Comments on: Will YouNoodle Predict Its Own Inevitable Failure?

By: Diana

Diana — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:47:59 +0000

oh and boost that popularity by forcing this YouNoodle down to students’ throat. (tie to competition…etc)

By: Diana

Diana — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 02:46:02 +0000

1. Unorganized site. Much of the logic doesn’t make sense.

2. YouNoodle has identity crisis: is it a start-up community? a job search place? recruiting site? facebook-like social networking? or all of the above?

3. Just plain too much non-serious users on the site.

By: KI + VC = YouNoodle.com « Laufwerrk

KI + VC = YouNoodle.com « Laufwerrk — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:07:03 +0000

[...] Techcrunch und [...]

By: YouNoodle: Smarter than you think « The Guidewire

YouNoodle: Smarter than you think « The Guidewire — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:09:07 +0000

[...] why I’m not declaring it FAIL just yet (you’re missed, Ted), as others have been quicker to do. I doubt any of us in the tech sector - pundit, blogger, investor, or [...]

By: Citizen Jake

Citizen Jake — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 21:11:43 +0000

The Good Michael Arrington…

I generally find TechCrunch to be a worthwhile read, though it frequently lacks the right amount of skepticism when evaluating startups (come back Uncov, we need you! I need you!). Having said that, when Michael Arrington’s on, he’s on. His…

By: rick

rick — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 03:32:45 +0000

Haha, it’s so obvious that this is personal for Arrington.

By: Youchump2

Youchump2 — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 01:08:01 +0000

Hi Youchump,

You brought a tear to my eye. It’s good to see there are other people who have figured out what these guys are all about. That was spot on. I wouldn’t have said it better myself. Thank you.

By: Laura

Laura — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:19:04 +0000

Sorry the previous post was incomplete.

I would like to hear the opinion from other A.I. experts on this. It is embarrassingly obvious from their NYT article that they have fundamentally no idea what they’re talking about.
Their motivation is that other industries of similar size use A.I.? And a false negative/positive would be a paradox? It smells like fairytale.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 23:41:37 +0000

I would like to hear the opinion from other A.I. experts on this. It is embarrasingly obvious from they’re NYT article that they have fundamentally have no idea what they’re talking about.

By: xoost.com

xoost.com — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:51:22 +0000

cool idea

By: YouChump

YouChump — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:22:09 +0000

Congrats Michael, congrats TechCrunch. The whole entrepreneur / blogging community is in hysterics today, I’ve received this and the likes of “Is it Wrong to Hope They Fail?” (Entrepreneur.com) over a dozen times on email, Facebook etc. It seems like it’s a small clique of London boys (YouNoodle, Sharpshoot, Auctomatic etc) who make a living through pure bullshit, spin, hype and lies. Ridiculously overvaluing their companies to gullible angels, media whores hungry for any sort of press attention using ridiculously overspun fables to get coverage. Well finally let’s hope the curtain has shut, you’ve lost credibility amongst important respected peers, who are intelligent enough to sift between the noise and the humble, modest, true winners out there. Shame you’ve peaked early, and won’t be respected entrepreneur pioneers a decade down the line, because you got greedy. Enjoy the final scrapes of your angel investment boys, that’s all you’re going to see, and enjoy having to resort to dull office jobs when the fairytale shortly ends.

By: Keith

Keith — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 18:05:36 +0000

I think everyone’s missing the point.

They’re generating buzz with the ’start-up predictor’, but that’s not the focus of their site.

YouNoodle is a cool name I think, very memorable.

By: Ron Patiro

Ron Patiro — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:57:14 +0000

1. Not surprised NYT is covering this.

2. YouNoodle is an awful name

3. Great title for this post!

By: dave

dave — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:44:29 +0000

well, first of all we know the algorithm will be tailored and tweaked to make younoodle *shine* brightly…as for the dbase, i think crunchbase is actually cleaner…why not open source that shit? come on…

By: Alex Hammer

Alex Hammer — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:41:35 +0000

Michael, I’m sure it’s no CrunchBase, which is very good.

By: MikeT

MikeT — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 17:19:04 +0000

@40: good point Bryan!
The polls reflect the “wisdom of crowds” (read this book, by the way) and it’s the best way to find out what the people think. And it’s not even an algorithm

@YourDaddy: the youxxxxx.com stuff will still be en vogue while youtube is alive. I just don’t understand why I don’t see many other winners with “you” in their domain names… Many are taken but no good products yet - an example is this younoodle stuff.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:18:25 +0000

> In a poll that Duncan ran earlier the vast majority say there’s no way YouNoodle can pick winners based on some algorithm.

Aren’t polls just a way to pick winners with some algorithm?

By: Magic 8 Ball

Magic 8 Ball — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:45:24 +0000

Outlook not so good.

By: jerjer

jerjer — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 14:34:17 +0000

I too have much skepticism about younoodle, who wouldn’t? yet I find the whole concept plausible.
“if these guys found some sort of magic formula that actually predicted the value of a startup down the road, they’d keep the information to themselves and make, well, unlimited amounts of money”.
hmm, Michael. let’s suppose the magic formula did exist and you had no money to begin with, wouldn’t you try to do just like them??

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:47:04 +0000

not sure i understand the noodle hate. i mean, all sorts of experts in important positions and expert system predict all sorts of things all the time - and about important things like peak oil, peak coal, end of food, human population - and they get published in the most respectable places all the time, but apparently, some startup claims to have a helpful predictor. why so scared of a little piece of software? might it put you out of business? no trip to sxsw necessary?

By: Paul Shafft

Paul Shafft — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:43:59 +0000

There are many factors that VCs use to evaluate the potential of a startup. It’s easy to see how somone would establish ratings for the personnel involved, the investors, the market etc and come up with some overall score. What seems is nonsense is the AI bit. It implies there is some machine based intelligence working this out, rather than simply a computer running a formula dreamed up by VCs.

By: I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog

I Am Not Posting To Spam My Blog — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 11:51:49 +0000

@22: “surely you get a ton of email from other start ups that are more deserving.”

While I can’t speak for Mike, I’m guessing that most of those emails are crap along the lines of “We’re X with revenue-sharing”. The fact that 90-95% startups fail is a timely reminder of this.

This is newsworthy because it’s interesting (not in a good way, but it’s nice to know what Septic Peg is doing nowadays) and it’s got some credulous MSM coverage.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:22:42 +0000

I am not of course as sure as YouNoodle may be in predicting the future, but I can’t help but think that the company name is refering to us… the public for beleiving anything they are saying!! Basically YouNoodle if you can’t see we are taking the piss and its just to get your attention for something else we have planned…. Maybe wrong though

By: mike

mike — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:08:58 +0000

It really is a great idea and an advancement of the art.

The idea that *parts* of Venture investing can not be boiled down into scientific, statistical analysis is just pure ignorance.

Mike, stick to the facts. That’s the value of techrunch. Expressing your opinions about the value of things isn’t helping your credibility.

By: mike

mike — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:05:02 +0000

oh Come on, that article was rather one sided?

What’s wrong with creating intelligent filters? Obviously it can’t predict the future (nothing can), but I bet it’s probably better at probabilities.

There are only so many deals you can look at in a day.