Frankly speaking I do not think that Google App Engine makes money. It saves money for people and with that it creates brand awareness for Google -> more money in the long run for them from advertising.
Your model can actually make money since you will allow a small number of people to use your service for free and promote themselves, while a larger event which is more likely to be funded better would pay you.
I also like the idea of the prepaid account. That would increase your liquidity since people will not use the whole amount of their credit.
Two things that I want to draw your attention to:
1. The points system might appeal more if you offer something in return to the users. Since you are beginning that will have a strain on your finances. I would therefore suggest spending some time with integration with existing websites such as Facebook and MySpace. A Facebook application can actually get you very far in brand recognition and use of your system. Later on you can encourage users to vote for their favorite events, for instance by raffling a couple of tickets.
2. Similar incentives can increase your traffic from the event organizer him/herself. If say you offer 4 cents a user if they invite 100 users and 3 cents a user if they invite 500 then that would be great for you :)
I think that the approach is great given the fact that so many people go to chatroulette and end up looking at pervs. The filtering system can definitely give you the edge.
One thing I did not like was that upon visiting it immediately asked me to share my camera and mic. Perhaps a better front page with a lot more explanation (graphics can help) that would lead you to the 'chat' screen?
I can see the simplicity and I am up for it but a lot of people will think twice to click accept (for camera and mic) if this is the first thing that they are asked to do on a website.
Strangely enough this was the sentiment at Google. I was talking to a Googler in a recent GTUG meeting and they told me exactly that: Some people won't change browsers but they are OK with installing a plugin.
Perhaps I am old school but I cannot understand what your application does.
A brief description other than "Post your content on the web" would be nice. Additionally when you want people to send an email to you, you might want to have a Privacy Policy link to state what you will do with the email addresses that you will collect.
There are ample examples on the Internet on how hackers manage to exploit one vulnerability, obtain a password, and then cause all sorts of damage since people tend to use the same password almost everywhere.
Getting someone's information and exploiting it has become so easy with social networking, it is frightening. This article http://l.niden.net/identitytheft demonstrates how someone can use your social circle to steal your identity. It is definitely not a far fetched story - it is reality and most people seem to ignore it.
Let us not forget the debacle of Rock You (http://l.niden.net/rockyou-cleartextpasswords) where they were storing passwords in clear text. Once the hacker got in, he had everyone's password for that service and for many others I'm sure.
I would be very interested to see what is the percentage of Facebook users that use passwords like: 'password', '123456', 'letmein' etc. I know my brother in law was one of them....
I wonder if any people from that 75% have heard of services like LastPass? (http://lastpass.com).
I have been using the Encrypted search ever since they announced it and have not seen any delay whatsoever. I have also used it in numerous locations over wifi and wired networks - still no delay.
If you do not ask you will never get. That is what you should be thinking all the time.
Your boss will not give you money just because you are a good guy (or girl). They will always try to maximize their fortune and not yours. Sure you will get a raise at some point to address inflation but that will come as late as possible.
What I have done in the past was a long term one and not a 30 minute conversation. I would throughout the course of the year, send emails to my boss outlining my achievements of that period. So for instance if I managed to upgrade X servers to save the company money, I would send an email at the end of the task outlining that. This would be ammunition for me later on to ensure that my request is not seen as unreasonable.
When the time comes to ask for the raise I was printing the emails and started discussing the matter with my boss. 9 out of 10 the boss would not remember half of the things that I had done throughout the year. I would let him/her tell me first what they thought regarding a raise. I would approach it as "What do you think I am worth here - what is my value to this company". To this day it has worked wonders since only once I got an offer less than what I wanted.
Finally you will need to have an accurate picture of the company's financial position before you do that. You cannot ask for a raise when the company is in trouble. If that is the case then you should be looking for another job.
A very good piece of advice is from yummyfajitas also as far as assessing your value.
I don't want to sound like a financial advisor because I am not. Your financials are different than mine but I hope that the below can allow you to relate so as to choose the best strategy for you.
My approach is a bit more traditional. I take each salary as the static factor (i.e. I will not get a raise in the future). This way if I get more money later on that would be a good surprise, otherwise I have my plan set.
The key factor for you at the moment is to get out of debt - all debt. I sat down and wrote my income. Then from that I subtracted the necessary expenses i.e. rent, utilities, transportation etc. I also subtracted a relatively small amount for food allowing a bare minimum of eating out and socializing. I cut all unecessary expenses and then paid the bare minimum on all of my loans and whatever was left was the money that I could spend on anything. Let's assume for a moment that this amount was $500.
I then opened a savings account and put that $500 there. I did the same thing for the next 3 months until I ended up with $1500. That money served as the immediate emergency fund. The number is arbitrary and I have since increased it to $2000. Your interpretation will depend on your own situation.
Say you had a problem with the car, unexpected expenses etc. - that is the fund that would help you get out of a very unpleasant situation later on. So if you needed say $200 for a car repair you could get it from there but you would replenish that amount as soon as you can. The emergency fund would need to have $1500 at all times. This gives you also a sense of accomplishment and security.
Once I had that done, I started attacking all the credit cards and loans. I started with the first one, the one that had the lowest amount. Once I paid that off, I went to the next one, the next one etc. Once everything was gone, I made sure that whatever I would spend I would be able to pay it off the next month. This way I would never pay any APR and would use my money for myself.
The next step would be to set up a 401K. A Roth IRA would be a nice place to start and you can choose a conservative strategy to minimize your risk. After this is set up, you will need to start setting a long term emergency fund. This would help you in the chance you lose your job and have nothing. Some people set aside 3-6 months of pay to help with any layoff. If this is set up, you will be able to pay your bills for 3-6 months and have a bit of time to find another job.
My point is that you cannot rely on the future since you do not know what will happen. Work with what you have today and you will be better off in the future.
Interesting article. I must admit that I was really disappointed when I read the news that Wave was going to be killed.
We have been used to Google's fast paced innovation. They do push the limit on what the browser can do (for instance in Wave) but as far as they are concerned that technology would not help their business model which like any other business is to make money.
As the article states, I would not be surprised if Wave technology is introduced in other Google products.
I am however disappointed that Wave was killed. I really loved that product :/
svnsync would synchronize the whole repository to the target location. That is OK if you want to keep a copy elsewhere. One of the solutions that I provided allows you to dump each version in turn which svnsync does not do.
Having written that, svnsync would definitely be another option to consider.
I have done this in the past. The reason behind it was to 'help' the company pay less to the recruitment agent and three months later I was to be compensated for the loss of income.
I agreed at the time and yes I was compensated three months later. The issue though was that the company I was working at the time was solid with a lot of capital, so I was not worried that much for not getting paid.
In my view you will have to have a bit of faith in people but you must also do your homework. If the startup is not going to exist in 6 months then don't even bother.
Gather all the evidence you can gather about the job and present that data to your friends/family and ask them their opinion. A fresh perspective can help you a lot.
What is a common practice is for organizations to try and get things for free from the employees. In other words as patio11 pointed out 'exploitation'.
The question that comes to mind after reading the article is "Who cares?"
Nowadays - in my humble opinion - people purchase phones to satisfy a need inclusive of the basic phone call one. Some users think that the X phone is cool or easier to use than the other one. If say the iPhone is cooler than an Android based one, then no article from Techcrunch is going to convince the user to purchase one over the other.
Let's not forget that the people that do not follow stats and capabilities and specifications and purchase a phone because it is cool are not going to read Techcrunch therefore the article brings the "Who cares" question in my mind.
Concluding, don't we have better things to discuss than oh how the mighty iPhone has been surpassed by the even mightier Android one?
I agree the attack is very elaborate. However it might not be even malware as you suggested to sniff the password. A lot of users use the same password in a lot of sites. It only takes one to be hacked and that is it.
I believe that this is a new form of attack by spammers. So far I have observed this only with hotmail accounts and it has happened to two people I know.
I received an email from my neighbor the other day with the title EMERGENCY. The email is below:
-----------------------
This had to come in a hurry and it has left me in a devastating state, it's an EMERGENCY. I'm in some terrible situation and I'm really going to need your help now. Few days ago, unannounced, I went on a trip to Glassglow, Scotland (United Kingdom) and unfortunately for me I got robbed by thieves, Everything I had on me were stolen, including my phone, credit card and cash and now I'm stranded right now.My return flight leaves in few hours time but I need some money to clear some bills, I didn't bring my cell phone along since I didn't get to roam them before coming over. So all I can do now is pay cash and get out of here quickly.
I do not want to make a scene of this that is why I did not call my house, this is embarrassing enough. I was wondering if you could loan me some cash, I'll refund it to you as soon as I arrive home just need to clear my hotel bills and get the next flight home, As soon as I get home I'll def refund it immediately.
Write me if you are willing to help so I can let you know how to get the money to me here.
Angela.
-----------------------
I thought that there was something wrong with it but as a matter of courtesy I was not going to contact her family - in the case it was a legitimate email. Instead I decided to walk my dog and go over to her house to check if she was indeed in Scotland. As it turned out she was oblivious to what had happened and yes she was in the US not in Scotland.
It appears that the spammers/crooks (whatever you want to call them) hijacked her email address, changed her security question, changed her secondary email address so that the password reminder is routed to them, wiped all the contact information after they sent the email above to everyone.
She also told me that a lot of people called her phone offering to give her money to help with the situation.
A similar email was received by my boss from one of our common acquaintances. Needless to say that she did not send that email either.
Is this the new "Nigerian" scam? I don't know, but it would not hurt to employ an aggressive password changing policy.
As for your last point - solving the spam startup - yeah it would be great if we could do that, or even easier it would be to convince every company that holds a mail server to not allow any email unless the domain has SPF records. This way spoofing will cease to exist (people impersonating email identities). Once spoofing is gone, spam mail server IPs can easily be blocked.
You could find a 'cheap' place but it will have to be in Zone 6 of the Underground which is quite a few miles away from the center of London. Additionally if you want to have decent offices you will pay for it - dearly
Analytics is basically a statistical analysis of your log files.
I believe there are two aspects of what you can do with analytics:
1. You can actually get the log files for yourself and use a log analysis from a security and performance point of view. You can check which pages are being asked, what are the queries passed etc. This way you can check whether there are any loopholes in your code, vulnerabilities, scripts that are being accessed a lot, resources that need to be cached etc. Google Analytics gives you some of that data (top queries, etc.) but not from a security perspective.
2. You can plot data over time for each website and use them for marketing purposes i.e. growth over time
I agree. You do not have to be a member of the U.S. Military to open an account (or more) with USAA. It took me roughly 15 minutes to open accounts for myself and my family through their website.
What you cannot do (if you are not/were a member of the military) is use their direct deposit feature i.e. scan checks and upload them to their website. You are not also eligible to get insurance from them.
Other than that I agree that they have a fantastic website and awesome customer service. Because they do not have ATMs when you withdraw money from another bank's ATM, they refund up to $1.50 for the ATM fees up to 10 times a month.
Frankly speaking I do not think that Google App Engine makes money. It saves money for people and with that it creates brand awareness for Google -> more money in the long run for them from advertising.
Your model can actually make money since you will allow a small number of people to use your service for free and promote themselves, while a larger event which is more likely to be funded better would pay you.
I also like the idea of the prepaid account. That would increase your liquidity since people will not use the whole amount of their credit.
Two things that I want to draw your attention to:
1. The points system might appeal more if you offer something in return to the users. Since you are beginning that will have a strain on your finances. I would therefore suggest spending some time with integration with existing websites such as Facebook and MySpace. A Facebook application can actually get you very far in brand recognition and use of your system. Later on you can encourage users to vote for their favorite events, for instance by raffling a couple of tickets. 2. Similar incentives can increase your traffic from the event organizer him/herself. If say you offer 4 cents a user if they invite 100 users and 3 cents a user if they invite 500 then that would be great for you :)
Wishing you the best of luck.