A VC - Latest Comments in The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:33:13 -0000

if it's a legit beef, i want to address it

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

ceonyc — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:11:00 -0000

It's fine... I'm just poking the bear. :)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:09:14 -0000

it may be revisionist history but i can't remember how we decided it
honestly

if that's how it happened, i am happy to revise my post

i'll talk to brad about it today

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

ceonyc — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:53:04 -0000

"When Brad and I first thought about our firm's website back in 2004, we quickly decided it should be a blog and that is what it has always been and it is what it will always be."

#revisionisthistory

When I got there in Feb '05, you had this awful brochureware site: http://bit.ly/1gxz5Z (pics are gone, but you can see the layout.

The blog as a website was my idea. :)

I had built a website for the Hoboken kayakers in May of '05 in Typepad: www.hobokencoveboathouse.org

When we realized that no one went to our site and that we needed to get Brad blogging, I fought for the "it should be a blog" concept.

Given that you're at the social recruiting summit today, you can understand why I'd like the web to accurately reflect my job history--since I don't use a resume anymore. :)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:39:36 -0000

Thanks sue

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Omer Perchik — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:12:58 -0000

Congrats! looks great. I wish i could Fan that page :)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

suesol — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:04:17 -0000

really nicely done - congrats!

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Aaron Klein — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:51:33 -0000

Agree with you...but I see this as more of a low end user feature. The power users know how to use fb connect as it works today.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Eric Friedman — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:40:03 -0000

Fragmented comment streams continue to be a problem. I also hope that one day a comment can be left once and aggregated everywhere and folks are working on trying to solve that issue. There are all kinds of issues around privacy, sharing, credentials, and other factors which make a system of auto-logged-in-commenting seem easy but difficult to implement. One persons dream feature is anothers privacy nightmare so its about executing on solving problems most users face today, then delivering value and solving problems to the more bleeding edge users tomorrow.

This is definitely great feedback for the Disqus guys and a general use case for a power user of these services.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Aaron Klein — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:18:18 -0000

Since we are talking about Disqus here, I thought I'd throw out a thought.

I have a ton of blog readers coming from Facebook. They read the blog post, click the back button, and go back and comment on the Facebook post instead of developing a conversation on Disqus. Of course, others with Disqus accounts comment on the post, so it's a fragmented conversation, almost with two separate communities of users.

I get that the Facebook login button on Disqus is supposed to overcome the objection of creating a Disqus account - but people aren't doing it. I've yet to see a single FB Connect comment on my blog.

Long term, these web services need to figure out how to get along better. If you are logged into Facebook, you should be pre-logged in to Facebook Comments on Disqus. You don't see the need to log in or create an account - you see your name and "logged in with Facebook" and you're ready to comment.

Perhaps the trade off is the comment then floats back and posts to the original Facebook post as well. If you're also logged in to multiple services - Disqus, FB, Twitter - perhaps the user can switch which "mode" they want to comment in so they can control where comments float back to.

I know none of this is Disqus' fault - the FB API is the FB API - but Facebook and Twitter could do a lot better at being integrated into the rest of the social web. They aren't going to own all of those conversations outright. So open up and make it easier for the conversations that happen outside of your control to float back into your sphere.

In a dream world, the FB comments would float over to the blog, but we know that FB will never let that happen.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:15:17 -0000

ouch!

fred wilson 1, steve ballmer 0

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:12:24 -0000

i know, USV is where go yearbook photo and federal reserve notes, AVC is where we go cartoon avatars and fredbucks. i know it's necessary (i have to do something analogous with my trading site and my kook blog) but IMHO the great promise of the social gaming revolution is that the game becomes real. so cartoon avatars and fredbucks ftw!

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

kidmercury — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:08:55 -0000

lol good point :)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Aaron Klein — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:06:47 -0000

the whole point of having both USV and AVC is that if anyone comes to pitch USV and isn't familiar with AVC, they don't even have to waste the time and can just show the poorly prepared pitcher the door. ;)

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:58:06 -0000

Ugh

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:56:45 -0000

Thanks Jarid. You rock

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:56:38 -0000

What is IE?

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:56:30 -0000

I wonder if its too much though. Interesting suggestion for sure

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

fredwilson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 07:56:23 -0000

Excellent feedback and critique. Thanks for taking the time to do that

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

RichardF — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 06:05:53 -0000

Hi Mark

I think you are right and browsers are already converging on that. Personally I think IE 8 has come a long way thanks to the competition pushing Microsoft and given that it is bundled with Windows 7 (apart from in Europe) it's probably going to maintain market dominance for a while yet.

Cheers

Richard

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

Mark Essel — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 05:44:04 -0000

Thanks Richard, I remember reading those stats and thinking, "but how? it's so slow".
I tried IE8 briefly, it's much faster than previous versions, I suppose the browsers will converge on high utility but with comparable experiences at some point.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

RichardF — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:47:51 -0000

happy to be of assistance Eric...

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

RichardF — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:46:26 -0000

IE has 62% of the browser market with IE 8 alone having 20%. It's still the choice of the man in the street (well choice is probably the wrong word!) and corporates. I think it is too easy as an early adopter community to forget this.

Actually I think IE 8 is a reasonable browser although I'm on Firefox for browsing and because I love the feedly plug-in and use Chrome for email.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

ShanaC — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:48:16 -0000

You are awesome for that. FYI, I happen to like your color-scheme, and how do you check concordances for colorblind users? I have some colorblind friends, they apparently do see some sort of color- it is just not what the rest of us see.

@ Disqus- are you JAWS! compatible? Your considered third party in this discussion I assume. I know that Narcissus, using the whole AJAX thing, is probably not, but can the comments themselves in Disqus be read by JAWS!?

(the apostrephe is part of the name.)

Any other big questions we have here?

That should be affordances, doing the homework thing.

Re: The New USV.com Launches In Beta

ShanaC — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:24:53 -0000

How about blind dates? Sheer curiosity, but they are common from where I am from. Do you all do that as investors?