You can clear the subscribe box on focus rather than just on click.
Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
11–20 of 45 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#12it seems that you yourself read articles that are in the email. so i think writing just a few lines that describes every link is a good idea. Dave Pell is doing a good job about this in NextDraft. also points and number of comments are important things to be included in email, but they may clutter it. personally i prefer them to be there. and the classics part is really good ;)
Thanks, and yes, I've gotten several requests for summaries. I tried doing that before, but I didn't like the results... but I might give that another try. You can hover over the title to get the points & # of comments. If you like the classics, you'll probably enjoy my other newsletter as well - http://waybackletter.com .
I'm giving the newsletter a shot. As far as summaries, I can see how it could clutter the flow, maybe there is a way to put them out of the way of the main flow? Optional hover? It's a great place to expose a bit more 'curation' value if it can be done without causing problems.
I would also mention, one huge reason I use hacker news is for the comments. If the summary could just mention a couple major topics of discussion, e.g. the 'good stuff' it would make a summary useful to me there as well.
More broadly, I noticed that all your links are the articles, with companion comments. You do have a few 'ask HN' and similar thread posts, but perhaps consider highlighting those occasional remarkable discussion threads on their own, or quoting excellent posts. I've saved more than a few HN comments myself, and a couple great quotes at the end could be a nice 'wrap-up' and bring some of the community discussion feel to the format.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#13Be sure to keep hilarious endorsements like
"Hacker Newsletter is great. It's reduced the time I spend on Hacker News from several times per hour to several times per hour plus the weekly newsletter." -Jason Seifer, Founder of Scheduling, Host of The Ruby Show
That's what just convinced me to sign up.
AFTER EDIT: And now that I have signed up, the usability suggestion I have for the archived issues is to make sure that each issue in the archive links to the previous issue, and all but the most recent issue in the archive links to the next issue. That's the expected browsing capability on most permalinks.
VERY IMPORTANT: Style the archives links to distinguish visited from unvisited links.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#14For what it's worth I think it serves my purposes very well. I would suggest being mindful of trying to add features that could ultimately clutter it.
I love the categories you put submissions into; one way to both provide a helpful feature to subscribers as well as prevent them receiving too much information that they're not interested in (clutter) would be to select specific categories you wish to receive a newsletter for when you sign up your email. Modularization is good.
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, and yes, I've gotten several requests for summaries. I tried doing that before, but I didn't like the results... but I might give that another try. You can hover over the title to get the points & # of comments. If you like the classics, you'll probably enjoy my other newsletter as well - http://waybackletter.com .
I'm giving the newsletter a shot. As far as summaries, I can see how it could clutter the flow, maybe there is a way to put them out of the way of the main flow? Optional hover? It's a great place to expose a bit more 'curation' value if it can be done without causing problems. I would also mention, one huge reason I use hacker news is for the comments. If the summary could just mention a couple major topics of discu…
Is there a way to do an optional hover in email? You can't pass js
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks, and yes, I've gotten several requests for summaries. I tried doing that before, but I didn't like the results... but I might give that another try. You can hover over the title to get the points & # of comments. If you like the classics, you'll probably enjoy my other newsletter as well - http://waybackletter.com .
I'm giving the newsletter a shot. As far as summaries, I can see how it could clutter the flow, maybe there is a way to put them out of the way of the main flow? Optional hover? It's a great place to expose a bit more 'curation' value if it can be done without causing problems. I would also mention, one huge reason I use hacker news is for the comments. If the summary could just mention a couple major topics of discu…
Actually, there usually is a "Ask HN" section... but if there isn't any good ones or if they end up in other sections then it doesn't show. It is funny, at the beginning there use to be tons of them and then over the last year those started to thin out, but that seems to be reversing again here of late (which is good!).
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#17Do you monetize this in any way, or are you planning to?
I run a single ad pretty much every issue, mainly served up by the great people at LaunchBit. That works well, but I'm looking into some other addition ways to monetize it just so I can fund more projects that I want to do. :)
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#18What is it written in/how does it work code-wise? Also, would you run another version/flavor for a subtopic like visualization?
He also publishes a version called the Wayback Letter, a look at the most popular topics of years and months past: http://www.waybackletter.com/
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#19Did you build the readership organically entirely from HN? Were there other sources from which folks signed up?
Also have you considered some kind of daily edition? Or might that be considered overkill?
Re: Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?
#20I just signed for it, so I guess that asking how you can improve it actually improves it (in a user growth way).
That would suggest that additionally publicity would help. So I suppose convenient features to "share this" or "post this to twitter" might help growth. But it;s already an email (super easy to forward), and that wouldn't add value to the original recipient.