"Offensive Material: Link may contian offensive content such as references to religion, abortion, 9-11, or the devil."
First of all, there is a spelling mistake. Secondly, how is religion, 9-11 or the devil offensive? You may think it's an ironic joke, but most people won't get the joke, and frankly, it's not that funny. So if I were you, I'd not try to joke on that page, but give examples that genuinely describe what could be offensive.
All the same, it's a really great service, and I think it will be big.
Define "people". How many, how diverse? Are these 'people' in your target audience? Can you extrapolate the opinion of those 'people' to hundreds of thousands of other people?
Very frankly, twitter is half an idea, and while the half is pretty good, the lack of the second half makes it not keep users.
Even crappy TV shows grow on you. Twitter does not. It's like IRC - there is a large and dedicated group of people that use it, but it's not mainstream. Same with twitter, it will grow to a certain level, but it will be like IRC.
Many people just don't need the constant stream of textual information, and when they get that that's all twitter is, there is no point in staying on.
Technology startups require very specific knowledge about particular topics. For example, general business marketing is very different from marketing on the internet. You may think you know it, but if you've never done it, you don't know it. So how about starting a website or something online, and trying to gain the specific marketing (and content) knowledge to survive in the internet world? This way, you actually will be able to contribute, you gain a clearer picture of how boring the tasks can be, and you have something you can point at to show that you were successful.
Enthusiasm is not helpful. There is little worse than someone who is enthusiastic and thinks he has better ideas on how to design websites than website designers, better ideas on marketing than people who have been doing it for years, and knows exactly how to make money on the net, even though he never made money of it.
There is a lot of domain specific business knowledge required by startups. But learn it first before going out to apply in a start up. Actually doing stuff is a lot more difficult than wanting to do it, and if you want to learn it on the job, you'll be deadweight, and there is no guarantee you will ever enjoy the nitty gritty of running a technological business.
I think that business has to stay a bit neutral, because it's a place where people are thrust into. That's what etiquette is - it's a way of ensuring that different people follow a similar set of rules so that there is no friction.
If a person wishes to publish such a presentation on his blog, that's fine, but not at a conference. Imagine the presentation were about aborigines in a similar manner. It would be regarded as discriminatory, and similar rules should be used to judge sexism.
Actors are cheap, you know. People with name recognition are expensive, but the actual acting is pretty cheap. Sets and animators can be replaced by software. Think stock sets, stock backgrounds, 3d programs that allow you create sets based of standard objects.
Reality show is the direction the industry is going in. People prefer reality! Seeing real stuff or stuff that appears real is way more entertaining than acted stuff.
Content creators can't make money... yet! Video content is expensive and difficult to produce because it has not become widespread enough for millions of people to actually be doing this.
For example, compare Word Processing to TV editing. Anybody can use a word processor on a PC...now. At the very start of things, a word processor on a PC was a specialised task. As the market grew, things became more automated and a lot easier.
YouTube and such are only a few years old. The software to make producing content really easy is not there yet - so there is still a lot that needs to be done manually. This software will improve and content production will get cheaper.
My comment will get lost in the noise, but I'll give you an insight here that you will likely hardly hear again: You want a thrill of success. At the age you are in, your brain is hardwired to search for success. Programming gives you success, because when a piece of code compiles, you get that feeling of success. School is not doing so. So you will compulsively chase programming, trying to get your success fix.
Turn this around and get your success from school. See if you can become the very best at school, and become the most popular kid at the same time. If you can switch your priorities to that, you'll discover that the dopamine rush will keep you coming back for more.
Learn python. It's an excellent all-round language, you can also create desktop stuff later. Hosts like webfaction just cost $10 a month, surely your clients can afford that.
No you don't want to pay. You say you do, but if you walked by a street and two guys stood there, one guy offering you a DVD for free and not saying a word, and the other guy yelling at you to buy the very same DVD from him, you'd take the free one.
You don't want to pay for the movie, and if you really think that, you're lying to yourself.
You seem to be living in a world that does not have much to do with reality. It's not "crazy" to pay $300 for Vista when the programs you know are on Vista. People are paying $300 right this moment to not have to use Ubuntu.
Quantity does not lead to quality - if it did everyone would be using open source web design. Why are they not?
The samples don't really seem to be working though. Clicking through auto-inputs an ID, but the next step does not show anything (on the graphs). Does this work for anyone?
First of all, there is a spelling mistake. Secondly, how is religion, 9-11 or the devil offensive? You may think it's an ironic joke, but most people won't get the joke, and frankly, it's not that funny. So if I were you, I'd not try to joke on that page, but give examples that genuinely describe what could be offensive.
All the same, it's a really great service, and I think it will be big.