-years-if-I-got-hired-as-an-employee-todaySo...
Are founders less happy than population as a whole? Or is it that we expect founders of successful companies to be happy?
My app will call on our server to verify receipt and I was getting bogus receipts that actually caused that part of the code to crash.
Apple's receipts are proper json objects and what I was getting was this string "com.urus.iap.30297356." The last part keeps changing, so I am guessing the developer actually tracks usage.
So the moral is to always verify your receipts and don't deliver content unless the receipt is valid.
But most developers won't have resources to do this and creating a general service for them would be too much custom work. I think SDK platforms should have this capability built in. Pay $10/mo and we'll verify your receipt and return a file based on the IAP product id.
As for paying, this is a non-issue, you are going to pay either way.
This feature is only useful for a very minor audience. Most people don't create a lot of content, and won't bother tagging their short tweet/status.
Power users who do write a lot should already have blogs like the one the author is using.
Perhaps you need a learning filter that catches words that are too common and filters them out.
Ask HN: How start doing technical hires?
I am a first time entrepreneur looking to start hiring developers after doing all the initial development myself.While I've lead tech teams and have conduct interviews as part of an established company, doing it as a one person shop is much harder.The first problem is getting applicants. Are paid job boards worth it?After getting applicatns, how do you manage them? Do you use something like...
Patent trolls are exactly in this mold, the question is if there is a way to make money off of them?
Any system will have parasites. You can change system, i.e. patent reform, or introduce a predator for the parasite.
Microsoft should just make achievement points a virtual currency that you can buy coupons with.
The critique that web companies don't leave a technical legacy is not really valid. Most businesses don't leave a legacy.
Perhaps I just want to ask a few people that I trust in <food/fashion/movies>.
Of course, the questions will be a great way for companies to get information about you.
Each vendor would have to evaluate with ROI with Groupon and no one really know how good or bad it is because it is likely to be kept secret. No one likes to be shown to be a sucker if it is bad, and no one will share if it is great.
Wish these guys good luck in SV.
I suppose I could try selling user data or use advertising. Either require massive number of users and a lot of upfront time to get going.
Free users are harder to support, more vocal and less likely to upgrade. Even a token amount of money initially is probably enough to discourage the "pathological" customers and the sunk costs mindset might encourage spending more money with your service.
Selecting hobbies and interests beforehand is good as well, since some people might not have social circles that use Twitter.
So I agree with the author in that if account creation was last, it would be the most interesting.
Refollow has been blocked by Twitter
Short term, I've got a profitable iPhone app that has over half a million downloads and will be working on converting free users to paid subscriptions.
Long term, I am looking to disrupt the Dell/HP model of selling physical computers by selling virtual computers.
Disrupt the web by freeing developers to use any technology to develop applications that can be accessed instantly.
Disrupt the social by making users control their own content and run services on their virtual computers to manage their social graph.