Actually the whole H1B is a problem for a lot of immigrant workers. Some people I worked with at my previous employer were contracted through Patni. Patni employs foreign workers to companies (mainly Indian) and takes a cut of their pay. Once their visa is up(5 years I think) they have to go back to India for at least a year then re-apply. Also, when they sign contracts with Patni, they sign a non compete where they cannot be hired by the company they work for, cutting Patni out.
Its really a sad thing, and although the people I spoke with were happy to have good jobs in America, they were resentful that even if they worked hard, they couldn't get hired on permanently.
Someone I know recently got hired this way. Patni had him on an L-1 visa and he was working at a Fortune 500 wealth management company (WMC) with HQ in Richmond, VA. He got an H-1B visa for himself, moved out of Patni, worked with a body shopper for 3 months and then had his boss at the WMC file an H-1B on his behalf. His old Patni bosses kicked up a row and tried to stop him from getting hired. In his case, the anti-poaching agreement was between Patni and the WMC; but the WMC management were firm in hiring him. For most people, I would assume that not to be the case.
Thanks for sharing as well.
Seems that you had a three pronged approach to success:
1. Create something that has a proven market, and do it well (Talking Tom Cat clone)
2. Viral marketing (Youtube videos and Facebook sharing) As well as cross app promotion
3. Create more apps with the same formula and framework already set up.
This should work for a lot of other devs as well, although they may not see the same level of success as these gentlemen.
They tend to do this. They'll be sorta quiet for awhile and then boom boom boom, nonstop shipping of products and improvements released to the public and lots of press coverage and light on them.
I think this has huge potential. The problem with Facebook, at least for me, is that I have a ton of friends that post pointless shit. < 10% Is stuff and people I actually care about.
Now with features like Circles I can put my REAL friends in one circle, family in another, and all the noise and acquaintances(networking etc.) in a spam filter circle.
I have the same problem, too much spam, but about this solution having a huge potential... I feel like a lot of people feed on that "spam", i.e. gossip, to fill their lives, and make them more interesting. I think that's one reason why facebook is so popular and people spend so much time on it - there's always something happening, relevant/important or not.
Besides, FB has been offering features like this for a long time already, all the people that I know that actually care about privacy have neat friend lists and post only for specific groups of people, have limited profiles/walls, etc.
Friends list on facebook are painful things to use, edit and apply to various posts. Each action tends to be multi screen bonanza and are never ever on by default, and things can still slip through. If facebook would clean up their groups functionality (which I doubt since it goes against their goals) then it would be a better competitor to google +
The problem with this is going to be convincing all those people you care about to join Google+, and/or posting their interesting content there instead of on Facebook.
But if their content is all being funneled off to a "spam/noise" area, are you ever going to actually check that area? If not, they're effectively hidden.
From the demo you have to choose one and only one circle for each person. To me this is a huge problem. A lot of people hang out with some coworkers off-hours and they should be able to put these people into more than 1 bucket.
The best of both worlds for me is to work for a new division or product inside a large company. This way you get some of the start up type leverage and exposure, but have some decent processes and people in place to learn from. Also you have the stability of the constant income to pay off student loan debts.
The people that Paul is describing when he says 'People that get what they want...' and the 'Naughtiness', are people that win in things that they try. the naughtiness implies that they do whatever it takes to get their, even if they ride the edge of moral good.
They want these types of people because they have the highest chance at success when failure is the norm.
The updates to the market were outlined in the emails that were sent out. They included sorely needed elements such as version update notes and more promotional information such as app promo text and graphics. Really though, these seem like changes that should have been implemented a long time ago. I'm waiting for the update where they follow through on the promises of the 2010 google IO.
Its really a sad thing, and although the people I spoke with were happy to have good jobs in America, they were resentful that even if they worked hard, they couldn't get hired on permanently.