SuckyStartups

TheNextWeb: 15 Dumbest Names for Web 2.0 Startups

Me — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:51:11 +0000

This was a great post by TheNextWeb!15 Dumbest Names

Some of my favorites from the list:

ooVoo — what the hell were they thinking??!??

Oooooc.com — hehe, I’m imagining them spelling it to people over the phone…”o-o-o-o-o…”

Jiglu — I’m just a Jiglu…

I’d like to add a few of my own:

Twitter — Twitter? I barely even…

KidZui — On TechCrunch today! They should be censored on name alone.

Pownce — Pownce iz sillee and dum

Joost — Joost haz it all rong too

Flickr — I barely… …and it reminds me of the early 2000s RAZR…

SkyDeck — Raises $3MM to ENHANCE MY PHONE BILL???!!!!

Me — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 04:00:05 +0000

In their own words, SkyDeck helps you keep track of your cell phone calls and text messages. Check who called you yesterday and how long it’s been since you spoke.

Ahem…maybe it’s just me, but I already use an amazing tool to see who I’ve texted and called. It’s called MY PHONE!

They go on to say why I’ll love the service:

1. GET AN INBOX FOR YOUR CALLS — because my recent calls ain’t enough

2. DISCOVER YOUR TRUE SOCIAL NETWORK — because I don’t know who I talk with…

3. GET A SMARTER ADDRESS BOOK — because I want to look at a website instead of use my address book

4. SEARCH YOUR CALLS — I always wanted to search my calls…finally, I can!

5. NEVER GO OVER AGAIN — OK, this might be useful for some

6. TRACK YOUR EXPENSES — QUICKEN? MINT? SKYDECK?!?

7. SECURE AND PRIVATE

8. FREE — Sounds like a great money-maker!

Rule #1: don’t invest in companies that have names that end in *ster

Me — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 01:11:59 +0000

Cramster, an online study community, just raised a series A round of funding. Our economy is sliding off the face of the earth and VCs are still funding *ster companies?!?!?!?!?!?! Didn’t VCs stop funding *space metoo companies like a hundred years ago? Even *tube ripoffs have died down in the last 50 years. It’s even been a few months since I’ve seen a VC fund a company that’s missings vwls in its name. What’s next—a new round of *soft fundings?

Who’s TurnTo going to Turn To when there’s no revenue

Me — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:36:00 +0000

TurnTo is a service where you can ask friends for help. The way it works is they sign up “great partners” (their words) to put a widget on their site. They current have four, top-tier Internet brands including the famous Angara, the household name CompSource, the very well-respected Earthwatch, and Fortune 100 Teavana. If you’re one of the four people that sign up and happen to use one of the partners’ sites and also have a friend that meets those requirements, you are now really hooked up!!!! You are now uniquely in a position to ask for their help using this service. “Should I get the medium or large size?”….wait….”Uhh…large, I guess”….”Great!”

This is the web’s next killer app!

If only people would just read this blog instead of listening to hype, we’d avoid the “Pownce Effect”

Me — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 15:00:11 +0000

http://startonomics.com/blog/the-startup-think-tank-how-to-avoid-the-pownce-effect/

I called Pownce stupid well over a year ago. It’s still stupid. Who cares that Kevin Rose started it? I have my own advice above and beyond what startonomics.com has. I call it my top 3 rules.

1) Have a good and differentiated product

2) Have a good and differentiated product

3) Have a good and differentiated product

hehe…as I went to get a screenshot, Pownce was down! They are taking after Twitter in more ways than one!!!!!

AWWWWW MAAAAAN, YAHOO’S SHUTTING DOWN MASH. That’s my most useful and favoritest social network!

Me — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 12:56:16 +0000

Mash is shutting down. What a bummer! It was such a differentiated and unique social networking service. And it was so young–not even out of private beta with limited “invite only” accounts! What is Yahoo thinking?!?!?

Diary.com — I wonder how many people are going to try to hack it!!!

Me — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:17:22 +0000

First of all, who would keep their private diary on some startup’s website? Holy cow, that’s just begging to get hacked.

Second, in terms of the feature to make the diary public–isn’t that just a blog?

I just don’t get it.

LinkMood — This site put me in a great mood!

Me — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 15:40:22 +0000

LinkMood is a site that helps people share their moods!

In their own words:

Linkmood is a social opinion mood community where people share, discover, and make friends along the way. become a member today and make your mood count!

Did they really say “social opinion mood community?”

I wish I could see their traffic logs!

Blabnote: Thank goodness it’s the only voice social network.

Me — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:03:25 +0000

You gotta give these guys and gals credit for being funny! That’s hilarious–a voice social network. Perhaps the only slower and worse thing than working on a mobile phone browser is trying to navigate voice recognition. This is gonna be great. I can’t wait until they get out of “private beta!”

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

Gigaom forgot one crucial step

Me — Sat, 10 May 2008 00:11:50 +0000

Here, Gigaom discusses the lifecycle of a startup. But they forgot one crucial step:

Being featured on SuckyStartups!!!

One day an entrepreneur is chatting with his friends, gets an idea, writes about the idea on his or her blog, and then starts coding. A few weeks or possibly days, a beta — increasingly a euphemism for a not-fully-thought-out-product — emerges.

THE LAUNCH
Then the buzz builds and the company opens up the beta far and wide. Maybe TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, WebWorkerDaily or WebWare write about the product.

The missing sentence:
“Then SuckyStartups blogs about it, telling it like it is. No differentiation. Me too. No business model. No chance.”

THEN…

LAUNCH A SOCIAL NETWORK WIDGET
If the user adoption press releases, the widget and subsequent coverage can’t get your site growing again, it’s time for the big guns…the open API.

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