I am unclear as to how sending even thousands of ppl to your landing page validates your startup, especially if they were "tricked" to get there. Maybe if they sign up, but the writer says that they will DM you (using Twitter). I think that is quite a stretch, but maybe I am missing something ...
I thought this was a joke re the headline. But no. The author of the blog post, who also considers herself a writer, is the one sending the wrong message.
I don't understand why people get YOUR and YOU'RE confused. And I mean that as a serious puzzle: the two do sound alike, obviously, but they are not identical. And the apostrophe (which replaces the 'a') is a dead giveaway as to which one to use when.
I am new to HN, and excited to be here, but the level of nitpicking with this point is horrifying. Sam's message is clear: you want to get big, get good. Can we really argue with this? Is it really worthwhile to fight over the semantics of "only" or "best" etc. If you want to get big, make sure you have a good product.
(My personal extrapolation of this is that if you have a product that grows big on hype in the beginning, even if justified, but your product doesn't continue to meet growing expectations, someone new is going to enter the market and shake things up (maybe again). So stay good, and make it really difficult for someone to compete.)
That reminds me of a story I heard about doctors who are asked to determine the gender of a baby during a pregnancy scan. They will announce the gender to the parents verbally (It's a boy!), but put the other gender in their files. If you do end up having a boy, it doesn't go further. If you end up having a girl, and question the doctor, he/she points to the file and says "You must have misunderstood what I said".
He gets 30 million views per month for Gawker.com, and the second highest traffic generator only gets five million or so? That's incredible, since getting those 5m is no mean feat either. You'd think that person had the skill honed to perfection. But as it turns out - not even close. There is obviously a point where instinct is no longer linked to skill or experience, and is just a stand-alone attribute that cannot be replicated.
I really don't think either of those options is going to give you the desired results. As the cliche goes, ideas are a dime a dozen, and are pretty worthless in the eyes of an investor. What you need to do is put together a team of people, and get busy with a prototype. Test the market. Get some traction. Develop a business model. Then start approaching angel investors, and take it from there.
How much time do you spend on it? And are you generating revenue? (I assume it is all affiliate links?)