Funny! FreezeCrowd and the US Chamber of Commerce

[Wetzelbill]

Holy, the youtube video at the link had me rolling. -WB

FreezeCrowd and the US Chamber of Commerce

The US Chamber of Commerce, America's big business lobby, is holding an internet video contest called "I Am Free Enterprise." The Chamber is offering serious money—"$100,000 in cash prizes for the most innovative, creative, compelling story!"—but the entry period has passed, so you can't join the competition. You can, however, gaze upon the entries with delight and childlike wonder. Perhaps the "best" of the bunch is this entry, by Eric Leebow, the CEO of "FreezeCrowd" (website here.)* Eric describes himself as "an Internet visionary entrepreneur who shoots for his dreams." He has a special idea. Watch:

Snip:
If you're saying "wow, that sounds a lot like Facebook," well, you're not the only one. Eric's great idea hasn't gone viral quite yet—it only has 27,000 views so far. But if the Alexsey Vayner video resume saga is any guide, this video is about to catch fire. Eric already took quite a beating in an immense reddit thread last month, so things are starting to pick up steam. A highlight from the reddit thread:

WOW! I remember him coming to our VC firm and pitching this to us.

First off, this was about 3 years ago. So he's been in "coming soon..." mode since then.

Second, he said how he made a lot of money on google stock, but then lost it all paying for developers and in return got a half made project.

Third, he mentioned how this was going to destroy facebook, because you can basically tag people in a photo and see what other people they're friends with. When I alerted him that facebook already has this, he said that he thought of it first. I told him that's not really a good business model.

Fourth, after I told him our firm was not interested, he then e-mailed and called constantly trying to convince me that we were making a mistake. It got to the point that I was scared he'd just snap one day and come back shooting.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2tHZTF/motherjones.com/mojo/2010/04/freezecrowd-and-us-chamber-commerce/r:t

[havocmom]

1. .

[Wetzelbill]

2. woa!

A havocmom sighting!

[havocmom]

4. Funny thing: I saw your OP and said...

Woa, a Wild Bill sighting!


Was about to leave for the day and wanted to make sure I could find your OP to read at my leisure.

[tridim]

3. I developed simple versions of Youtube, Twitter and Facebook 10 years ago

I was just never able to convince my bosses that they were good ideas.

Youtube - "Cool, but how do we make money?"
Twitter - "That's just like IRC/Newsgroups"
Facebook - "That's just like IRC/Blogs"

There are several periods in my life as a developer that I was on the cusp of inventing something revolutionary and making millions, it just never happened due to short sightedness of my boss.

[havocmom]

5. Had a short sighted husband, back in the day, who always denigrated my ideas

Used to chap my hide when somebody else would pull off one of my ideas and make a fortune years after I had the idea but (then) husband would not support trying with our meager resources.

I understand my ex is now one of those schmucks who makes a little $$ by promising to help you get rich, if you just send him a bit of cash. Yeah, THAT's original x(

Should have lost that baggage years before it finally happened.