wei xiao bao english blog

What To Do With Failed Startup IP?

2008-05-06T12:34:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/06/what-to-do-with-failed-startup-ip/ I think the best way to handle with failed startup IP is to open source IP by following some popular open source license such as GPL, Creative Common, etc. simply because the return on the investment to sell the IP may not be justified. However, many creditors and investors of the failed startup may not be open enough to opening the source of their investment although it has already failed. So in reality most failed startup IPs...(read more)

No Microsoft please

2008-05-05T10:45:00Z

http://ycorpblog.com/2008/05/04/ok-so-now-what/ As a software vendor based on Microsoft platform, I strongly support you to leave Microsoft as far away as possible. What Microsoft does over the years is really evil in the software industry and we all hate Microsoft badly. It is in every one’s best interest to prevent Microsoft from dominating the web again. Otherwise, Microsoft will continue to be a disaster for the whole world. Please stand bravely enough to disregard those greedy investors and...(read more)

Bye bye, Microsoft

2008-04-11T10:47:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/11/gartner-says-vista-will-collapse-and-thats-why-the-yahoo-deal-must-happen/ This is also what I have observed. The times of Windows has permanently gone. Nowadays people do not care about what kind of OS they are using because more and more apps are running on the server, not on the desktop. Actually any OS with a browse should be OK, which should be a disruptive trend change for Microsoft. It should be a deadly mistake for Microsoft not to recognize this trend...(read more)

Tagging photos - massive crowdsourcing

2008-04-02T08:35:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/02/need-a-job-make-120hour-tagging-photos/ Tagging photos could be a great use case of massive crowdsourcing which is really promising. AI (Artificial Intelligence) still has a long way to go before it can be used in massive products. In this case massive crowdsourcing is the only way to do time consuming jobs that machine can not do. By the way, $1.2/h may not be so attractive for some areas in China. As far as I know, the latest lowest hourly rate in Shanghai is...(read more)

techcrunch.com needs a China team

2008-03-29T00:52:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/28/could-china-throw-a-wrench-in-microsofts-yahoo-deal/ Many people including the bloggers of techcrunch.com are quite curious about the China Internet market. Although I have left China for a couple of years, I can still feel that some articles and their comments regarding China do not make much sense. Sometimes some views are even ridiculous and you can immediately know those people have never been to China or have never had a good study of China. Sorry if you...(read more)

Full-featured Web 2.0 toy needed

2008-03-27T09:37:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/pirillo-starts-large-scale-community-cms-project/ This would be strongly welcomed. Since Web 1.0, several popular open source PHP forums packages have been widely used to build many online communities through which many first-time Internet users know what is an online community. Now in Web 2.0, we do need a new open source PHP package that can clone all the features of the most popular Web 2.0 toys like digg.com, youtube.com, facebook.com, etc. so an average webmaster...(read more)

Justin.TV’s Birthday Stats

2008-03-24T20:08:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/24/justintvs-birthday-stats%e2%80%9457-years-worth-of-video-and-counting/ This may be a very typical stats for a Web 2.0 business. People just discuss everything except revenue and profit, which gives many young entrepreneurs a misconception that a Web 2.0 business does not need to consider revenue and profit. You can know how ridiculous it could be. As you know promoting a free product can not be easier than ever so all the numbers can not make complete business...(read more)

Cangelor blogs open to everyone for comments

2008-03-22T12:39:00Z

It was an error to only allow registered users to post comments regarding a blog post. Now it has been fixed so any one without registering with cangelor.com can post comments as well. Sorry for any inconvenience caused....(read more)

linkedin.com is really good for an employer?

2008-03-22T12:34:00Z

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/20/linkedin-now-for-companies-2/ As an employer, you should always try your best to retain the best. The more and more features of linkedin.com make an employer retain star performers with more and more difficulties because all the social networking features of linkedin.com possibly makes every one knows every one else in a specific field. Put simply, as an employer, today you can hire the best by using linkedin.com. However, tomorrow you will possibly lose the best...(read more)

Success formula

2008-03-21T01:07:00Z

This is a quick comment regarding the blog post http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/20/sequoias-gospel-of-startups-more-true-than-ever/. I copy it here for your reference.

Every road leads to Rome.

With that being said, I think what the Sequoia Capital list indicates is that the way they prefer. If you happen to prefer that way, you’re lucky so you will be possibly funded by Sequoia Capital because you share the same value with them.

However, if you feel uncomfortable with some of the points, I don’t think you must fail. Like many other people have shared, there should be other ways that can create successful businesses as well.

IMHO I would share my formula of success.

success = right team + right product + right timing

If you can get the three things right, absolutely you will succeed. Among the three things, right team is most important. Then right product. Then right timing.

If you can get two things right, you can basically survive but can not be so profitable. If you can get one thing right only, you can’t survive so you will definitely fail.

Web 3.0 - machine generates contents

2008-03-20T09:26:00Z

If you look at all the Web 2.0 stuff you can have a feeling that Web 2.0 means having your user community generate contents for you. For example, YouTube. Unlike traditional media companies, YouTube does not have its own media staff. All the videos are provided by its user community.

Recently when I look at some emerging areas, I think about the possibility to have machine generate contents for you. If we can say Web 1.0 is you generate contents by yourself and Web 2.0 is your user community generates contents for you, we can safely say Web 3.0 is machine generates contents for you.

Here machine means intelligent programs developed by smart developers that can generate contents that can be basically useful for people to get information. If having your user community generate contents for you greatly improve the overall efficiency, developing some intelligent and sophisticated programs to help you to automate contents generation would make one step further.

If you look at the technology history, you can conclude that it is simply a history of automating. Each time when an innovative tool is invested, it is just used to automate the procedures that need human involvement. Every automation improves efficiency and productivity on the whole society level so we advance very quickly.

ProofHQ - social document proofing - cool!

2008-03-20T09:22:00Z

This is a quick comment regarding the blog post http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/techcrunch-uk-ireland-weekly-news-round-up/.

“New startup ProofHQ launched collaborative document version tracking. Read more”

http://proofhq.com/index.html

It is really cool that they just focus on one thing: proof. However, they just do PDF and several image file formats. They should do Microsoft file formats as well, especially Word documents, since these file formats are most widely used.

I assume they start from PDF and image file formats because these file formats are easier to start from. If this is the case, Microsoft file formats should be in their pipeline. The good thing is, their jobs may become easier since Microsoft recently opens those Office binary formats.

Anyway, I will track this startup closely. Thanks for sharing.

Facebook app Social.IM will be killed by Facebook

2008-03-20T09:19:00Z

This is a quick comment regarding the blog post http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/14/facebook-to-launch-instant-messaging-service/. I copy it for your reference.

“This spells trouble for a slew of instant messaging services that third parties have built on Facebook. Social.IM, for example, is one (funded) startup we’ve written about a couple of times. Those applications are now basically dead.”

I’m really sorry to know that. This is something Microsoft is good at. It is really bad for Facebook as such an new innovative startup to use such a dirty trick to kill another startup Social.IM who are building applications for it.

Microsoft ISVs are quite familar with this. They provides you a platform to allow you to develop applications for that platform. They considers you as a part of their so named ecosystem. However, once they have found your application is too cool to miss it, you’re under threat: They will do the same thing and offer it for free and then you’re out. So from this point of view, they are the big brother of the ecosystem. You would be killed by them at any time when necessary.

iPhone API is not free

2008-03-20T09:14:00Z

This is a quick comment regarding the blog post http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/06/iphone-20-enterprise-ready-developer-ready/ . I copy it for your reference.

“The SDK kit is available immediately. Go here to learn more. You have to join the Apple developer program ($99) to start making iPhone apps.”

It’s ridiculous to charge developers for using iPhone API. Microsoft does not charge developers for using .NET Framework. Sun does not charge developers for using Java. Facebook does not charge developers for using Facebook API.

If you do not build a large network of developers who are developing countless applications for your platform, how can you promote your platform?

How about use crowdsourcing in professional areas?

2008-03-08T00:25:00Z

This is a quick comment regarding the following blog post:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/07/crowdspring-enters-crowded-field-of-crowdsourcing-with-5000-prize-invites/

I just copy it here for your reference.

I have known some websites who are using crowdsourcing to do software development as well. I would share a possible use case of crowdsourcing is in the professional areas such as accounting, law, financial planning, consulting, etc.

Nowadays people pay a premium to get such kind of services. In some cases, after you pay $$$$ or $$$$$ you get an answer of a simple No. From my point of view, this is rediculous and those so named professional firms charge too much for a too little job. This is a chance for us to challenge them.

If there is a crowdsourcing provider who can leverage all possible untapped talent in a certain professional area, you may pay $$ to get a solution, which would be a great money saver.

I would be happy to discuss this further with anyone who is interested in this idea.