Disqus - Latest Comments for hank777

Re: re: Hank Williams' How Much Is an Idea Worth, and the Tech Market

hank777 — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:37:37 -0000

I would definitely agree that a bad founder/CEO/management team can and will ruin a great idea. My main point is that people, I think too often, suggest that the idea part just isnt very important. My point is that the idea part is *really* important, and that the reason the tech market has been sucking is because of lack of good ideas. I would tend to argue that, particularly in the current market, you need both good ideas and good mgmt/execution.

Re: AngelSoft & Dinging Bells

hank777 — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 07:55:00 -0000

Thanks Nate, I'll take it :)

Re: Open Systems, Open Data, Transparency

hank777 — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:25:04 -0000

I would agree that the data is more valuable to users than the map stuff. But I do think that giving people real thumbnail dynamic insight into a site is going to become much more common and important compared to dry static homepages. As I think about what our homepage will be like, this has definitely informed my thinking. I think its going to be more important than just eye candy.

Re: Reference designery, and the proliferation of Android

hank777 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:51:57 -0000

indeed. I had one too. It does suck now, as often happens when the original visionary leader is out the door. They cant seem to do much but tinker around the edges. I left it for blackberry.

Re: Reference designery, and the proliferation of Android

hank777 — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 09:33:07 -0000

Good points Eric. Although at the end of the day companies are just people, and Andy Rubin, creator of the Sidekick, and creator of and head of Android could have pulled it off, and if he did, they would have been better for it I think.

Re: “Network DVR” - Part 2

hank777 — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:49:29 -0000

interesting extended thoughts

Re: louisgray.com: Roll Your Own Blog Leaderboard With Google Reader Trends

hank777 — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 07:00:57 -0000

wow... #11 thanks!!!!

Re: You Can't Regulate Just One Industry And Leave The Other Alone

hank777 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:02:34 -0000

But the reason they have distribution windows is so that they can sell you a movie ticket and then sell you a DVD or on demand play later. They make their profit by double dipping, and also, typically at least 2 people (and often a family) go to see a movie so your $20 sale would be presumably for a whole family. Also as far as I remember a substantial majority of the ticket price of a movie goes to the studio. The theaters make money on the concessions. I forget the studio/theater ratio but perhaps someone here knows what it is.

Re: You Can't Regulate Just One Industry And Leave The Other Alone

hank777 — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:03:12 -0000

How would a compulsory requirement to download movies at a "reasonable" price without distribution windows generate sufficient money to pay for $150 million movies? Call me skeptical, but I just don't think what you might define as reasonable prices, particularly with unencrypted content, will generate the money necessary to make these films. If your thesis is wrong, as you would have to admit is at least possible, that would literally be the end of the blockbuster big budget movie. I don't know for sure that I am right, but gosh, if I am, is that really what we want and is it worth the risk? -- Yes I know the artsy people will say who needs batman anyway, but I, being uncultured, love a big budget summer blockbuster :).

Re: Krugman: The economics of abundance

hank777 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:05:48 -0000

Hmm... "you're supposedly interested in pursuing". As you may or may not know, I have written extensively about my perspectives (and will continue to do so) both on my blog and at Alley Insider. I therefore prefer to develop these points in those places rather than in blog comments.

Re: Krugman: The economics of abundance

hank777 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 12:05:12 -0000

deleted and moved up

Re: Krugman: The economics of abundance

hank777 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:33:04 -0000

You havent "called me" on anything. In fact, again I point out, even Masnick agrees in his post about this that citing Rolling Stone let alone a 15 year old article from Esther Dyson is incredibly weak.

Thank you for admitting the pettiness. I'll take it. But if you had wanted to actually help me out with facts, it would indeed have been helpful to hear initially that I had misspelled it in the headline of my post so that I could correct it.

As for your final point, first you say I "of course" don't have to address every point. Then you complain that I don't address every point. I am sure this is some kind of blogosphere rhetorical technique (I am new to this), but it really doesn't seem focused on seeking the truth. Yeah yeah, I know that's not really the point of all of this anyway is it? Ok you guys win. Lets just do away with copyright, and see what happens. No one needs it anyway (oh except all the examples everyone cites).

Re: Krugman: The economics of abundance

hank777 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 10:49:30 -0000

This is really getting silly. First you start off with "(but you say that's not of concern to you)". You throw that sarcastic or snarky point in, I guess, to skirt or dismiss my clearly stated point that I am not attacking Krugman for his opinions but for his methods.

The fact that you don't see the problem with this sort of presentation is telling. There is a difference between an opinion debate and an opinion debate masquerading as a fact debate. The latter is what you and Mike are engaged in. Amusingly, even Masnick agrees that Krugman's article's sourcing was weak so you seem to be alone on that one.

In the category of how petty, "As for Mike Masnick (whose name you seem to be incapable of spelling properly for some reason).” As if you have never mistyped a name, word or whatever. Its just childish. I misspelled his name once in a comment. God forbid.

And finally, I am not sure what you are talking about when you say "you appeared to deliberately ignore the examples that he referred to in his piece," But I am going to guess you are referring to the fact that I did not address Flo Rida, or Maria Schneider. The reason I did not is I chose to address the issue of whether or not there were any blockbuster artists from the Internet. In this case, he cited the Arctic Monkeys as a potential blockbuster, and though I don’t really consider them Blockbusters, they are certainly closer than the others he mentioned which are clearly not. He couldn't name a blockbuster. That was the point. As I see it, given the amount of stuff that Mike throws out that is bull, selectively debunking his stuff is more than sufficient. I can’t get to all of it.

In any case, Flo Rida is an Atlantic Records artist, and while Maria Schneider sounds like, potentially someone worth researching for the Free Music Research Project, note that I said "more than a handful" regarding my assessment of the number of artists making a living as internet artists. My point is that the number is, I believe, statistically insignificant. Amusingly though, this is really a side point since all of this is, at its core, about whether or not artists need copyright. Mike thinks not, and yet all of Masnick's example artists definitively rely on copyright. Go figure.

Re: Krugman: The economics of abundance

hank777 — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 02:20:12 -0000

Wow, I guess this stuff gets so heated that, like politics, people can't construct logical arguments. Sort of like Hillaryites arguing that Michigan should count and all the delegates should go to her.

The point is the Krugman article has a bunch or predictions and opinion from himself and Esther Dyson that are not of concern to me. Everyone is entited to their own opinion and I am fine with that. They are not entited to their own facts. The Rolling Stone article is used to establish a *fact* basis for his argument.

But the Rolling Stone quote is ridiculous. Krugman is a world class economist. Sourcing Rolling Stone to establish an economic argument about current the state of the market is not up to a Princeton economics professor's standards. This is problematic both because rolling stone is wrong, and because Rolling Stone is not a proper source for economic data whether they are right *or* wrong, unless you know something about them that I don't. There would be little debate about that from anyone actually concerned with the truth who actually thinks about such issues. So If you wish to disagree with me, fine, but at least address the topic of my piece. For example:

Are you arguing that the Rolling Stone piece is right or that it is a proper source? Or are you just arguing that since you agree with Krugman (Musnick, Arrington, et. all), that any argument construction is fair game? The ends justify the means? The imprimatur of a world class scholar means nothing in terms of standards?

Oh, and regarding my supposed "selective quoting" of Masnick, that is just pure B.S. I guess your position is if someone disagrees with you and they write long enough, say 10,000 words or so, then if you don't address every single one of their accusations then you are selectively quoting?

Beyond the fact that some of his points were, worthy of a separate post, the bottom line is I can't write a single, infinitely long piece in Alley Insider. They actually care about being interesting and readable. That said, to suggest that I took anything out of context or twisted his meaning in any way is absolutely false, dishonest, incredibly offensive, and below where I actually *thought* your standards were.

Re: James Siminoff - Free Idea for Microsoft

hank777 — Fri, 09 May 2008 12:08:00 -0000

The problem is there is no evidence that anything social is monetizable at more that a few cents per user per month. Social search on facebook? IM? microblogging? plain old banner ads?

So far none of it seems really to be much of a business. Even Facebook and Myspace arent making much money in the context of the number of users they have, which is starting to be a problem at myspace. What if microsoft buys FB and it turns out the whole category is a turd? I think its possible. At least yahoo was roughly an accretive transaction. Facebook isnt anywhere close.

Re: James Siminoff - Free Idea for Microsoft

hank777 — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:42:26 -0000

I totally agree. My friend henry blodget is suggesting that MS should buy facebook instead, at 16-20 billion. I think that is equivalently crazy. These billions are so much money it is amazing they cant find something really productive to do with that much cash.

Re: We Need A New Path To Liquidity

hank777 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:26:33 -0000

Is it really the case that there are no exit options for companies making good cash flow? As I see it the real question is how many companies are really making money. If there are a lot of those without sufficent exit opprtunity, then perhaps this is a multi-brand roll up opportunity like the IAC of today or the Symantec of the mid 90's. But somehow I suspect the problem is more on the value side than the dearth of buyers side. Of course you would be in a *far* better situation than me to opine on exit opportunities.

Re: We Need A New Path To Liquidity

hank777 — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 09:17:56 -0000

Its funny, give the reaction from my post I don't think its the conventional wisdom at all :)

Re: Free 2.0: Don’t blame the VCs

hank777 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:50:32 -0000

No apologies necessary. I just wanted to clarify. On the main point I think
we can agree to disagree. In any case I only post occasionally on SAI. If
you want to read more of my "controversial" opinions you can check me out at
whydoeseverythingsuck.com. I am sure you will find lots more to disagree
with:) This conversation has been fun, but I do seem to have ruffled some
feathers elsewhere!

Re: Free 2.0: Don’t blame the VCs

hank777 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:31:18 -0000

I am the author of the original post. I just want to clarify a few things. The article is not sour grapes from some guy "looking to make an honest living". I am actually developing a product that I firmly believe people will pay for, and so I do believe it is possible to build businesses that generate revenue from users. That said, on some level this is basic economics. VCs did not invent free. But VCs provide support for businesses that would otherwise be unsustainable. This taints the market because it messes up the basic market dynamic of "if it great people will pay for it and if it sucks they won't". In the current market even well done, useful products have a hard time charging. This is the same issue we are facing in the music business. We are training a generation of kids to believe that nothing they get through their computer is worth paying for.

Re: [bijansabet.com] the personal tumblelog of Bijan Sabet

hank777 — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 12:11:49 -0000

Bjian,

I appreciate your comments, but I must say I dont think its "ugly" to suggest that too much money is creating irrational markets. Then again I am not a VC so I can imagine this might rub you the wrong way, which I understand. And it would be unlikely that I would attack a specific person, as you suggest, on my blog. That would probably be ugly. I wouldnt think ataacking an asset class behavior would be something to be taken personally. I hope you dont.

That said, don't take the name of my blog too seriously. I don't *really* think everything sucks. But it is often more interesting pointing out what needs fixing that what is already good. See( U.S. newpapers)

I would agree with Andrew that I am indeed a contrarian. I do tend to think that often the accepted current wisdom is wrong because we get caught up in group think.

As far as why Henry gives me a megaphone, I am sure its because I generate page views. And often, though by no means always, because they agree with my perspectives. They are generally (if I do say so myself) pretty well reasoned. In 3 months, on my own blog has exploded which has been quite enlightening.

Anyway I hope I didn't upset your day too much :)

Re: Where My Traffic Comes From

hank777 — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 08:20:02 -0000

Thanks. I do use feedburner, and it is indeed helpful. I guess my blog is
new enough that the daily reach and the subscriber numbers are pretty close
and at this point I dont think I have almost any bogus subs. Currently the
number of daily readers is much higher than my subscribers or reach. I guess
over time it sounds like that dynamic will change. What I was trying to
figure out is are there metrics for how many "conversions" one can typically
expect out of a batch of uniques that will become subscribers. My *tiny*
sample suggests in my case about 1%, which I am pretty happy with. But I was
just curious if that was good or bad my comparison. It probably depends on
where you are in the lifecycle of your blog too I would guess.

Re: Where My Traffic Comes From

hank777 — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 08:49:03 -0000

This is really interesting and incredibly helpful just for context. In the last few days I have been very curious about these questions as I just started my blog and was curious how some of my ratios compared to others.

One other statistic which I am curious about is your RSS conversion rate. I started my blog in january and over the first 3 months I have about 380 subscribers and I have about 36000 unique visitors over that period of time. Both in the aggregate, and month to month my conversion rate to RSS is about 1%. I am curious if yours is similar now, or has been in the past. Is that a statistic that anyone cares about or tracks? Perhaps I am over estimating the significance of RSS readership but it seems to me that understanding what typical conversions are and what effects it could be really useful.