Better surveillance through better technology and practices
Startup blues
We've had a few startup blues over the past couple of years (cash flow crunches of several varieties and protracted, half-hearted runs at outside funding) but nothing like Russell Beattie of Mowser went through:
But the traffic never showed up, and what did show up was of questionable quality at best. (Easily 80% of Mowser's traffic has been related to porn). Maybe that means that the service sucked or it wasn't sticky and/or viral enough - that may have been part of it, but having used the site myself, and seeing how some users did continually return to use it daily, I think in fact the general market demand just never was there. In fact, if you look at the number of page views of even the most popular mobile-only websites out there, they don't compare to the traffic of popular blogs, let alone major portals or social networks.
and later in the post:
Well, the traffic never arrived naturally to allow the site to grow without funding, and I just wasn't able to sell the opportunity or vision to investors which would have given Mowser time to grow and adjust its model to develop those cool cloud services. Mobility as a concept is still amazing - the potential for developing services that take advantage of such a personal and ubiquitous platform is incredible and I'd love to just start again right now and relaunch Mowser focused on new ideas. But I honestly just don't know how to make it work out money-wise, so they'll just have to wait until I can recharge my financial batteries enough so I can try again some day.
Seriously... A salary will be a good thing to have again. I'm *thousands* of dollars in debt to my family and friends, maxed out on every credit card (all of which are in collections), on my last chance for my apartment (if I bounce one more check...), had my car repossessed *twice*, electricity turned off, cellphones switched off, landline canceled outright, and on more than one occasion (this weekend in particular) eaten little more than buttered macaroni as I waited for an overdue PayPal deposit to arrive (3-4 days? Come on!).
Anyone out there been there? Anyone worried about their current situation? It might be fun to advise or just commiserate...
But the traffic never showed up, and what did show up was of questionable quality at best. (Easily 80% of Mowser's traffic has been related to porn). Maybe that means that the service sucked or it wasn't sticky and/or viral enough - that may have been part of it, but having used the site myself, and seeing how some users did continually return to use it daily, I think in fact the general market demand just never was there. In fact, if you look at the number of page views of even the most popular mobile-only websites out there, they don't compare to the traffic of popular blogs, let alone major portals or social networks.
and later in the post:
Well, the traffic never arrived naturally to allow the site to grow without funding, and I just wasn't able to sell the opportunity or vision to investors which would have given Mowser time to grow and adjust its model to develop those cool cloud services. Mobility as a concept is still amazing - the potential for developing services that take advantage of such a personal and ubiquitous platform is incredible and I'd love to just start again right now and relaunch Mowser focused on new ideas. But I honestly just don't know how to make it work out money-wise, so they'll just have to wait until I can recharge my financial batteries enough so I can try again some day.
Seriously... A salary will be a good thing to have again. I'm *thousands* of dollars in debt to my family and friends, maxed out on every credit card (all of which are in collections), on my last chance for my apartment (if I bounce one more check...), had my car repossessed *twice*, electricity turned off, cellphones switched off, landline canceled outright, and on more than one occasion (this weekend in particular) eaten little more than buttered macaroni as I waited for an overdue PayPal deposit to arrive (3-4 days? Come on!).
Anyone out there been there? Anyone worried about their current situation? It might be fun to advise or just commiserate...
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