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→How to start an Internet Famous Business with Open Source Software
==Introduction==
Free Software and Open Source Symposium was very informative; I attended a few seminars and found the idea behind this gathering very useful and resourceful known that I normally do not participate in such events. This was the first time I had gone to any form of a software conference of any kindsort. Given I had to work all day Saturday, I chose to attend a few seminars on Friday.
==How to start an Internet Famous Business with Open Source Software==
The first session I attended on Friday was “How to start an Internet Famous Business with Open Source Software” which was presented by Mike Hoye – To be quite frank, I enjoyed this seminar to a certain limit (given there was not much information about open source software) even though it showed that the presenter was quite enthusiastic about his personal success and the overall topic of the presentation.
Mike Hoye left his job about a year ago and pursued to open his own internet company by evolving an idea/solution he had in mind which has been doing really well thus far.
The advantage a small team has on working on their own ideas is that everyone part of this group has a shot even if it does not conclude with the desired outcome. These groups are usually messy and chaotic; roles are technically extraneous because the types of tasks vary significantly for each member. For example, you might be the DBA on this project and also you might be taking care of the User Interface design of this project—you would be ultimately working on these 2 tasks which are usually performed by 2 different roles.
==='''How to succeed…'''===
Mike also discussed about the essentials of starting up an internet company. The 2 basic elements are issue tracking and development tools. Large scale companies that you are trying to compete with have got the latter and way more.
The biggest challenge in starting up your own company is your competition—big organizations that would wipe you out with no effort. Mike shared an ancient story while when this topic was brought up; there was an ancient battle between the French and the English where the English army (15,000 soldiers) was understaffed compared to their opponent (60,000) by a factor of 75%. The English got to pick their territory and did not have much armor compared to the French. The latter had to drag their armor through the mud and had lost 1/3 of their aristocracy trying to go through that hill while the English attacked shortly after. The valuable lesson here is that if you are small and nimble and you could pick the fight that you want to pick; you could do better than just taking away an enemy’s strength or rationalizing it, you could make the thing that your enemy is best at irrelevant. “Pick your battles in a way to make their strengths irrelevant.”
“It’s better to do 1 thing really well rather than doing 5 things OK.”
No to new things, no to new ideas— you need to keep saying No and master a simple thing that solves an issue that has not been addressed.
==='''Keep in mind…'''===
The biggest common mistake that Mike shared is getting late for marketing; usually technical aspect of the product is focused on more and the marketing piece is forgotten about (buying ads, online promoting, etc).
What content can you display on XBMC? The type of content that could be displayed on XBMC ranges from music, TV shows, movies, photos, and various snippets tailored to address your needs.
==='''Fun Facts about XBMC…'''===
· A very interesting fact is that XBMC will automatically populate media information (from the web) for movies and TV shows based on the title name and year of the video. The latter information is sufficient enough to grab the rest of the media details such as: cast, cover picture, and trailer if any.
· Mobile/Tablet applications to control streaming to different stations/screens across your home
==='''The only 2 disadvantages…'''===
One thing that is missing from this solution is the lack of live content streaming (i.e.: sports, news feeds, special events). For example, the 10pm news is not available live, it is usually available for streaming after the program is done. However, you may be able to find online live streams through some websites of these programs.
==Conclusion==
Personally, I really enjoyed the FSOSS presentations that I have attended this year—the mixture of presentations ranged from technical discussions and rationalization to successful personal testimonials. It is definitely a great way to share knowledge over different aspects of open source software platforms and solutions and it is of course a great channel for networking and socializing amongst other people who share the same interests and passion. I will definitely come back next year.
