As it turns out, multiple people in the same location can already talk to each other. In fact, that's how it usually happens.
One of the problems I see with this is critical mass, will you get enough users on it to be useful? Note that most other location related services (say yelp, foursquare) don't require a critical mass of people to be at the same spot at the same time.
Conferences would certainly have enough people that some might wander in to your track's channel, but would it be used enough day to day for people to naturally open it up when they have an extra minute?
It would be fun in coffee shops, bars, and book stores. Probably a good way to break the ice in meeting new people.
It might even be good in apartment buildings or neighborhoods. Say you're having a barbecue, you don't know your neighbors that well, but you have extra food and you'd like to meet them. Put a notice on the local IRC with message party.
Bingo! YC abhors any startup that wouldn't be started anyway without their investment — like Mark Twain's refusal to join any club that would have him as a member. In this round a huge chunk of the startups were already founded and taking revenue / profitable before joining YC.
"We invest in people, not ideas" is a hell of a depressing way to get rejected.
>"We invest in people, not ideas" is a hell of a depressing way to get rejected.
Not really - PG isn't a god, so what he can reject you on is an application, a talk and a video and hope that this is a good enough indication about whether or not you are worth investing in.
I doubt he get it accurate more than say 60% of the time, but because YC is so popular, enough people sign-up who are a no-brainer (Sam Altman, etc) that it doesn't matter much.
But for those of you who have been rejected, there is a good chance that YC would accept you, had they known you.
PG / YC rejected me / my startup idea but I made it anyway and its starting to get some traction. YC / TechStars etc.. are just programs that help you not make you.
If you don't take the initiative and get started on your own then why would they assume you have the tenacity to keep going in the face of constant opposition. There are lots of problems that you run into while running a startup and many days really suck. How can you make it through this if you are not even willing to move past a YC rejection?
I've been thinking about this type of app a lot and i think it's a great idea and it won't be the last of these type of platforms. My prediction is there will be hundreds of micro chat sites in the next few years and there will be thousands of 'foursquares' similar to the way there are many, many "social networks" that aren't threatened by facebook.
1. Chat apps will appear for major cities that may or may not feed into a larger community. For instance, why doesn't someone launch 100 of these apps - Miami South Beach, Atlantic City, Vegas Strip, etc. I click it, i'm chatting with people I know are in Vegas and doing the same things... drinking and losing money, of course.
2. Reward systems will develop that are much more elaborate than a free beer for mayor. Pseudo-panzi-schemes with downlines, etc but tied to real financial rewards, to incentivize people to chat. For instance, you give people a share of ad revenue in proportion to how early they sign up in an area and how often they're online. Or prizes, or points that they can spend... Like groupon on top of chat?
3. Normal people will start to think of location based chat. Hashtags are a poor tech geek's way of filtering by location... if i'm tweeting to friends at a conference i wish i could prevent my friends who aren't there from receiving those messages. I know they don't care and don't want to be irritated at our elaborate tweeting about where to meet for the best Thai food in north america (which happens to be in Vegas, by the way). http://www.yelp.com/biz/lotus-of-siam-las-vegas
As it turns out, multiple people in the same location can already talk to each other. In fact, that's how it usually happens.
One of the problems I see with this is critical mass, will you get enough users on it to be useful? Note that most other location related services (say yelp, foursquare) don't require a critical mass of people to be at the same spot at the same time.
Conferences would certainly have enough people that some might wander in to your track's channel, but would it be used enough day to day for people to naturally open it up when they have an extra minute?