Product Hunt Gets Social with Twitter-Like Profiles, Following, Notifications(techcrunch.com)
techcrunch.com
Product Hunt Gets Social with Twitter-Like Profiles, Following, Notifications
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/product-hunt-gets-social-with-twitter-like-user-profiles-following-features-and-notifications/
4 comments
Even though I've always been a bit repulsed by Product Hunt, I'm really glad to see it succeeding - hopefully it will take the whole startup daily news/gossip business away and leave HN with the cool hacks and new tech, As Its Creator Intended.
(Why am I repulsed by PH? Not sure, but I tend to lump it in with the whole cargo cult, ping pong tables, beers kegs, fashion and gossip and startups Valley scene. The most common context in which I encounter it is people asking me to vote them up so they can get 'discovered', as if entrepreneurship were Hollywood or Nashville. It's a meta-startup for discussing other people's startups; it's a carbuncle on a vain, self-absorbed slice of our industry. I guess it serves a niche well and I'm just repelled by the niche.)
(Why am I repulsed by PH? Not sure, but I tend to lump it in with the whole cargo cult, ping pong tables, beers kegs, fashion and gossip and startups Valley scene. The most common context in which I encounter it is people asking me to vote them up so they can get 'discovered', as if entrepreneurship were Hollywood or Nashville. It's a meta-startup for discussing other people's startups; it's a carbuncle on a vain, self-absorbed slice of our industry. I guess it serves a niche well and I'm just repelled by the niche.)
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I personally am annoyed by this as I am one of the outsiders who cannot comment on ProductHunt.
That being said, when I try to put myself in their shoes, I come up with one possible theory. It is that it is working right now with restricted access and their is a fear that if they open up commenting to everyone, it will hurt the overall product. I disagree but I don't think it has to necessarily be 'elitist' to still result in the current situation.
I actually think the discussion is my main weak point of PH. I tend to just quickly browse the links and then move on. Reading conversations of people I do not know and cannot participate in quickly gets boring for me. I think when the commenting becomes open to me, I will see the time I spend per day on PH increase significantly (most likely at the expense of HN :p )
That being said, when I try to put myself in their shoes, I come up with one possible theory. It is that it is working right now with restricted access and their is a fear that if they open up commenting to everyone, it will hurt the overall product. I disagree but I don't think it has to necessarily be 'elitist' to still result in the current situation.
I actually think the discussion is my main weak point of PH. I tend to just quickly browse the links and then move on. Reading conversations of people I do not know and cannot participate in quickly gets boring for me. I think when the commenting becomes open to me, I will see the time I spend per day on PH increase significantly (most likely at the expense of HN :p )
"Product Hunt still doesn't allow anyone to join and comment/submit"
I recently listened to Ryan from Product Hunt on This Week in Startups, and while I can't remember him addressing this, I do remember getting the impression they have a lot to build and just now are building a team. This could just be one of those things where they didn't want to open the floodgates too soon as they refine the product and scale in traffic. Or it's inherent to the model they're going after..
I recently listened to Ryan from Product Hunt on This Week in Startups, and while I can't remember him addressing this, I do remember getting the impression they have a lot to build and just now are building a team. This could just be one of those things where they didn't want to open the floodgates too soon as they refine the product and scale in traffic. Or it's inherent to the model they're going after..
The "we're too small" rationale doesn't work after you've raised a $6.1M Series A.
You can't raise $6.1 million and suddenly have a big team overnight. Recruiting isn't THAT easy in the Valley, from what I've heard (competition and talent pool).
Of course. But I get the impression that the status quo of Product Hunt will not change in the forseeable future.
A few key things that PH got right from my pov:
Of course seeding the community and growing it was important but when you build a system these decisions make or break the whole thing.
It also makes me wonder why similar services like HN and Reddit didn't go into that direction/depth sooner.
* Requiring a tagline (huge time-saver, s/n!)
* Curation (via the crowd but also via well known product people, s/n!)
* Highlighting Makers (great game dynamic & good for s/n)
* Profiles (& following. It is a community)
* Embracing Twitter (great way to bootstrap & improved social signal, s/n!)
Of course seeding the community and growing it was important but when you build a system these decisions make or break the whole thing.
It also makes me wonder why similar services like HN and Reddit didn't go into that direction/depth sooner.
Welll.... almost. Curation was done via a small group of friends. Much like Hacker News, not just anyone can come and join the fun. It's not as democratic as you might believe. Go submit your product and see if it's listed anywhere (even with 0 votes). Go login and try to comment.
Product Hunt basically captures the buzz of Silicon Valley. It does so very, very well. That's fine. I mean it's like the celebrity A list in a sense. We like looking at these things. However, let's just keep this in perspective here. It is strongly bias curation.
Whether that was something they got "right" remains to be seen. We'll see if that scales (I think the big question people have right now).
Product Hunt basically captures the buzz of Silicon Valley. It does so very, very well. That's fine. I mean it's like the celebrity A list in a sense. We like looking at these things. However, let's just keep this in perspective here. It is strongly bias curation.
Whether that was something they got "right" remains to be seen. We'll see if that scales (I think the big question people have right now).
"I mean it's like the celebrity A list in a sense."
Well... they let me in, and I'm as far from being any kind of celebrity -- I'm truly the most ordinary person anywhere.
And I'm pretty sure that I'm not in the usual demographic for a site about new tech products. I like to think that I offer a mature and wise perspective. But really, I just like to learn about tech. :)
Similar to HN & Reddit one challenge is the community life-cycle and how to keep it healthy, it's a tough balancing act.
Related: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CommunityLifeCycle
Related: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CommunityLifeCycle
Another thing I also think they got right was sectioning content by the date. That essentially made me feel like I had to check everyday, since there was a completely new set of content each day for me to check out.
This is what PH makes healthy and rewarding to check it everyday. Great way to make it a habbit. But I'm not surprised since Ryan is the co-author of Hooked: how to build habit forming products.
Great point, also makes me think they have a lot of opportunity there to go into 'x of the week/month/year in category y' :)
I guess that I am still skeptical of Product Hunt. I don't get the appeal at all, I'm looking to spend money on less things or reduce the complexity in my life.
The other thing that most people seem to dislike about Product Hunt is the exclusivity, which doesn't bother that much. It is an interesting strategy to combat the quality of a site decaying and I curious as to how it turns out.
The other thing that most people seem to dislike about Product Hunt is the exclusivity, which doesn't bother that much. It is an interesting strategy to combat the quality of a site decaying and I curious as to how it turns out.
My suggestion for Product Hunt is to be able to filter by the best of last week, last month, or all time.
The top submissions of the past few days are pretty cool, but being able to see the most highly upvoted submissions of all time would be an amazing first-time user experience.
Plus, if I go on vacation, I can just quickly see the best of what I missed last week.
The top submissions of the past few days are pretty cool, but being able to see the most highly upvoted submissions of all time would be an amazing first-time user experience.
Plus, if I go on vacation, I can just quickly see the best of what I missed last week.
You can do the all time bit - there's a leaderboard built with the PH API: http://www.yvoschaap.com/producthunt/
And the self-promotion and upvote begging on Product Hunt is getting even worse (https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=product%20hunt%20upv...) despite promises for improvement.
See previous rant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8427079