Disqus - Latest Comments for chudson

Re: Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive – The Fractured Way I Store Stuff Online

chudson — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 17:13:54 -0000

I got rid of the native music on my phone and just use Spotify. And I always buy the largest storage version of phone possible to deal with that very issue.

Re: Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive – The Fractured Way I Store Stuff Online

chudson — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 23:20:08 -0000

I have just given up on iCloud. If it were meant to be my solution, it would have worked by now.

Re: Evernote, Dropbox, Google Drive – The Fractured Way I Store Stuff Online

chudson — Thu, 09 Apr 2015 23:19:35 -0000

I have zero confidence in Apple's ability to solve core software issues in my life. I trust them 100% with hardware, though.

Re: A Pre-Seed Primer (if by Primer u mean Rant)

chudson — Thu, 26 Mar 2015 10:19:29 -0000

Nice post. Really enjoyed it. Happy to connect at some point and compare notes.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 12:09:15 -0000

Alex,

Thanks for your notes. I didn't make it to Premoney this year. I feel that I'm in the minority of folks who are not in favor of reading decks today.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 18:54:42 -0000

Saul, that's it in a nutshell. Thanks!

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 15:31:20 -0000

Varun,

Good question. I usually just read whatever paragraph or blurb they send over. If the market sounds interesting and the team sounds compelling, I'll usually want to learn more.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:20:52 -0000

I agree. And I prefer Skype / Hangouts to phone calls.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:20:36 -0000

I find them very useful once you're in the meeting and as a follow-up to jog my memory after we've met.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:20:16 -0000

It most definitely depends on learning style. Some of my colleagues prefer to read decks in advance as that helps them formulate better questions. I try to separate the substance of the presentation from the quality / skill of the presenter. It's not always easy to do.

Re: False Positives, False Negatives, and Reading Decks in Advance

chudson — Wed, 16 Jul 2014 12:19:20 -0000

Glad it was useful!

Re: Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling

chudson — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 16:11:52 -0000

I expect them to continue to stay very vigilant on how they grant API access.

Re: Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling

chudson — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 16:11:29 -0000

Thanks for the great comment - sorry for being slow to acknowledge it!

Re: Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling

chudson — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 21:20:06 -0000

I upvoted your comment - I think you're right. I feel like search works well enough (if you're patient) but there is plenty of room for improvement. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Re: Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling

chudson — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 21:19:19 -0000

Very good comment - thank you for sharing. I agree that they have stayed focus on the most core, basic utility value proposition of directory search.

Re: Competing with LinkedIn and the Case Against Unbundling

chudson — Sat, 28 Jun 2014 21:17:29 -0000

Good point, Jeremy. I think they are doing some asymmetric stuff around the edges with news and publishing but I feel like the core experience on the site is still about symmetric connections.

Re: 3 Ways Deep Linking Could Play Out

chudson — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:19:29 -0000

Noah,

Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I want to be a bit more clear on what I'm talking about. As you mentioned, there are ways for developers to implement deep linking in their own apps today. Some are doing it themselves, some are using 3rd party SDKs / toolkits to deep-link enable their own applications.

What I've heard from talking to developers in my portfolio and outside of it is that they do want a more consistent way to talk to other applications that I, as a user, have installed on my phone. So while they can control the way that they implement deep links on their own apps, they have virtually no control over how other developers have chosen to implement it. So it makes it harder to have good, consistent app-to-app experiences. I though the FB demo of what they want AppLinks to enable at F8 to be fairly compelling. And in talking to folks, it seems like there is some fear that the way in which apps talk to each other to enable deep linking could become balkanized.

I think you highlight exactly why apps and the web are different, but I still hear from marketing teams that they want the ability to drop users into specific portions of their own apps. For ad campaigns, they can supply the ad network with a custom link that can deliver that user to a specific page / section / level of the app because, as you said, they had full say in how it was implemented.

So I'm hoping that the ability for apps to deliver users from other apps to specific sections or sub-sections of their own apps becomes easier. That's what I think of as deep linking.

As for the web, I'd argue that deep linking works relatively well on the web. It's not perfect, but I think if apps worked as well as the web on that front it would be a vast improvement.

Re: 3 Ways Deep Linking Could Play Out

chudson — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 12:27:45 -0000

Great comment, sir. I agree that open source will play a role in this as well. I think that's what Facebook wants to do with AppLinks as well.

Re: A Theory On The Rise Of Tweetstorms

chudson — Mon, 26 May 2014 02:56:05 -0000

I'm a very active Twitter user and I have to say that I find Tweetstorms generally annoying. There is a subset of Twitter users who I think have authority and audience - if that subset were to author a post on any other platform (Medium, WP, Tumblr), I'm quite sure people would click through. I think that many of the prime tweetstormers have large followings and generally get retweeted (in my stream at least) and I'm perplexed as to why they don't find another channel to share those longer form thoughts.

I also find it strange that tweetstorming is so weirdly intentional. When you start 1/2/3ing your tweets as you write them, you're setting me up with an explicit reminder that you could have written this more concisely or somewhere else but instead you're doing it here. On Twitter. In 140xn characters. So what's going on?

More than anything, this does tell me that there is a subset of people who feel like the best way to be read and to generate engagement is to take what would otherwise be a longer form post elsewhere and chunk it up into a series of Tweets. I used to think this was driven by laziness, but I don't think that's it. I think that it's really hard for most people to read an entire blog post and pick out the areas / sections they want to quote or share. The "Tweetstorm" allows that person's followers to selectively pick out the sub-sections of a longer missive that they like, agree / disagree with, or want to share. And it creates a point / topic level conversation around a larger argument that's often lost in blogs. I can't highlight sections on your blog and say "hey, this sentence or point was awesome" and I can't highlight a different section and say "um, I have issues with this piece" in the way I can with a tweetstorm.

The one rule of Twitter is that whatever generates RTs and faves will not go away. So I expect that Tweetstorms are here to stay. I think Medium has this idea of line-level commenting and feedback down. It's hard to do on most other authoring platforms.

Re: The Potentially Divergent Paths for Facebook and Twitter Mobile Ads

chudson — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:42:24 -0000

This is a great comment and I agree - every network has to find its own native ad unit that makes sense given its own usage modeal and audience. I think FB is going to stick with mobile install ads for awhile as they work and are easy.

Re: Vertical Marketplaces and the Durability of Craigslist

chudson — Thu, 17 Apr 2014 02:16:19 -0000

Great point - making sure that the FTUE is good is really important.

Re: Vertical Marketplaces and the Durability of Craigslist

chudson — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 01:36:17 -0000

I just love that CL stands out as a very public symbol of the danger of buying into too much of the orthodoxy around mobile-first / high design in lieu of core utility and simplicity. I think others will gradually chip away at them in some specific verticals, but it will be a slow process.

Re: Making City Living Better as an Investment Theme

chudson — Wed, 02 Apr 2014 22:16:29 -0000

I think Lyft and Uber are special because transportation is an everyday need. I would not say the same is true of all of the categories I listed above - when you have a frequency habit and density, it's a potentially killer combo. But I do think cities are great labs for testing out services that require some level of route / consumer density to make the math on acquisition and fulfillment work.

Re: On-Demand Music Streaming is Winner-Take-All, Right?

chudson — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 19:50:00 -0000

Tim, I think you're right. The labels certainly benefit from having multiple players. I think the tension is that it might make sense to do an exclusive deal with a distribution partner that has a commanding market share. But in a world where four services have 25% market share each, doing an exclusive deal with one provider deprives 75% of consumers of that content. In the end, I suspect the labels would be better off distributing to all players. And there are some things about the nature of catalog licenses that would make it hard (and dangerous from a regulatory standpoint) to be too cute on that front.

Re: On-Demand Music Streaming is Winner-Take-All, Right?

chudson — Wed, 19 Mar 2014 16:48:23 -0000

Euwyn,

I guess I just feel that Google and Amazon can afford to subsidize on-demand streaming costs for their users for a really long time, regardless of whether that business makes sense on a standalone basis. That doesn't mean that customers will gravitate toward those services just because they are available, though.

As for smaller on-demand providers, I don't think that they will be able to afford the customer acquisition spend required to build a brand and acquire customers. Or to do pre-load / install deals with carriers and handset manufacturers that will get them distribution. So can I see some small providers hanging on and making money? Sure, but similar to the ISP business, many people have ended up on the pipes with the best combination of access and market presence.

I am an investor in 8tracks and I think that the companies you mentioned at the end of your comment are the ones that have a chance for success - they're doing something other than competing on marketing efforts and catalog access. To standout in this space, you need something unique and hard to copy. Curation is one. Access to alternative, non-label content is another.