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by downandout 4351 days ago
Yo is useless and IMO anyone that has or will put money into it no longer has any credibility as an angel/VC. Yoauth actually is comparatively useful, but unfortunately Yo does not and never will have the critical mass to make anyone want to implement it as an authentication scheme. Twitter is a distant second to Facebook in the authentication space, and Yo is no Twitter.
3 comments
btown 4351 days ago
To be fair, we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. Yo has simply proven that its creators are audacious enough, and good enough at marketing, to make something go viral. Perhaps they have other ideas, other business plans that are currently in stealth, and they're getting funding for them under the Yo umbrella. These are smart people investing in them, and Occam's Razor would seem to indicate that it's highly unlikely that the investors all got collective amnesia from head injuries and changed their vetting/due diligence strategies overnight.
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downandout 4351 days ago
The recurring excuse for the investment is "look at the engagement". Toilets have incredible engagement as well - billions of people use them multiple times per day - but we don't put millions of investment dollars into them. Well, maybe the people investing in Yo do, but most people don't.
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chasing 4351 days ago
The toilet is probably a bad comparison. Smart people are putting millions of dollars into improving them.

http://www.gatesfoundation.org/media-center/press-releases/2...

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argonaut 4351 days ago
Yes, and if you showed me impressive engagement and virality metrics for a toilet that had network effects and a plausible recurring revenue stream (ads), then I would definitely invest (of course no such toilet product exists - toilets don't have strong network effects and don't have a plausible recurring revenue stream in the form of ads).
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btown 4347 days ago
> virality metrics for a toilet

Toilets: the only technology sector where there's a direct correlation between "input sanitization" and "virality metrics..."

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Dru89 4351 days ago
Don't get me wrong, the app is fairly ridiculous. Projects like this though help show what even the simplest of concepts can provide, though.

To be fair, I'm not sure how secure YoAuth would be, but this particular hack seems like an awesome use of it. It's simple to use and could compete alongside something like Google Authenticator as a simple way to log in to something.

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nashequilibrium 4351 days ago
I just a headline today that the company behind yo released a new photo messaging app: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/07/28/makers-yo-back-new-mes...
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