The hacker news for x trend is interesting, but I think the format is badly suited for small communities. The high data density of the front page makes a site with moderate activity feel like a ghost town.
well, i tend to view reddit as the 'hacker news for everything' if that counts..
otherwise, i don't really think so. but i'd argue its related in that reddit has made such sites largely unnecessary. subreddits can be as narrow or broad in topic, and as open or regulated in curation as one wants. i see little value in a 'finance news' (for example) when there's /r/finance and probably around 100 other finance-related subreddits out there..
There exists /r/programming and /r/coding and HN is still here.
In my opinion the success or failure of a site like this depends whether or not it has enough traction to start a good community, which at the end is what makes the difference.
while i think it is a factor, i don't buy the whole 'good community' thing being as important as many here make it out to be..
i think hn benefits mainly from the fact its backed by some big-name influencers whose activities are highly relevant to its target audience. their presence is essentially a feature of the site that provides value beyond ‘link aggregation and discussion’.. it’s a differentiating feature, and is one that’s very difficult one for a new entrant, like a subreddit, to overcome. it also probably helps a lot that hn predates reddit..
these other ‘hn-like’ sites have no such differentiating features, and that’s why i don’t see them ever taking-off.. and given that reddit already exists, they’re often competing against subreddits which benefit greatly in terms of visibility.
It doesn't. Paul Graham has said he made it to be like Reddit 'used to be' (in the early days, most of Reddit's users were sock puppets of the founders, and it was pretty high quality).
Something that differentiates reddit with the set of HN clones is the discovery: on any subreddit you have a list of other subreddits and you can search for them if you want to explore about a new thing.
Every HN clone is its own little island and can only count traffic from Google to build a community after the initial HN announcement. They should try to link to each other, or at least there should be a wiki page somewhere that lists all HN for X.
inbound.org seems to be doing well. I've found interesting views on marketing there, also not quite HN, some of the articles are just crap, but there are some quality posts that make it to the top of inbound fairly regularly. Great for a hacker who needs some inside scoop on marketing.
Just saw it and figured I'd pass it along. It's a topic specific niche I'd like to see more of. I'm sure the same is to be said for bitcoin enthusiasts and other random trend like that.
Hacker news for x is a funny concept by itself, but part of reddit's appeal for me is all about the subreddits. If someone wants to take the time to setup a topic specific niche why not?
Sorry about that >:) I saw it on twitter this morning. It looked ready to go and needed some fresh blood in there to get it rolling so I figured why not.
This is one of the "HN for X" websites that I truly hope takes off. I have signed up, and submitted a few interesting articles. I've already found a few interesting reads on their homepage.
Excellent and what a timing. We have built something more like reddit for data science / analytics. It's a closed beta (we're paranoid not to embarrass ourselves yet). If you guys are interested, please shoot me an email to include you in our, still private, system. No strings attached. We need more testers :)
I didn't realize that until now! It's in my bio. Anyone interested, just shoot me an email to dominik (at) vga.hr We're also looking for more developers for our startup in this area.
Yes, with a subreddit folks will already be registered so there's no barrier to participation. On the other hand, because there's no barrier to participation then perhaps worse s/n ratio. But noise is better than silence.
So I saw the page and will probably sign up. However, there won't be a strong motivation for me to come participate unless there is a) A minimum threshold of folks who use it actively. or b) I keep seeing it in my feed. I visit HN and reddit every day and that is easier for me to participate in.
Hi Karan. I am the person hosting DataTau. I completely understand what you're saying.
First, news.arc's style is something that people are used to and comfortable with; it's tried and tested. I decided not to reinvent the wheel.
But perhaps more importantly, I'm not a web developer. If I have to learn how to build a news site from scratch, I might as well wait and see if there is a requirement for it in the first place, right?
