What is the number one activity a 15 - 25 year old American male will buy a computer for today? Its gaming. And Microsoft is still the number one gaming platform.
By hanging out with a bunch of graduates from top schools that work at your startups you've basically stuck your head in the sand. These people are not your average Americans. Your Average American is using his computer for things that your circle of friends have no interest in.
Seriously, get out of the valley for a few months and go visit people, regular people, around America. Go see what kids are doing in PC "bhangs" in Asia.
"Everyone uses macs" ... this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
And do you think Snipshot and Jumpcut type programs are ever going to be fast enough and feature rich enough for people that care about their media? Snipshot might be ok for a quick brightness adjustment or a resize, but have you seen what kids are using photoshop for today? Go visit a popular online forum like Something Awful, Fark, or Genmay -- look at the Photoshop Phriday type activities the kids are having fun with. Tell me that you can do that stuff with Snipshot.
Honestly, you old school Valley guys are just as bad as anyone from Redmond. You've got your own blinders and have as little clue as anyone else about what people actually want to do with their technology. Everyone embraces trends like Google, Facebook etc. after the fact, as though those things were carefully thought out strategies when really there are a thousands of things being tried and some are bound to succeed because people want to do _something_ online.
The internet is evolving organically and though you smarty pants would like to think that a bunch of clever people are making clever choices to provide the market with what it wants, its more like putting capabilities out there seeing what will stick. People love to paint this fiction about succesful start ups, as though they were smarter than others in choosing the right "niche". Its all a load of horseshit -- nobody, least of all the founders, has any idea what the market is going to take to.
So you can all sit in a circle jerk dumping on Microsoft, as though their random-walk through feature scape is something different than what you guys do, but the fact of the matter is that you are all the same. They use their own money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense, and you use other people's money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense.
By hanging out with a bunch of graduates from top schools that work at your startups you've basically stuck your head in the sand. These people are not your average Americans. Your Average American is using his computer for things that your circle of friends have no interest in.
Seriously, get out of the valley for a few months and go visit people, regular people, around America. Go see what kids are doing in PC "bhangs" in Asia.
"Everyone uses macs" ... this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
And do you think Snipshot and Jumpcut type programs are ever going to be fast enough and feature rich enough for people that care about their media? Snipshot might be ok for a quick brightness adjustment or a resize, but have you seen what kids are using photoshop for today? Go visit a popular online forum like Something Awful, Fark, or Genmay -- look at the Photoshop Phriday type activities the kids are having fun with. Tell me that you can do that stuff with Snipshot.
Honestly, you old school Valley guys are just as bad as anyone from Redmond. You've got your own blinders and have as little clue as anyone else about what people actually want to do with their technology. Everyone embraces trends like Google, Facebook etc. after the fact, as though those things were carefully thought out strategies when really there are a thousands of things being tried and some are bound to succeed because people want to do _something_ online.
The internet is evolving organically and though you smarty pants would like to think that a bunch of clever people are making clever choices to provide the market with what it wants, its more like putting capabilities out there seeing what will stick. People love to paint this fiction about succesful start ups, as though they were smarter than others in choosing the right "niche". Its all a load of horseshit -- nobody, least of all the founders, has any idea what the market is going to take to.
So you can all sit in a circle jerk dumping on Microsoft, as though their random-walk through feature scape is something different than what you guys do, but the fact of the matter is that you are all the same. They use their own money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense, and you use other people's money to fund a ton of crap, most of which is nonsense.