Look at all these rumors that surrounding me everyday
I iust need some time
some time to get away from
From all these rumors
I can’t take it no more.
My best friend said there is one out now about me
and the girl next door!

(Timex Social Club from the 80s)

They should bring out a widget as soon as possible that people like Techcrunch can add to their site. The visitors can submit rumors related to the site right there in the sidebar. Would be great to have Web2.0 rumors here and stock rumors on some financial blog.

In fact: I heard a rumor that they are planning this!

honestly this looks no different than PopChatter (http://www.popchatter.com)

What a great service. Is their first market Junior High School kids?

A few quick questions:
1) What is a potential revenue model? Licensing the service to other sites (similar to forums). Ad based, but that would require significant size. Other?
2) Is this a stand alone service, or would it be more powerful as part of yahoo, msft, google, myspace, others?
3) How would liability issues addressed?

Lots of potential, but it will be interesting to see in action.

I can see this working.

Built on Wordpress?

This is the best Kawasaki could do? A rumor site? He should have left this idea in the back of the garage.

look, it’s a startup backed by garage…how can it go wrong?

Some thoughts:

- I would hope that they would at least encourage users to submit rumors that have a reasonable chance of being true (the site name implies it). If it’s just people making shit up, there is almost no value to me.

- It might be cool to have submitters set a date at which time the rumor can fairly be judged to be true or false. At that date it would be voted on to have been a true or false rumor. Then you could track “truthfulness” of rumors (either by the site as a whole, or by certain submitters).

Kawasaki should stick to books & motivational speaking, he sure can’t pick good startups anymore.

This is an astonishingly stupid business idea. This may work as an afterwork/weekend website to publish, but certainly not one that can support a venture investment. Besides, most of the pop culture content will likely be restatements of grocery store rags like the Enquirer.

I agree with @Oh boy….. is there any IP here…..

I dont know this guy or much anything else, but it is quite obvious (shawn) that the idea is that the more true a given rumor is, the more votes it will get. Was that so hard?

wow, another utterly generic rails/ajax web app.

2nd take:
‘popchatter’ seems to be gossip, not rumors (there’s a difference, i think).

Think valleywag-twitter-digg hybrid.

There’s no IP in anything that combines several known technologies, that is why this things is so hush-hush. Same goes for monetization strategy.

First mover? Execution/ UI? Looks like a decent start.

The only reason that this thing is getting any coverage is because it carries Guy’s name on it. If anyone else did this sort of this it’d be a bust….

Nick…that is exactly what I was thinking…this idea is pure garbage!

seems pretty frivolous to me. I can only imagine the sheer noise in this service as compared to really interesting rumors which are anyway going to be either on techcrunch or on gigaom. I am sure the interesting rumors on truemors (shouldn’t it read tumor?) are going to come from one of these sites.
And Mike, you are being cautious and very careful in introducing this service!

I hope there is a second shot to this. What’s the biz model? How do they make the audience sticky? How do they remotely verify the rumors? Based on the limited info given so far, 1,000 people could call in a “life on Mars” rumor and sink the validity of the site. And if “validity” is not a concern, then I’m not sure how this is different from a well funded splog.

plaform typo

It’s really not such a horrible idea. And it looks like it hardly cost anything to build, so there’s not much risk. I think the wildcard here is whether or not the site can develop a community that values the premise and reports legitimate, juicy rumors that turn out to be true. If it gets a reputation as a trusted source of inside info, it will become a valuable community. On its own, though, as a simple app, I agreee, its not worth much.

I don’t get the impression that Mike’s being cautious about introducing it. I don’t think Guy necessarily needs to do projects for money. All kinds of ideas can work if you develop a passionate user base/audience, and that’s not impossible for any idea right now.

I see this as the “Seen & Heard” section of celebrity print magazines, where tipsters email in people they’ve seen around the city. I don’t know - I see five stars frequently just by going to my gym. Just a week of life here for most people would drive at least 10 submissions.

I was invited into the beta as well (Twitter: walesmd) - didn’t know Guy wanted us releasing any info (naughty Michael, naughty).

I really wasn’t that impressed either. I don’t see how this could possibly be successful or what the business model is. Best case scenario: Sally ‘Truemors’ that Brittany Spears is eating at the Taco Bell on Rodeo Dr. A mob ensues - fucking yay.

Like the others said, this is only getting attention because it’s Guy. Otherwise, it’s a lame idea that should have stayed in /rails_apps/

I forgot to mention this in the previous post - but the impression I got from running around on the site was that everything up there was just spam to get it full of content and for testing purposes. There were a lot of items like “Guy Is In Jail”, “Guy is Gay”, etc.

If that data wasn’t a surge of info for testing purposes… I’ll just have to edit my host file so I never accidentally visit this site.

Spam + ‘breaking news’…ah well.

Guy, stick to what you know.

Continue talking about how to run a successful startup when you never had one. Some guys are better at hype than substance…

this is deadpool fodder.

to the user asking about wordpress, that was a smart move.

hmmm. Guy asked me not to post anything until may 16th when I got my user id and pw.

Guy if you are reading this please answer this question:

Your blog’s name is “How to change the world”. In all your blog posts, presentations, books the central theme is “How to change the world” with your start up. That is, innovative products and services that enrich people’s life.

Can you please explain how this true rumor website plan to this? Change the world?

Another Charlatan Found!

We will find all WebCharlatans!

@ 27 - I think Guy’s whole thing about changing the world is doing something you’re into and having a purpose behind it. I don’t think it’s meant to be taken as everything you do should change the world.

I didn’t get Twitter when I first saw it, but now, I’m on it, twittering away. I think its foolish to assume any idea as bad when it comes to web business. You never know what’s going to stick.

Jim,

I see this as another step in the democratization of information: rich/royalty with scribes–printing press–desktop publishing–web sites–blogs–anyone can post to a site.

At a minimum, it means that someone who only has sporadic tidbits, doesn’t want to/can’t afford to start a blog/web site to put out information can just use Truemors.

And they can post in 4 ways: voicemail, SMS, email, and online. It can’t get much more democratic than this although, as we’ve seen, with democracy the signal to noise ratio can change.

By the way, do you think Twitter has changed the world? Or IM? Because I do.

Guy

I respect Guy, he sure gives good keynote… and I agree that the risk here is limited, so why not. But it does seem rather frivolous to me because it’s not about any old information as Guy says, but rumors, which by their nature are maybe things we shouldn’t be talking about so much, no?

Typo Michael. “platform” not “plaform”.

Guy,

Well I must admit, one point I and the others missed out was “democratization of information” that you mentioned in your reply. In that sense you can say Truemors is a step in the right direction if analyzed closely.

But “what kind of information to be democratized” is the main question. This “information” should be of great value to the user. Only then it would enrich the users’ lives.

The concept of you website is great, especially the offline methods of entering information - phone, voicemail…

But frankly speaking, the word “rumor” should not have been associated with this, since it gives a negative vibe instead of a loud buzz ;-). The whole innovative idea behind this goes down with the word rumor.

Toughest part is moderation..if thats done properly users can have lot of fun..
Great idea Guy.
Good Luck!!.

I don’t care much about the new site, I just want to see the “Hot Chicks Rob Bank” article!

From the ship shoddy, but ship first insanity of “don’t worry, be crappy”…to now an online rumor mill.

Is this what we want to spend time with, voting for rumors we hope or know are true?

And people make fun of blogging and Twitter?

A few similar services mentioned here:
http://www.killerstartups.com/.....onymously/

Well, so much for respect for the concept of a private beta. Criticism of a concept before it’s even been released to the “world”, and acting against the expressed wishes of the author in divulging it.

Therein lies the difference between Bloggers and Journalists. At least Journalists try to have ethics…

Of course, (based on private discussion with guy) the intent is not exactly being reflected in the outcome. BUt then that too, is a symptom of the new information age. Where people mistake information for knowledge, parroting of content for editorializing, and so on…

Seems kinda lame, but the irony of it appearing on a site that at least partly traffics in rumors is interesting. Perhaps not ironic - it might be predictive.

I just want to be clear on a point: I was not part of the private beta. if I was I certainly would have complied with any request not to post before a certain time. I also want to point out that I did not post the credentials that I received for the site. I also took other steps to protect the company that I won’t discuss here.

Its amazing a stupid idea like this gets on TC twice; within 1 month

- Rumors? … hmmm (cough: Who cares!)

I really don’t get twitter. Why do I want more useless (that is, non-actionable) informaton in my life?

so in the end it will become all spam and all marketing bullshit, don’t you see this already? ‘new movie X’ stars…product X does this…etc etc etc…lame. looks like a pligg install btw..

I think that http://www.truemors.com
is actually pretty cool.
you can remember the name and you actually have a chance
to get to the top unlike
http://www.digg.com
which is a big rig