A few responses to your comments. I am sorry it has taken me a while, but we have been busy trying to make a difference.

I would have hoped that your comments would have been more constructive, coming from someone as “seasoned” as you are (ps. I wouldnt claim being in a field for 20 years as an accomplishment – its just a factor of time not success).

You criticize people for being “cheerleaders”, but really they are just people like you, but with a different point of view (I can assure you no one from goowy has posted in the comments section until my post today).

It is dissappointing that you chose to attack people who are supportive and want to help an organization grow. Perhaps these people see what goowy can be rather than what it is – thats considered vision.

I am also suprised that you can so blatantly criticize a company’s business model when you have no idea what they are working on or have planned to monetize.

It is ok if you do not see value in any given product or service, but to attack people who do, rather than providing constructive, is a less a sign of a “seasoned” contributor and more an indication of someone who has missed their chance to make a positive difference.

So its beta version is now history. Goowy yesterday launched its instant messenger and online storage space. The San Diego-based start-up, in which Marc “Mr. Digital movie theater” Cuban poured some big money, has now several interesting ap…

I like that I can put files on my Goowy desktop and access the file from all of my Windows, Linux, and Mac boxes. I bet I could even access it from my PocketPC if I have the internet option.

As forperformance, it runs pretty fast even on my laptop. But I fear that if they start “improving” it then the performance will suffer. Lets hope they continue to keep performance a priority going forward.

Overall, a very nice (new) experience.

No slant indented to Mike; I get more from his effort than I contribute. Sorry I won’t feel bad for anyone who is busting there ass – I expect that from everyone.

I’m not here to hear patronizing comments from “employees, friends and family” to help anyone create their self fulfilling prophecy. The cheerleaders need to be called out to keep the information objective and useful. Too much commentary is speaking to new / useful / cool elements which are just not (subjective comment yes, but this is where you enter your comments right?). Left unchecked it comes off as just a bunch of buddies rubbing each other.

I salute you for coming to defend your company – we’ll all learn from your intelligent responses. However, if you’re in Tech at less that $50M/year it’s a lifestyle not a business. What’s wrong with working hard on something you love? Just don’t misrepresent it or we’ll be on you

30 Boxes is doing very well thank you. We have many users who have offered to pay for our service.

Are screensavers a business? With our former company Webshots, we pioneered photo sharing and generated millions of dollars in revenue beginning with something that most people would have considered a trifle.

30 Boxes is a social network and we will generate revenue.

If you don’t like cheerleading, why in the world are you reading this blog? It has been this way since day one.

People read Mike’s stuff because he busts his ass to get information, new ideas, and new products out for people to play around with.

Honestly, what’s new here? I support people who work hard and innovate but these companies, and the community around them, should keep it in perspective. Embracing a personal or group productivity service is a big step. You might play in their sandbox for a week or two but are you going to use a product from a company whose objective is to be bought up (service cancelled), or trust a company with no business model to support their operations, or an unproven product (lost data)? How’s http://www.30boxes.com doing these days? How long before they figure out a calendar is a feature not a business. Save us all some time and do your cheerleading somewhere else.

There are many companies who have great products and have been battle-tested over many years. XMLHTTP / CSS / Web 2.0 blah – it’s not new, they use whatever makes sense to get the job done and don’t get all religious about it. They also have mature feature sets, profiled response times, proven stability, and oh yea a business model so you know they have staff to keep their ship afloat. Just Google: email group calendar contact management

the only thing i do know is that whenever a disruptive technology emerges, they face a lot of skepticism and doubt. although i too won’t be making the full switch, i do see good things for goowy and for future webtops.