18 Most Ridiculous Startup Ideas That Eventually Became Successful

 

Even the most well-known venture capitalists have startups they regret passing on.

For John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins, it was Twitter. For Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, it was Airbnb, the home-rental website that’s now worth an estimated $2.5 billion.

“We made the classic mistake that all investors make,” Wilson recalled in a blog post lamenting the blunder. “We focused too much on what they were doing at the time and not enough on what they could do, would do, and did do.”

It’s hard to blame him. After all, a lot of successful companies sounded stupid when they first launched — see: Rap Genius – and the vast majority of new businesses flop, sometimes leaving investors with heavy losses.

But before you write off a fledgling firm, always keep in mind that you never know.

Here are the 18 most ridiculous startup ideas that eventually became successful, named and explained by Michael Wolfe on Quora.

(1)Facebook

The world needs yet another Myspace or Friendster, except several years late. We’ll only open it up to a few thousand overworked, anti-social Ivy Leaguers. Everyone else will then join since Harvard students are so cool.

(2)Amazon

We’ll sell books online, even though users are still scared to use credit cards on the web. Their shipping costs will eat up any money they save. They’ll do it for the convenience, even though they have to wait a week for the book

Source: Michael Wolfe on Quora.

(3)Virgin Atlantic

Airlines are cool. Let’s start one. How hard could it be? We’ll differentiate with a funny safety video and by not being a**holes.

(4)Craigslist

It will be ugly. It will be free. Except for the sex.

(5)Google

We are building the world’s 20th search engine at a time when most of the others have been abandoned as commoditized money-losers. We’ll strip out all of the ad-supported news and portal features so you won’t be distracted from using the free search stuff.

(6)Tesla

Instead of just building batteries and selling them to Detroit, we are going to build our own cars from scratch plus own the distribution network. During a recession and a cleantech backlash.

(7)SpaceX

If NASA can do it, so can we! It ain’t rocket science.

(8)Twitter

It is like email, SMS or RSS. Except it does a lot less. It will be used mostly by geeks at first, followed by Britney Spears and Charlie Sheen.

(9)Paperless Post

We are like Evite, except you pay us. All of your friends will know that you are an idiot.

(10)Instagram

Filters! That’s right, we got filters!

(11)PayPal

People will use their insecure AOL and Yahoo email addresses to pay each other real money, backed by a non-bank with a cute name run by 20-somethings.

(12)LinkedIn

How about a professional social network, aimed at busy 30- and 40-somethings. They will use it once every 5 years when they go job searching.

(13)Mint

Give us all of your bank, brokerage, and credit card information. We’ll give it back to you with nice fonts. To make you feel richer, we’ll make them green.

(14)Dropbox

We are going to build a file sharing and syncing solution when the market has a dozen of them that no one uses, supported by big companies like Microsoft. It will only do one thing well, and you’ll have to move all of your content to use it.

(15)Palantir

We’ll build arcane analytics software, put the company in California, hire a bunch of new college grad engineers, many of them immigrants, hire no sales reps, and close giant deals with D.C.-based defense and intelligence agencies!

(16)iOS

A brand new operating system that doesn’t run a single one of the millions of applications that have been developed for Mac OS, Windows, or Linux. Only Apple can build apps for it. It won’t have cut and paste.

(17)GitHub

Software engineers will pay monthly fees for the rest of their lives in order to create free software out of other free software!

(18)Firefox

We are going to build a better web browser, even though 90 percent of the world’s computers already have a free one built in. One guy will do most of the work.

huffingtonpost

Kemi Olunloyo Exposes Boobs, Says Married Men Are Struggling To Sleep With Her (See Photos)

Kemi Olunloyo’s case is getting bad by the day. She said woman who call her names are ignorant because their husbands her getting across to her everyday. See what she said below.

Nigerian #women cease to amaze me when they LIKE my page and their sagging fake #boobs cannot be posted on #Facebook and yet they come here calling me names. I Kill them with success and bury them with a smile. Your husbands are e-mailing me all day trying to get into my bedroom.

Door’s open, only thing in there will be my bed and my TALKING VIBRATOR! Go play with your USED TOYS! Oh Yeah!!

 

 

 

Facebook Revamps News Feed As ‘Personalized Newspaper’

Facebook is revamping its most-used feature: its News Feed, making its design more image-focused and mobile-friendly, while providing more ways for people to access specific types of content.

The problem Facebook is facing is that more content than ever is flooding its News Feed. That’s because people have more friends, while following more businesses and famous people on Facebook–who are all posting more content. The new specific feeds announced today allow people to see just content from real-life friends (not businesses or celebrities), photos, music content or businesses and celebrities. This will help people to see content that is older that they may have missed, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.

Unlike Twitter, which focuses on real-time content, Facebook is the place where people go to keep in touch with family and friends, regardless of when the news happens.

Facebook also redesigned its site and navigation to make it more consistent and mobile-centric. The design includes an emphasis on larger photos and images in the News Feed. The person or business who posts an event is now represented by their photos on the left side of the content. The result is a much more image-heavy design, which is what people want, Facebook says.

See the live blog here: We’re live at Facebook for the social network’s expected News Feed announcement. The company is expected to announce changes to one of its main products, the stream of content that its one billion users interact with on a regular basis. TechCrunch previously reported that the company plans to launch new content-specific feeds and new photo views.

Zuckerberg takes the stage: “What we’re trying to do is give everyone the best personalized newspaper.” The best newspapers should be visual and rich. We’re talking about a new design today, he says. He shows an early version of the News Feed from 2007. Our goal was different from what any other social service was going to provide, he says. “There’s a special place in the world for this personalized newspaper.”

Composition of News Feed: The News Feed was mainly text early on with status updates, but now it’s primarily about visual content. Almost 50% of content now is visual on the feed. We think of News Feed as friend posts but now almost 30% of content is from famous people and Facebook Pages, Zuckerberg says.

There are three main changes in the new design: rich visual stories, your choice of specific feeds, and a mobile-inspired consistent user interface design across all mobile devices and the desktop.

Zuck hands it off to head of design Julie Zhou to describe the new design. Zhou is showing a new display of larger photos in the News Feed.

New Visual Design: There’s a new banner in the News Feed for when someone adds a friend or “likes” a page. Instead of just seeing “Joe has added Jim as a friend” in text, there will now be photos of them. That’s the overall idea to add photos or graphics for essentially all News Feed content. The new display of Facebook check-ins shows maps of where the person was. And third party apps in News Feed are also revamped: A Vimeo update shows larger videos along with photos of the people tagged in the video. An NPR update shows the most shared stores on NPR. You can also see news about people such as Taylor Swift “I’m a big fan of Taylor Swift, I’m not afraid to admit it,” Zhou says. Really?

Specific News Feeds: As expected, you can see specific types of content in the Feed. There is a list of the feeds on the right side of the website and the top of the mobile device. The feeds are organized by which you use most often.

There’s a new All Friends feed to just see posts from friends. A music feed shows what my favorite musicians are posting and what my friends are listening to, says Chris Struhar, tech lead on News Feed. There’s also a feed just for photos. And just like the friends feed, there’s also a “following” feed for famous people, businesses, news outlet or sports teams. This feed is in chronological order so that for example news outlets can get all their content seen. The close friends and games feeds remain the same.

Consistent mobile inspired Design: The company has taken the design from mobile to desktop, Facebook’s Chris Cox explains. Even typeface, color as well as navigation are similar now. There’s a new “tray” on the left side of web or mobile Facebook. So now you can get to any page on Facebook without going through the Home Page.

The new design is rolling out on the web today. It will appear on phones and tablets in the coming weeks.

Question time: How will this affect ads? The new design will apply to advertisements on the News Feed as well.

Is the News Feed algorithm changing? The algorithm is not changing. But we’re adding new sections like a newspaper.

How much will the new design be used? People are seeing a lot of content in their feed. This helps sort through it all, Cox says.

Why this change now? There’s a lot more content and users. People don’t have 80 friends anymore, Cox says.

How will this affect Facebook Pages? Pages publish content and the “following” feed will show them. But this won’t change Pages.

How will this Music feed work? Upcoming shows from musicians and other posts from musicians will be included.

forbes

8 ways to avoid social media stress

Updating and browsing your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram accounts probably makes up a huge chunk of the time you spend online — and let’s be honest, it can sometimes be a major source of stress and anxiety. Not to mention, Facebook use has even been linked to lead to depression, jealousy and social isolation.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. By holding yourself to a few basic guidelines, you can make sure that logging on to Facebook or Twitter isn’t a a panic attack-inducing activity.

Use Facebook To Share — Not Compare

A recent survey of Facebook users found that the most common source of frustration on the social media site was envy caused by browsing others’ profiles.

To turn down the social media stress in your life, avoid turning Facebook into a game of keeping up with the Joneses. Instead of browsing through classmates’ photos to see who had the best summer ever with their siggo while you were at home working (and single), use the network exclusively to talk to friends and share fun updates on your life.

But Be Careful Not To Overshare

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and other social media sites are a wonderful way to share photos, observations and life updates with your friends and followers. But be selective about what you post for the world to see — does everyone need to know the details or your recent break-up, or cryptic song lyrics that describe your ander and confusion over it? Probably not.

Say No To Cyberbullying According to the i-SAFE foundation, more than half of teenagers have been bullied online. The only appropriate response to cyberbullying is a zero-tolerance policy. If someone is sending hurtful messages, sharing inappropriate or unflattering photos, or spreading rumors about you or a friend online, tell a teacher or parent. Online bullying can have serious and long-term consequences.

On the flip side, more than half of teens have engaged in cyberbullying themselves.

Be Positive

The golden rule is as important on social media as it is in every other part of life: Treat others the way you’d like to be treated. Negative or sarcastic comments are best kept to yourself.

Also, when posting your own statuses, try not to vent your feelings too much. Studies have shownthat bad moods are “contagious” via social media — Facebook users can directly impact the emotions of their friends for up to three days.

Keep Your Love Life Offline

Whether you’re single, happily coupled, or breaking up, keep your love life off Facebook. It might be fun for a while to post lovey-dovey photos and “Love my boyf!!” statuses, but they’ll likely annoy your friends and make your relationship a whole lot more complicated.

According to Mashable, 25 percent of people had found out their relationship was over because their siggo changed their relationship status to “single.” You don’t want that to be you.
Keep Your Photos Clean

f you wouldn’t want a college admissions officer or a teacher to see it, keep it offline. No exceptions. Risque or incriminating photos are best kept to yourself (or not taken at all) — you don’t want to leave a digital paper trails of all the mistakes you made in high school.

Choose Your Friends Wisely

Studies have shown that having more Facebook friends leads to increased stress levels, finding a link between larger online networks and social anxiety.

Don’t worry about getting everyone at your school to follow you on Twitter and friend you on Facebook. To minimize social media anxiety, periodically go through and delete friends and followers you may not know very well or no longer want to share updates with.

Take Time To Unplug & Recharge

When social media is stressing you out, sometimes the best thing to do is walk away from your phone, laptop and iPad and just unplug for a few hours or a couple days. If you’re having trouble staying off Facebook, try a Chrome plugin or app that, for a selected amount of time, blocks you from logging on to social media sites.

 

 

 

 

 

huffingtonpost

Leave Facebook and face your book” – UNAAB VC advises students

The Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture (UNAAB), Abeokuta, Ogun State, Professor Olusola Oyewole recently advised students to focus on their studies and spend less of their time on social networking sites such as Facebook.

Oyewole, who was represented by Prof. Bolanle Akeredolu-Ale, disclosed this at a seminar tagged: Role Modeling Lecture for the Girl-Child, organised by a Ph.D student and 2010 Award Fellow, Bolanle Ogunlolu-Akinyemi.

The seminar was sponsored by African Women in Agricultural Research and Development.

Oyewole said, “Facebook and other social networks are good, but I will advise you to leave Facebook and face your studies. You know yourself more than anyone else, so desist from comparing yourselves with others.”

The school’s Councillor, Modesta Ofodile, reportedly  urged the students to engage in reading in their spare time which she said will serve them well when examinations eventually start.

According to Ofodile: “If you waste your time thinking there is time, examinations will catch you unawares.”