Comments on: Judy’s Book: Avoiding the DeadPool

By: The Year in DeadPool (2007 Edition)

The Year in DeadPool (2007 Edition) — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 02:38:44 +0000

[...] Judy’s Book: Avoiding the DeadPool [...]

By: chanquest

chanquest — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 04:38:38 +0000

the reason startups fail is depicted in the documentary startup.com (2001). It has to do with ego. It starts with two people who think they have a brilliant idea and then go seek funding. They get funding and then overhire programmers and over spend on infrastructure. meanwhile they don’t have a clue how to manage the show so they probably created two or three hierarchies of project managers. they probably hire their friends and give them elaborate titles with no real responsibilities. they fight with each other when the pressure is on and in the end fail to generate revenue or capture marketshare. I hate to say it but it’s textbook.

By: Siniq

Siniq — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 03:13:38 +0000

What about Angie’s list? http://www.angieslist.com/

By: wifox

wifox — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 03:43:08 +0000

I’m late to this conversation - but I’d be curious to know what other think. I love Yelp, but I definitely see them show up in organic google results - certainly WAY more than Judy’s book. Does anyone think Google is a key factor for success or failure?

By: Wish July » Entrepreneur

Wish July » Entrepreneur — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 04:42:08 +0000

[...] 오늘 우연히 1월9일 포스트된 Judy’s Book: Avoiding the DeadPool 기사를 통해 Judy’s Book의 CEO인 Andy Sack의 blog에 방문했는데, 회사를 전략적으로 그리고 점전적으로 변화시켜려는 노력을 담백하게 드러내고 있었다. [...]

By: rxforbiz

rxforbiz — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 22:25:09 +0000

Who says Judy’s Book is now making money? There are a zillion deals-based sites – just type “deals” into Google. With reviews, Judy’s Book at least had a niche almost to themselves, even if they, Insider Pages and Yelp haven’t figured out a way to make money.

Yelp is nowhere near profitable, and sells its (very few) ads for peanuts ($300/month is their maximum). The recent MBAs and wannabe titans of industry who jumped into the “local” field are simply hallucinating over their spreadsheets. They have NO idea how to sell advertising to tiny, mom ‘n’ pop, very unsophisticated, blue-collar businesses.

In March last year, I met Stuart Macfarland at the InsiderPages office in Redwood Shores. Big, brand new office park, next to Oracle, rent $20,000/month minimum). Lots of empty cubicles, no visible employees, quiet as the grave, nobody making sales calls, and no phones ringing!

Insider Pages and the other review sites were/are working on the “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” model, aka a wing and a prayer. Well, they built it, and they haven’t come.

Which is bad luck, but also bad business judgement and terrible execution.

By: CrunchBack

CrunchBack — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 05:28:21 +0000

Adapt or perish. Judy’s Book adapted - Insider Pages did not.

http://johntreadway.typepad.co....._judy.html

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 03:42:08 +0000

The infamous DeadPool. Should one be honored to be included in it?

By: Pramit Singh

Pramit Singh — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 13:41:02 +0000

The buzzword this year will be MONEY, rather than web 2.0.
http://mediavidea.blogspot.com.....-2007.html

By: Andrew E

Andrew E — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:28:21 +0000

Heh, crap. Looks like Yelp is pretty much exactly what I wanted to for Portland, OR with my site the portland scene, but one for everywhere. I really like the way they auto-discover your location seamlessly.

Of course, the fact that I’ve done this for free (well, time ain’t free, but whatever) in my spare time is different. Kudos to that site…it’s nice looking.

By: Michael Arrington

Michael Arrington — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:32:47 +0000

Dr.Oogle Guy - It’s probably a better idea than shutting down…

By: DR.Oogle Guy

DR.Oogle Guy — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:12:25 +0000

I am not sure that a radical change in direction is such a good idea. It confuses the regulars. Unless that direction has been there (even in a rudimentary form) from the very start, it is a hard route to follow.

I’ve met with Andy and he is an intelligent guy with impressive credentials. Still I don’t know how any one of the second-tier companies in local space expect to compete with CitySearch and craigslist. Only time will tell.

By: rye

rye — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:10:24 +0000

Oh, and for the record, I’ve never been to Judy’s Book before its change to a coupon site, so I don’t know what it was like. I’m not stating Yelp is better than any of the other review sites, just my acclaim for it.

By: rye

rye — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 22:05:51 +0000

Sebastian- I think you’re right about the social aspect. There are those of us on Yelp who meet outside of the Web site (not official Yelp events). We know one another on a personal level because of the site. We encourage one another to write more reviews. Being able to have Fans and Friends, send Compliments and communicate on the Message/Talk Board all make the site feel more personable, rather than a sterile wasteland of reviews.

j.d.a. - I get something tangible from the Web site, so promoting it for free for them doesn’t feel foolish at all. And it’s the social aspect of the site that makes it great for me. The more I talk about it, hopefully the more social it gets. Win-win.

By: elvirs

elvirs — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:30:04 +0000

the insiderpages gives an impression of made-for-adsense site.
is it google giving them the scripts or whatever thing to make the google ads look like content of the website?
they put a little “ads by googl” to the very left bottom corner of the ads but put huge “local offers” right on the top of ads.
i think this is fooling visitors, the links are there not because the staff has chosen them as good links to visit but because these links will pay good.
this is not a good sign, they look like want to start profiting from the first day.

By: Yan

Yan — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:55:46 +0000

JudysBook changed the venue some time ago and they were in a hurry I should say. The change pissed off a lot of old timers. My blogpost about the subject collected 56 comments and I had to close it due to the amount of anger people were pouring out to the management…

http://probargainhunter.com/20.....oks-green/

By: Nathan Kaiser

Nathan Kaiser — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 19:31:55 +0000

I have interviewed Andy Sack for my site and have met with him over coffee. He is a very smart guy who will definitely alter course if he needs to. Same for Munjal Shah at Riya. Their launch of like.com is a great utilization of the core software they built for Riya. I wish them both well.

Interviews can be found at:
Andy Sack:
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00130

Munjal Shah:
http://www.npost.com/interview.jsp?intID=INT00129

By: Naffziger’s Net » Getting to Break-Even in Local

Naffziger’s Net » Getting to Break-Even in Local — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:43:15 +0000

[...] Local sites have been drastically scaling back because many are realizing it is very expensive to even build a break-even business purely in local. This is manifesting in the significant changes at local online startups, and even monday-morning quarterbacking on the shift at JB. This problem is two-fold: [...]

By: Cathy Brooks

Cathy Brooks — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:31:14 +0000

Ever hear of learning from mistakes? I say bravo to calling out errors, identifying where the problems occurred and putting out out there so that perhaps some folks can avoid making those mistakes … and of course make brand-spanking-new ones. Of course that shouldn’t be confused with talking smack about the people who’ve made the errors. Per the first comment in this thread, yes these are people, but as I read it the DeadPool doesn’t slam any people to the ground, just their actions. And Munjal Shah is a great example of a smart entrepreneur - Riya had some bobble steps early on, but they’ve managed to right themselves quite nicely - a case of learning from mistakes.

By: Eric Xu

Eric Xu — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 16:00:48 +0000

Michael, I like to to read stories of failures. Many times, there’re more to learn from failures. Thanks for covering these stories; and yes, please stick with it.

By: Yakito

Yakito — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:44:15 +0000

Come on, this place is full of hypocrites.. I don’t know the exact numbers of the deadpool, but I am sure it is doing fine with the visits and pageviews, everyone wants to read that, and it is not because we want to see companies dieing but because it’s a good place to learn about where the market is going. Companies die, that happen and will continue happening, but if entrepreneurs can learn form it an avoid making the same mistakes those companies did, then the deadpool is a good place.

At least that’s what I think.

By: Sebastien Provencher

Sebastien Provencher — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:21:58 +0000

Yelp’s success (vs. other local destination start-up sites) is leading me to believe the social aspect of a site is more important than the local aspect when dealing with a social/local site.

By: j.d.a.

j.d.a. — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 15:07:15 +0000

So pissing off your users to make a buck is a good idea now? None of the more profitable changes will mean anything in the long run if you can’t keep your community.

Worse still is having a bunch of vocal people (the kind that write reviews) that have a negative reaction to your site. Look at the {foolish?} Yelp cheerleaders commenting on this post, imagine if they were all angry - that’s what’s happening at JB.

By: Judy’s Book vs. InsiderPages « Screenwerk

Judy’s Book vs. InsiderPages « Screenwerk — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 12:13:47 +0000

[...] Judy’s Book vs. InsiderPages Michael Arrington favorably compares Judy’s Book vs. InsiderPages and praises CEO Andy Sack & Co.’s willingness to change their business model and experiment to avoid the fate that seems to have befallen InsiderPages. [...]

By: pick!t

pick!t — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:40:00 +0000

Judy’s Book: Avoiding the DeadPool - Techcrunch…

“Judy’s Book, in contrast, made some fairly dramatic strategic changes last fall, in the hope of avoiding the same fate. They de-focused on local reviews, and went more towards the shopping angle and local deals.”…