Very little in this case. There's a reason simple "This" comments are discouraged on HN. Having said that, I do agree that single words can contain a lot of meaning at times. This just ... isn't a great example.
Tens of thousands of people are finding some use for it, even if it's just novelty.
I could imagine yo'ing my wife to say "Thinking of you" while at work, or my brother to say "Not up to much if you want to Skype", etc.
I think they could easily start with something curious like this and then slowly extend it to something else (e.g., single word/term conversation elements where you get more choices the deeper the conversation goes).
How many naysayers were there (and still!) with something like Twitter? Yet I use Twitter many times each day.
Exactly, I think what we might be needing is a non-US (perhaps Iceland or NZ) based alternative. The moment, duckduckgo becomes relevant enough (i.e significant traffic) then is game over IMO.
Ask Kim Dotcom about how well NZ's liberal laws worked out in practice when the US copyright police showed up asking the local cops to wildly overstep their legal authority…
I mean _seriously?_ Helicopters, silenced assault rifles, security dogs, and 72 cops - sent in against someone accused of _copyright infringement?_ And then a Hollywood showreel of the raid gets produced and publicised?
I _like_ New Zealand, they talk the talk, but when it comes to walking the walk - they're lead around by the nose to do whatever the US wants.
I'm not sure if i missed something when I initially read about the startup Chile program, but i don't quite remember the documents stating they only wanted US entrepreneurs, am i wrong?
They're not limiting it to US entrepreneurs, just limiting their recruitment efforts to California at present. K-Swiss and Apple have convinced the world that the world's best stuff is "Designed in California"
I would have agreed with your argument about not lowering the price if your offering is superior, but aren't we talking about a very poor country? doesn't Google have enough $$ to make a concession? (I'm not talking about giving the service for free just low enough to match competition).
In my opinion, the procedure he describes sounds great to measure the skills of the candidate(s), but that's too early to called the 'Best' resource of the bunch. It will not be until he or she is actually working there that you will be able to measure the real quality (both on the technical and the human perspective ) of him/her.
Yes, the candidate does have to fit in with the team. However the article mentioned that he was doing a lot of recruiting for distributed teams. Therefore the output generated would probably be worth more than how the people get along face to face.
