Fascinating piece. Betting the entire company on the real-time web market is an interesting idea.
Betaworks is definitely an interesting company, considering the whole VC-funded-incubator model mostly failed in the late 90s, the most famous one, of course, being Idealab! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealab).
As opposed to YC which aims to provide advice, more than anything else, they're "incubating" ideas and then seeing what sticks. So I guess they're more involved than the incubators of yore.
They're definitely doing something right, first with the summize acquisition and then with bit.ly so perhaps it will work this time around.
Betaworks is definitely an interesting company, considering the whole VC-funded-incubator model mostly failed in the late 90s, the most famous one, of course, being Idealab! (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealab).
As opposed to YC which aims to provide advice, more than anything else, they're "incubating" ideas and then seeing what sticks. So I guess they're more involved than the incubators of yore.
They're definitely doing something right, first with the summize acquisition and then with bit.ly so perhaps it will work this time around.
Now will it work? Shrug.