I can't quite fathom why anyone would vote this trash up.

This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite PG lines:

I've found that people who are great at something are not so much convinced of their own greatness as mystified at why everyone else seems so incompetent.

Julie,

On behalf of everyone here at HN, you are welcome here anytime.

You will have the last laugh, I'm sure.

:)

Presumptuous, condescending, self-aggrandizing and manipulative all at the same time.

1. Have an already established brand in other platforms

2. Be first in some area (too late now)

3. Somehow establish critical mass of users to have a lot of reviews/downloads. Lot's of reviews - top ratings - lts of eyeballs.

4. Have an app that people show to each other and thus make it popular (like a fun game).

5. Have some really unique features (they will get duplicated though)

For example, there is about a dozen apps for managing passwords (with encryption to protect against loss of the iphone). The three that have most reviews, and thus are most popular, are the ones that have estalished brands on Palm, Windows Mobile or Desktop Mac (eWallet, SplashId and 1Password). Others are lingering around (like my Memengo Wallet) with hardly any attention at all. I expect a race to the bottom with brand-names standing on their customer loyalty and thus selling for small sum aroud $3 while no-names will go for free.

Which brings me to the point I wanted to make here: writing software is easier than making people use it, even if Apple handles the sales transactions.

One, they're deceptive. Top of every page says you to pay to join to see the answer, shows scrambled answers, etc. Bottom of the same page shows the actual answer.

Two, the ratio of crap to goodness on their page is astoundingly high. If I counted pixels, it's like 20:1. Painful to use.

Stackoverflow is also trying to tackle issues like out of date answers, the anonymous user experience, etc.

I worked with someone similar a decade ago. I found myself thinking "This guy seems completely clueless but management likes him (and they're smart guys!). He MUST have a great track record -- how else would he have gotten this job? I guess I just don't know sales..."

Management's idea was "He costs us just a tiny bit in salary and if only one of his big ideas takes off we'll be rich!". Of course, none of Clueless Sales Guy's 'big ideas' went anywhere and correcting his constant PR errors drained resources from those of us who had at least half a clue.

Sometimes you can correctly judge people at first handshake, but I've found myself over-estimating the competence of far too many people based upon the context I've met them in.