That's harsh. I have to say, his pitch resonates with the common man more than you think. How many people keep their passwords in spreadsheets or other haphazard ways? Zillions. How many stop and think "mh, what's gonna happen if I lose this spreadsheet"? Not many -- otherwise they wouldn't store passwords in spreadsheets to begin with. Scott just reminded them that they'll be screwed at some point, and he's here to help. I expect part of the reasoning behind Branson's investment is that the man himself (or some of his minions) must have had the occasional lost-password-crisis here or there.
Clearly, with a bland but fairly descriptive name like MySocialCloud, they are not targeting paranoid geeks (the ones who worry about details like "who's running this service?", and would rather use services going by dorky names with random missing vowels), they are targeting the common man who stores passwords in spreadsheets. They are scratching an itch they themselves had, which is often how you validate your own business plan. I don't see why they should be ridiculed for it.
(This said, the whole post is just planted marketing of the lowest quality. Hardly HN-worthy, if you ask me.)
> Scott just reminded them that they'll be screwed at some point, and he's here to help.
Problem is: he doesn't know how to help, yet people are going to trust him because they don't know better. I'd bet they are going to store their users' password on an Excel spreadsheet, but they will take care to backup it often ;-)
There is LastPass already, and they are doing a great job. Competition is good, but why should we support clueless competitors?
That said, I'd bet MySocialCloud.com will succeed. Worse is better, isn't it? And now they have lots of money.
Clearly, with a bland but fairly descriptive name like MySocialCloud, they are not targeting paranoid geeks (the ones who worry about details like "who's running this service?", and would rather use services going by dorky names with random missing vowels), they are targeting the common man who stores passwords in spreadsheets. They are scratching an itch they themselves had, which is often how you validate your own business plan. I don't see why they should be ridiculed for it.
(This said, the whole post is just planted marketing of the lowest quality. Hardly HN-worthy, if you ask me.)