To clarify; I'm referring to smallish startups with less than 15 people. If I were to count the number of times that chance encounters in the kitchen, lounge, common area, etc. resulted in ideas that dramatically improved the product, it's be in the 100's. Creativity needs time to ferment, and a catalyst to clarify.
Large enterprise corporations with dozens of people on the tech team and a rigid process? That's not a creative environment. Startups MUST foster a creative environment.
As a founder of startups, I take a bit of exception to the tonality.
Yes, lots of inexperienced founders/leaders drink deep of the open office koolaid and do it wrong. But doing it right (allowing flexibility, having private spots, etc.) yields better overall results because people are more creative in groups. The chance serendipity of investigating new ideas with your fellows will always result in a better work product.
It's a trap! WhoIS shows a private domain registration through GoDaddy, and the site now shows a Plesk default page. This was probably not the site for an official Silicon Valley Alliance.
My comment was not related to porn so much as to the obvious link-bait and predictable "0_o pron!" pile-on. Smells faintly of Reddit with a soft lingering bouquet reminiscent of DIGG of yore.
With abuse apparently rampant in "crowd based" efforts, can we trust their trust? Especially if this enables them to scale beyond their "50 million downloads" to the point where they become a target of those looking to cause mischief? Imagine teams of users giving rival sites we can normally trust, a slew of negative ratings.
I've long had "issues" with the madness that tech startup culture inspires. MVP should be IVP, where as IPV = Initial Viable Product. If one really learns "lean" methodology, MVP really is IVP, but no one seems willing to actually pause and learn. Sad.
"Limits" in terms of advertising are relative and often moving targets. As a new product or service, it's hard to get noticed without testing where a certain limit may be. GoDaddy -- loathed by many, but not by most -- would not be the large firm it is now without having tested those limits. For better or worse, it worked, and some nice people have jobs (their campus is less than 2 miles from us).
I serve on the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) mobile committee. As a newish member, we don't have much influence... but I can confirm lots of "limit testing" is on the way. It's hard to monetize mobile, and ad delivery/targeting firms are in a panic.
I blame the insane culture springing up around inaccurate and ill-conceived interpretations of the lean startup methodology. Many young entrepreneurs and early-stage startups seem entrenched in a mindset that they must be pivoting or iterating or using all their runway or sumsuch similar nonsense.
The word "pivot" should be banned from tech startup lexicon.
"Fleeing TV" -- indeed, a shift is being observed. However, the medium exists because of advertising. Also, the audience segment that time-shifts is not yet at a critical mass, though rising. And, live event TV (sports) is still doing exceptionally well because of advertising.
Email is another matter. Being a former advertising executive would you believe I never did an email campaign? (Probably not) Email spam (simultaneously posted advertising message) has always been more considered a path to malicious exploit than legitimate advertising.
I'm not denying that an increasing segment of users are becoming frustrated with ads, only stating advertising is the best method we have _now_ for monetizing content that costs some degree of expense to obtain and disseminate.