I love the concept of the website and the design. However I did find the word "Track" a bit confusing on your title. When I first read the title I imagined a task/calendar type web application.
I'm really impress with the 10k registered users. Can you share what kind of marketing techniques you used?
Some affiliate marketing, some facebook shares from registered users, some banner advertising, and some local advertising. Really a hodge podge but with the old design the returns were not what we expected, hence the re-design.
I'm not defending the action of our country but your analogy is way off. You're comparing two whole different scenarios. People around the world commit stuff all the time that would violate our laws but you never hear any cases like Kim's until today. Remember the reason Kim was brought to American justice system was because MPAA (American Company) alleges that MegaUpload caused over 500 million dollars in damages to their company. That's a large sum of money and if its in any other industry, any company would do the same.
The analogy is not totally off at all. Read the other comments. It's just a matter of perspective.
Also, those are $500m in alleged damages. There's quite a bit of controversy over whether pirates are actually lost sales. Additionally, many people resort to pirated copies in order to carry out their own "try before you buy" shopping strategy. :P
The analogy is not totally off at all. Read the other comments. It's just a matter of perspective.
I don't agree. Without intending to defend the US government, Sharia Law (or Megaupload for that matter), there is a significant distinction between the two cases: that the MPAA feels Megaupload is harming them directly.
You may not agree that they're right about that. You may think the damages amounts are silly. You might even think that the idea that there are any damages at all is a sign that someone doesn't get the information revolution. Leave that aside.
The MPAA thinks Megaupload is harming them directly, a viewpoint the justice system seems to share.
So, a more direct analogy would be a country with excessive pollution. Or a country with a lot of drug cartels that exports illegal substances or crime. Or a country that trains terrorists.
I'm not saying the MPAA is right. I'm definitely not saying the DOJ is right. I am saying that this is the class of problem that people go to war over, and it's unfair to characterize it as anything else.
The analogy is pretty close. The Iranian mullahs would certainly feel that American corporations are polluting the minds of Iranian youth, harming them directly. So an equivalent American CEO might be Lori Greeley, CEO of Victoria's Secret.
Exactly. You don't have to be geographically present to "show skin". It's a 'crime' that works over the internet just as well as it works in meatspace.
True, though to the extent the mullahs believe that, they also want to blow us up.
What I'm really saying is this is more than disliking how a country on the other side of the globe does things. When citizens bicker with each other, you see one side of government. When foreigners harm citizens? You see a completely different side.
I'm not saying what the US did is right. But I am saying it is expected, given how they perceive the situation. Your-people-are-hurting-my-people is the sort of problem resolved with treaties, covert military action, or outright wars. Gloves come off as the government does what it has to to make it stop.
If you're the sort of person that thinks piracy doesn't hurt anyone, the situation is a tragic misunderstanding. But you can also expect more tragedy as a result of the misunderstanding because of the class of problem it is.
But whose the victim in this case? There's no monetary or physical damages in women showing skin. One law is based on belief and the other is in settling a somewhat reasonable claim.
There are no physical or direct monetary damages to the MPAA, either. Intellectual property is just as based on belief as the Iranian desire to maintain a pure culture.
One scenario has a victim and the other is solely based on beliefs. The whole case with Megaupload is about the MPAA claiming that they are a victim of piracy. I understand that everyone has an different opinion on this case, that's why there is a case to begin with. IMO I don't believe that there should be a case to begin with but when there's half a billion dollars that is claimed as lost it's enough to look into it.
So the only thing that matters is how much is claimed ?
I mean, I could easily claim that my company has lost a full billion dollars because of the way you run your business.
Should that mean I should be able to get the our local cops to travel to your country, shut down your business, bring you back here to new zealand, put you in prison, and then charge you with a crime?
this thing is an absolute travesty for anyone who cares about justice, due process or the rule of law.
As far as I can see, the only thing more embarrassing than the way the USA has behaved in this case, is the way my country is doing its best to bare its buttocks to make the whole thing more comfortable.
I remember back then when CEOs were associated with powerful and rich business men. Now every one is a CEO including broke college students with big egos.
Google provides free WiFi in Mountain View? I didn't know that. I worked at multiple buildings on Salado Dr. and a year at Marine Wy. I get no signal if I park across the street.
--Amazon has more than 15,000 full-time employees at 69 different warehouses (fulfillment centers) in the United States and of course the program is limited to full-time employees. What industry or job have you ever seen a employee working 20/hrs work week getting benefits?
It has been a few years since I worked there, but I am pretty sure the threshold for qualifying for benefits at Starbucks was actually 20hrs/wk. Their basic theory was that training was one of the most expensive things they had to do, so giving people an incentive to stay for a while was a net benefit.
Craigslist is a business. What makes it right for another company to profit from the contents they generated through the platform that they build?
Yes, they got an early advantage into the market and has the critical mass that many company can seem to compete with but why take that away from them because they refuse to update/add new features.
Instead of piggybacking on them and relying on their data to earn money, shouldn't Padmapper focus on building their own content. Isn't that where innovation comes from? Beating an existing company by creating a better platform?
Craigslist is a business. And a monopoly, like Microsoft in the 90s. Didn't they have the right to decide which browsers are packaged with their OS? Don't they even have the right to decide which browsers run on their OS?
Exactly, they've pretty much run every newspaper classified out of business. Consumers have no choice but to do business with craigslist if they want to list something in a classified.
That's why website owners should focus on creating another classified website that can compete with Craigslist instead of relying on their contents. That's where innovation starts.
And its not about a matter of choice the users have. There are many competitors in this market, and yes Craigslist dominates every one of them because they had an early advantage on the internet. Small sites can't just leech off the contents on their website and slap ads on it to make money.
Lets say Craigslist was a print company that produce and distribute classified as. Will it be right for a small company to steal their content and slap their ads on it and distribute it themselves?
Your argument won't work here, because there are many major newspaper that do 1000x in revenue and distribution than independent newspapers.
Just because they have competitors doesn't make those competitors viable. Apple and Linux still existed when Microsoft was prosecuted by the DOJ.
The vast majority of people searching classified ads are searching craigslist, therefore if you're trying to list something in a classified ad, you're forced to use craigslist.
Sure you could use another service, but Netscape could have also just sold browsers only to Linux customers. It's all about the numbers.
But Microsoft largely escaped the DOJ antitrust case because of competition with Apple. (MS invested in Apple to retain a competitor.)
People aren't really forced to use craigslist. That the vast majority of people choose to search CL isn't good enough. Another company could spend whatever it takes to get people to search their classifieds instead. As long as CL can't or doesn't block that (in contrast to stuff MS was doing that started the DOJ case against them), the competition is viable.
