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An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

marcgayle.com

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Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#11

Post by brianwillis »

marcamillion wrote: post #9
brianwillis wrote: post #8

> RSS feed readers suck! No. They dont. You'll pry Google Reader from my cold dead hands. I would like to have seen Marc flesh out this argument.

I hear you....but I respectfully disagree. I have not seen RSS feed readers gain momentum as the hype around them suggested they might. Some people like them, some don't. I guess you can tell which camp I am in ;)

I agree that they haven't gained momentum or mainstream acceptance, and I think that they probably never will. My parents will certainly never subscribe to an RSS feed.

However, just because feed readers aren't widely used doesn't mean they aren't incredibly useful to certain people.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#12

Post by teaspoon »

marcamillion wrote: post #9
brianwillis wrote: post #8

> RSS feed readers suck! No. They dont. You'll pry Google Reader from my cold dead hands. I would like to have seen Marc flesh out this argument.

I hear you....but I respectfully disagree. I have not seen RSS feed readers gain momentum as the hype around them suggested they might. Some people like them, some don't. I guess you can tell which camp I am in ;)

You're acknowledging that RSS performs the same general function as Digg v4, that you can't identify any concrete differences between the two, and that RSS readers ultimately didn't "gain momentum". How does that square with an argument that Digg v4 is going to be "game-changing"?

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#13

Post by marcamillion »

teaspoon wrote: post #12
marcamillion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear you....but I respectfully disagree. I have not seen RSS feed readers gain momentum as the hype around them suggested they might. Some people like them, some don't. I guess you can tell which camp I am in ;)

You're acknowledging that RSS performs the same general function as Digg v4, that you can't identify any concrete differences between the two, and that RSS readers ultimately didn't "gain momentum". How does that square with an argument that Digg v4 is going to be "game-changing"?

Did you even READ the post, or are you just commenting on the comments?

I thought I laid out the argument pretty clearly.

Let me know if I am mistaken.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#14

Post by coryl »

I thought his letter was really distasteful and out of touch. I mean, does he know for sure that this was a VC motivated initiative?

Coincidentally enough, I'm working on a site (howl.com, check the ask HN section) that pretty much exactly the same as what Digg decided to evolve into: more personalized sharing. I don't know Alex, but maybe he just got a bit big headed in assuming what Digg was doing was simply a hack of popular features.

In my eyes, I already know the new features together make sense, its something I wanted, thats why I'm building it. It may feel like a bunch of hot functions thrown together, but that doesn't mean it wont be good or give value to users.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#15

Post by kn0thing »

coryl wrote: post #14

I thought his letter was really distasteful and out of touch. I mean, does he know for sure that this was a VC motivated initiative? Coincidentally enough, I'm working on a site (howl.com, check the ask HN section) that pretty much exactly the same as what Digg decided to evolve into: more personalized sharing. I don't know Alex, but maybe he just got a bit big headed in assuming what Digg was doing was simply a hack…

I don't know for sure - I said that in the very first sentence of my post. I'm out of touch by my own admission.

To me, the simplest explanation is: a company that's already raised a SeriesC with VCs impatient about getting that grand return they'd dreamed of. The CEO left bc of it and the burden is now on Kevin. FWIW, I think he's absolutely capable of filling the void between our 'real' facebook friend networks and the vast twitter network for an optimal signal to noise ratio with serendipity.

I just don't think VCs care about that so deep into their investment.

But I hope it does make digg even stronger - or that Howl crushes everyone with a killer execution - bc we'd all benefit.

Also, my name is Alexis.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#16

Post by bobzimuta »

> Imagine…now, as a publisher, I have 200 ‘followers’ whose sole interest is in seeing the links/stories that I publish. ...So far, there is no other tool that ‘aggregates’ all your content and pushes it directly to an audience like digg v4 is suggested to do

I think Tumblr already does this well.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#17

Post by willz »

I don't use Digg. Do you guys use it, regularly? If you don't use it regularly, how can you judge?

I think Alexis is probably right because it's part of his business he looks at this everyday.

I like dmix's point. "It's about what clicks with the companies own customers." VC will always meddle, but if their meddling doesn't click with the customers, they just lose more money.

Re: An open letter to Alexis Ohanian (Reddit co-founder)

#18

Post by pramit »

I will not take the Michael Arrington route and attack Reddit's co-founder for speaking what appears to be true. As it is, Techcrunch is never known for insights.

During the past 4 years, I have followed Digg and critized its functioning often on my Mediavidea blog.

In summary, two things that can make Digg good again:

1. Bring back the Top 100 users, but with better controls, tracking, something like Techmeme Leaderboard.

2. Give some top users power and incentives to be proper Topic Editors.

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