Discussion on the concept of entrepreneurship by airtime co-founder

Recently, according to foreign media reports, with the music services Napster co-founder of Shornpak (Sean Parker) and Shawn van Ning (Shawn Fanning) again teamed up to launch the social video chat Service airtime. Airtime is officially online, able to randomly match Facebook users. Parker was the first president of Facebook. The two of Napster's file-sharing technology, which they jointly developed, overturned the traditional music industry ten years ago. After the airtime activities of the previous period, Parker and Fanning received an interview with the tech blog BusinessInsider author Ellie Senschottl (Alyson Shontell), which mainly talked about the idea of airtime, saying it was exactly the same as Napster.

The following is a summary of the interview:

Summary：

--airtime is a point-to-point video-chat innovation company that can connect strangers who share their interests on Facebook. "The idea of airtime is exactly the same as Napster," says Parker. ”

--airtime is still a prototype. In the future, the system will launch a series of functions.

-Parker argues that Facebook's brilliance has not yet come true, and it is a mistake to judge the company by its existing business unit.

-Parker does not believe that Facebook's mediocre IPO will have a negative impact on the future IPO of innovative companies. That, he argues, would only make the innovation companies less frothy in IPOs, helping to nurture talent.

Q: When you were a teenager, you knew each other online. Does this natural encounter bring inspiration for airtime?

Parker: Yes, that's the best example of what's possible. We were lucky to be in the early stages of internet development. There was no network of strict meaning, no web browser. The internet you know is not there at the time. People at the time contacted each other via the online chat room (IRC chats)-a bit like AOL Instant Messenger, a hacker elite.

The situation lasted only a short period of time. If you can experience the Internet at that time, I think it will affect the way you understand the Internet. This culminated in the emergence of Napster.

We developed an application for point-to-point music. Its emergence is based on the fact that we are hackers, and we understand that the Internet is not just a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The internet is connected to two people.

So I think that's why we turned a circle, and then we rolled out the airtime, because the idea of airtime was exactly the same as Napster.

Q: Why don't you use airtime as a mobile product?

Parker: I think it's kind of like I have a different view of life from most people. You can find value in places that other people don't see. When in a competitive market, mobile phone screen size is limited, and has a large number of applications, this is a very difficult to enter the market.

Fanning: Mobile devices are not particularly important because they are related to the services we launch. We are able to update our website and experience on a regular basis. The network has laid a good foundation for this.

Parker: With airtime, there are a lot of things a user needs to do in full screen. If users want to do some more advanced sharing, they need a larger display.

Q: As you have said, Airtime "completely shattered the inherent connection between people." "Do people really need this kind of natural dating?"

Parker: If you don't have real life constraints, you can get to know people better. Real life in the mutual acquaintance, a bit similar to the social hierarchy and system of people are invisible bound together.

Airtime has two main uses. The first is a video chat between friends. At this point airtime did the best because it was web-based and without any friction. Users only need to log on to Facebook. The second is the idea of sharing video with friends. Being able to instantly see my friends ' feedback on the video I share is really powerful.

Q: Why do you think video is the best way to get people to know each other online?

Parker: It's a huge market. The only way to stop people from participating in video chats is too much friction (friction).

Fanning: It's very difficult to be successful in video chat because once you make a mistake, it can make a lot of damage to your service and business. We have seen a lot of examples in the past, but there are many examples of success.

Q: What do you think of Facebook's IPO?

Parker: This is a landmark event in the history of Facebook. Facebook will one day have an IPO. I think it's a mistake to value the company based on Facebook's existing business. Zynga is a good example. Facebook has been less concerned about the game business, but Zynga has already brought in more than 1 billion dollars in revenue for Facebook. This is a little crazy.

Q: I think Zynga only shares about 12% of the revenue for Facebook.

Parker: Maybe it's not 1 billion dollars, but it's a lot.

Q: You are all angel investors. What impact do you think Facebook's IPO will have on innovative companies?

Parker: I don't think it will have any impact on innovation in the short term. Venture-capital firms have a huge amount of money in their hands, and too much of it is meant to be invested in a handful of ideas, so that doesn't affect innovation firms.

Q: How do you get talent?

Fanning: Parker has pulled a lot of people from several companies. Airtime currently has 30 employees, some of whom are from Facebook.