That's probably a compliment to the picwing guys :) An idea that seems obvious in retrospect is probably a good idea. But I'm betting it wasn't obvious to a lot of people before the TC article. If you said, four months ago, that you wanted to "view your photostream across any medium", you'd get plenty of blank stares :)
Hmmmm have our paths crossed before, I do enjoy traveling and networking? Your passion and energy about my work is surprising!
I am no different then anyone in this forum. Just a regular guy with ideas who decided to startup from his room in Baltimore, MD.
As for our work ...There is a huge value in taking a 221 year old wake up device and injecting the Internet into it. Whether we wake up to social sounds(Happy Bday, get up meet me at gym) or intelligent sounds(wake up tornado, your plane is delayed (broadcast X is catching flight to X on network=social), it's Jane's Bday tomorrow (social)) our lives will be richer and safer! Maybe it seems that your friends can control the time you wake up... that is not the case! We are innovating the sound and waking you up during life threatening emergencies only!
If you are not interested personal wake up communication, that's cool!
Though since we responded we are curious as to who you are and have we spoken or met before offline?
Monthly bandwidth plans are the future! Were used to that now paying for our cellphones each month - will suck, but it's in AT&T and their ilks best interest to make their 3g & 4g networks open access like the net now. From here capitalize on our bandwidth usage.
The amount of awesome things the teams have accomplished prior to DreamIT (from MTV to TechCrunch recognition to by another winning grant money to winning an award via their Ivy League school(half come from Harvard)) seems to be unique!
Ideas are a tricky thing, because without experience behind you, you may seriously misjudge the market for your product. But there's only one way to get experience, right?
What do you mean by "That is when that component of a startup is most vital. Later on not so much..."?
I wonder how many times Paul Graham saw this idea mentioned in applications before picking the right team to implement it?
Overall exciting to see these devices slowly becoming popular (Chumby). There is a ton of innovation to occur here.