Doesn’t really take a genius to find a site which doesn’t add value beyond what youtube, flickr (if those two add much value in the first place) already do is going down.

I can think of specialist torrent sites with more functionality.

$5,000 is too high. I would be interested if they lower to $500. LiveLocker.com is not a great domain name. As for code, I can get open source for the bookmarking.

Good luck..

who’s next? not us, i hope …

“Code is written in ASP.NET / C# using a MS SQL Server 2000 backend”… ouch.

“Code is written in ASP.NET / C# using a MS SQL Server 2000 backend”… ouch.”

As a long time microsoft dev, I have to ask…..”ouch” meaning what?

Although, I haven’t personally completed a price comparison, I would guess “ouch” regarding the price tag of a highly scalable MS SQL database solution.

Ironically, the SQL license alone may be worth the $5K fire-sale price. Last time I checked the per processor fee was $5,999 ($5737 with volume licensing).

Mike - F—ked Company was pretty funny the first time around (and I guess the TC variant will be pretty funny the second time around here) but it’s also just too painful . . . can’t we just pretend all Web 2.0 companies will be successful a little while longer?

why on earth would somebody buy it when you could just download meneame.net’s code, or the english translations at pligg or supergu? or scuttle on sourceforge? duh…are they selling bottled water in maine?

hehe, web2.0 storm is getting calm and waves are throwing ruins of most of ships to the beach.

dave, that’s the thing.
In this whole Web 2.0 chaos, I observed 2 types of pricing models for creating startups. First model coming from people who make projections in comparison to freelancer sites and second model coming from people who compare everything to the first dot come dubble era. And there is a huge difference between these people. And surprisingly, there is no one in the middle

Hugg.com is next.

Smart people don’t smart ideas.

^don’t have

This got a fairly decent review from TechCrunch. Michael even noted “I am sure this will grow.” Hindsight is 20/20, obviously, and this site has an interesting concept, but I think it’s worth pointing out that a lot of the popular Web 2.0 blogs, like TechCrunch, focus disproportionately on things like “cool factor”, feature set, interface, etc. These are obviously components to a successful business, but I’d argue that management and business strategy (marketing, monetization, etc.) are even more critical. The real world is filled with companies that have products that are less-than-compelling, or subpar compared to their competition, but that are highly successful because the company is run by experienced and/or shrewd management that has a coherent, pragmatic plan that can be executed upon. MySpace is the ultimate example of this in the Web 2.0 space.

It would be nice to see a little more focus on the business side of things. If there’s a single question that should be asked to anybody starting a consumer-oriented Web 2.0 service, it is “How are you going to get your first million users?” If your can’t answer that, or if you respond with any of the following, you’re probably going to fail.

- We have a really cool feature set that people will love.
- We’re just like _____, but have even more features!
- Viral growth.
- Reviews on popular blogs like TechCrunch.

Most of the the sites that gained massive popularity via word-of-mouth, like Digg and YouTube, are the exception, not the rule, and many had first mover advantage. The dirty little secret about viral growth is that you need critical mass before you start to see serious exponential increases in registrations. Going from 1 user to 10 users in 1 month doesn’t count (and yes I have seen new sites with less than 1000 users talk about 1000% growth rates in press releases). In a market that’s saturated and where you’re competing against popular services that already have network effects, getting critical mass might be nearly impossible unless you have a strategy for overcoming these challenges. Management and strategy trump product 99% of the time.

pity…

Drama - Nik wrote that post.

We write what we write. I think I have a good eye for possible winners, but I’m often wrong. I also tend to give true startups a less critical eye and focus on the positive if possible. The last thing I want to do is shred a company when I may very well be wrong in the end.

I also think the team is very important, but if seasoned management was all it took to become a winner, Friendster would have IPO’s by now and most startups, Yahoo, Google, YouTube and countless others, would have failed. Great leaders aren’t known until their first success, but they are still great leaders.

One thing I always do is admit it when I’m wrong. Hell, I make it a headline. We make a lot of thumbs up and thumbs down calls every day. I’m wrong a lot. That’s ok.

Michael: Appologize for not noticing that Nik wrote the post. My mistake. My post wasn’t meant as a criticism. We all have our winners and losers. Nobody is going to pick winners 100% of the time. I was just pointing out that I think there’s a lot more to these startups than just feature set, interface, etc. and that it would be beneficial to look at the other aspects of the business where possible. As we both know, according to legend investors don’t invest in ideas - they invest in people that are capable of executing on ideas and that have a strategy for doing so (although it’s apparent that some VCs haven’t heard of this legend). Good business ideas are a commodity. The people that are capable of turning them into a reality are not. Note that I mentioned experienced and/OR shrewd management. Every successful founder or executive obviously had that first success story before which they were unknown, so I wanted to make it clear that having intelligence and shrewdness can overcome lack of experience in many cases.

I disagree with your Friendster analysis. It was fairly obvious to a lot of people that Friendster was not going to succeed once it became apparent that their software was not capable of handling their success and that they were not going to fix their performance issues quickly (basically changing their entire foundation/framework from Java to PHP, etc.). Throw in the fact that the founder clearly enjoyed the lifestyle of running a hot Internet startup more than he cared about the startup itself, and the constant management changes, and it was not looking too good for the company. As such, Friendster is not an example of a business that had a solid management situation. Experienced management? Yes. Management that understood their product? No. Management that was able to respond to challenges and to build an organization capable of responding to challenges? No. Loyal management, or a management capable of recruiting the right team for the business? No.

I should qualify that quality management is not just about experience, but about having domain expertise, a passion for the product, a deep understanding of the audience/customer (preferably because you are one), etc.

It just occurred to me that reading techcrunch and getting hugely excited is rather a lot like reading raging bull in the late 1990s.

There are some definite notable differences, but it is really easy to get caught up in the hype.

Just a word of caution.

“Although, I haven’t personally completed a price comparison, I would guess “ouch” regarding the price tag of a highly scalable MS SQL database solution.

Ironically, the SQL license alone may be worth the $5K fire-sale price. Last time I checked the per processor fee was $5,999 ($5737 with volume licensing).
”

Read the auction: they’re using a hosting account at Brinkster. They don’t own a SQL Server license. They’re just “renting” it from Brinkster as part of their hosting plan.

“Who’s next?”

I like that Mike. You’re sensing the wave starting to lose momentum a little but you’re still going to stay on top. Cover it all