Cool post. Interesting you bring this up, because I've had a colleague who went to MIT, and took HTML for her required English requirement!

Especially for games that require more agency, i.e. Tesla Wars where you are constantly attacking people.

I only put my own music on for puzzle games like solitaire.

Where are those awesome headphones from? Link?

Although these headsets are pretty decent, they pale in comparison to similarly priced headphones from companies that specialize in audio equipment. Something in that ($200) price range are the Sennheiser 595s. I say this as someone who has used both.

Thats why I usually shy away from the more flashy Skull Candies. And while Beats by Dre look quite nice, they apparently don't sound great.

I'm quite happy with my Audio Technica Pro 700, but wish it would cancel more external sounds.

If you click on the picture, it takes you to a Flickr page with a caption. They're Astro A40 BXR's http://www.astrogaming.com/a40-headset-bxr-edition

They(Astro A40) are used widely for console tournaments (like halo and call of duty). You can daisy chain them to create voice LANs for your team.

If you click through the picture, it says they are BXR red headphones. Not sure what that's from http://www.flickr.com/photos/ikayama/5696871115/

Awesome looking audio equipment rarely sounds awesome, for a given price.

In fact I would say there is a strong reverse correlation, for most categories.

i.e. Beats by Dre

Are they actually awesome, or do you just like that they are smiling at you :)

The proper way for them to have done it, is for you to opt-in to sharing your music, as oppose to sneakily telling your facebook friends what you're listening to.

Finally! Quora did have one of the cleanest, fastest web-apps out there though, but Kudos to them for finally releasing a native one.

I have always had issues with the Quora "more" button at the bottom - it gets stuck in an endless loop. The rest seems stable and responsive, but that issue alone (over multiple computers and browsers) has made me not bother with Quora.

The native version is mostly UIWebViews embedded within a tab bar controller showing the mobile web app.

This is actually just wrong. Compare them side by side and you'll see that the web view components in the iPhone app have been specially designed and constructed for the app.

See http://www.quora.com/Why-is-most-of-Quora-for-iPhone-a-wrapp...

If I hadn't had it explicitly pointed out to me that the app is a bunch of web views, I would have thought it was a ton of Core Text drawing going on behind the scenes.

My Modified Answer from Quora:

I'm at a start-up that is a follower of the lean startup movement, a term coined by Eric Ries.

The ideology behind a lean startup is a customer-centric approach where you build a minimum viable product (MVP) and always be learning from your customers and make changes till you build out something that they actually want to use. Be flexible on your vision, and don't waste time and resources to build out an amazing product that no one wants.

For a SaaS partner, conventions and meet ups are probably the best places to start. It helps when you're building a relationship by getting out of the office and talking to your customers, and cold calling isn't the warmest approach (duh). Meet-ups are a great opportunity to build relationships and get to know your customer's needs and eventually make the sell. As you keep talking to people, keep making notes of iterations on your product to build something that those customers want.

There are so many companies that have flopped in the past, such as WebVan, who built out expensive supply chains before really understanding their customer's needs. They were an early pioneer of e-commerce, but many argue that it grew too fast for people to really jump on board. Had they slowed down and spent time understanding their customer's needs, they wouldn't have over-invested in infrastructure.

In short, don't build out a product with all the features and functionality you want before you figure out what your customers want/need. As you talk to people about your MVP, you'll organically figure out who your pilot customers will be.

Get out of the office and talk to customers!

Suggested reading: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (fresh off the press!) Running Lean by Ash Maurya http://www.runningleanhq.com/

Well stock exchanges offer tangible value for people who participate. The value of virtual good is limited and is basically a consumption good. Adding gambling to social games allow users to extract value from their favorite games.