PG: Quite possibly the worst idea ever

Ah you guys. FuzzyShot is not solving a problem, it's creating a problem. I never take photos with my mobile phone because I have to blog about it.<p>Your technology is good, your idea is good, but you <i>positioning</i> is bad. You see, you think people want to blog, but you are forgetting the motivation. People don't want to blog, people want to be heard or want to be seen.<p>Now, let me give you an idea that is almost like yours, but with the correct positioning:<p>Imagine there is a big-ass concert happening in town. Now, this is where everyone has their camera with them, and they are taking photos with their cameras. Now, THAT is a position for your application. When I take my photos of Kenny Rogers or whoever, then I want everyone to know that I got a photo with Kenny. So NOW I want to share.<p>So you see, in your case I have never wanted to blog about stuff I see on the street. But in the second case, I actually want to post photos of the concert, but it's not just easy to do it.<p>If I were your marketing guy, I'd rebrand as this:<p>Where were you? Send your photos in!<p>People take photos of their concerts or whereever they were, and it all gets dumped into a visually very attractive group collage of that concert. Something that looks like a poster, but with everyones photos just mashed together.<p>And there is your first monetization idea right there - sell posters of people in their own concerts, but with themselves inside.<p>And it's easy to make money, because you focus on people going to concerts and events, so you can make money by affiliating with a ticket seller.<p>The problem you have is that you make a proposition to me that sounds like pain. You write on your site: Blog with mobile phone, and I'm thinking:<p>1. I have to sign up 2. I have to download and install their app 3. I have to figure out how to send photos 4. I have to frickin blog 5. I have to invite everyone to join this damn blog I have which will be filled with a bunch of boring photos<p>It's pain. If I were already a photo blogger, maybe your tool would make sense, but for me, it has zero compel.<p>Position correct, and position in a simpler manner. Think of the twitter slogan.

Trust me, the worst idea ever, by a factor of ten, is sleep.fm. Compared to them you don't even rate.

I remember this one. The problem was that it depended on all your friends also having Android phones. I don't think the quote is accurate though. I wouldn't say either "quite possibly" or "worst x ever."

Could you explain somewhere (possibly on the front page of fuzzyshot) what is special about fuzzyshot? It seems to me being able to post pictures from a phone to a blog has been possible for a while, or am I mistaken? I know I can post photos to flickr from my phone.<p>As for the meet thing: what do you do if you know your friends are 30 minutes late. Start another round of Sudoku on your phone?

What's wrong with a text message saying, "running late". That's usually even one of the templates included with cheap phones. No app necessary and it will almost surely be faster.

PG said the same thing when I demoed my Jump to Conclusions Mat. =(

Surely it's not a million miles away from loopt? I don't see why loopt would be a good idea and this a bad one...

Actually, I think the idea isn't terrible.<p>However, the problem is that the implementation was flawed. Relying on people having solely the Android platform is a mistake. Basing it on the web as well as having a simple implementation over many platforms and having some sort of SMS or MMS integration for non-smart phone users might have got you somewhere. How to make money from it is a different question entirely though.

Maybe the idea was just ahead of its time. I remember Philip Greenspun publicly humiliating a guy who invented "tagging" back in 1998. "Nobody will ever voluntarily submit metadata! This is the stupidest idea I have ever seen!" 18 months later he sued his own company for the remainder of their cash reserves. Be cautious around old lisp programmers.

Quite possibly the best idea ever: If someone tells you you have the worst idea ever, <i>don't give up</i>.<p>You may need to stubbornly prove them wrong, or you may need to listen to them and make some changes. But don't pack it all in and get a job working for the man.

There is probably a good thought in there somewhere. Get a thread up and running where people can post some of the worst ideas they can think of for the people applying for this (and later) rounds of funding.<p>Sort of like a process of elimination; people can cross-check their ideas against a list of pre-determined list of bad ones for similarities. Might help with an early filtering process or even good for a laugh.<p>For example:<p>It's like a toilet, but only more social! This is not only a bad idea, but I think George Michael has already done this.

Maybe he's inadvertently trying to motivate you... personally, the more i hear the word "no", the more I'm inclined to go after something. Use it as motivation.<p>I can't tell you how many times I've heard this too. Just realize it only takes one "yes"... or whatever you're looking for to make it happen.

You can be "problem seeks solution" or "solution seeks problem". Both work, but the former is easier.<p><i>Are we solving a customer pain with Fuzzyshot?</i><p>But what customer pain are you solving? You describe your solution but not the problem...

After spending 5 mins with the site: Fuzzyshot doesn't do anything that Flickr doesn't already do better.<p>Not to say it can't, but as-is it doesn't.

How is that the worst idea ever?<p>I use Buddy Beacon with Where.app all the time on my iPhone. Probably one of the most useful apps I've used.

I remember Paul saying something like "rather build something inappropriate now" on some Rails Conference Talk video.