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YouTube was "flickr for video", which turned out to be gross understatement of the community potential. Even in good cases, they are horrible analogies.


note: you're not trying to be perfectly accurate, and or flowery.

you're trying to communicate plainly, and to keep their attention long enough to get to the next slide / next pitch.

thus, sometimes taking a shortcut is imperfect, but useful.

note: "X for Y" does NOT work very well if neither X nor Y are well understood for the audience. however, it can work ok as shorthand while the person "peels the onion" and gets a deeper, more comprehensive understanding of the concept.


The best thing about "X for Y" is that it is 3 words long. If there is a more descriptive 3 or 4 word phrase, use it. Tipjoy could have been "Digg with Cash" but both "Makes micropayments work" and "Simple, social payments" are more descriptive.




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