Open for everyone • Hacker News Board

Re: Open for everyone

#141

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:03 PM UTC

danielsiders wrote: post #28

orblivion wrote: post #3

I did not mean to give you a Kudo. I don't care for that button interface. Unless I can undo it, then I like it.

I agree, but isn't this an HN problem too, with upvotes? (If it's possible to un-up or down vote a story or comment on HN, please someone tell me how!)

HN's UI gives you a much stronger hint of what the controls do.

You cannot undo an upvote (you can unflag posts and articles though). This is particularly a problem when using HN on mobile devices where distinguishing up and down votes is all but impossible. I'll often make multiple wrong clicks trying to navigate to a link or vote on an item. It's frustrating.

Subtle's interface is doubly deceptive: it lies to the user and it misrepresents the consequences of those lies. Makes me lose a lot of trust and faith in the product, actually. As well as those who use it.

Funny how things brand you.

Re: Open for everyone

#142

Post by lucian1900 » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:08 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #135

cliveowen wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you already have an audience, maybe, but if you don't, then it's just an avoidable restriction.

> an avoidable restriction // How does having an account restrict you, in the context of being a writer wishing to publicise your work?

It restricts Medium to people with Twitter accounts. Contrary to popular belief, not everyone has one.

Re: Open for everyone

#143

Post by Karunamon » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

icebraining wrote: post #131

Karunamon wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can and do blame them for (apparently) not having an export function.

They do offer a way of exporting, and in a standard format: an Atom feed. Any blog engine worth its salt should allow you to import them.

Not quite the same.

The atom feed will represent the compiled and rendered end content. If I have, say, source code snippets, that leaves me in a position of needing to parse out the original code so I can redo it in whatever new highlighting syntax my new blog uses. I might end up with resized images instead of originals, etc etc etc. It's not a real substitute for a proper backend export.

This is why I'm such a huge fan of Octopress and nothing has been able to pull me away from it. Everything's in a git repo. Backups are one command. All my original text is safe in Markdown format.

It might not look as cool as Medium or Svbtle, or have all the features, but it's relatively easy to use, and more importantly immune to platform lock-in.

Re: Open for everyone

#144

Post by o0-0o » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:11 PM UTC

Do they still hold your post for around a month before it's published?

Re: Open for everyone

#145

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:12 PM UTC

rebelidealist wrote: post #95

ForHackernews wrote: post #23

Oh thank god! Before this, I had nowhere to post all my brilliant thoughts except medium, blogger, wordpress, posthaven, quora, facebook, google+, livejournal and myspace.

Medium drive me nuts. Though its a good writing software, I can't follow people that I find interesting. Instead we are following vague "collections" from a group of random people I don't care about. Can someone show me how to better browse thru it? All I really want is a feed of articles from people I actually want to hear from and their recommended articles from others. Maybe that is too close to Twitter for EV.

[deleted]

Re: Open for everyone

#146

Post by Touche » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:13 PM UTC

DigitalSea wrote: post #119

Dustin is a little too late on this one. Medium came along and scooped up whatever chance Svbtle had of becoming accepted by the masses. It should have been open from the start, Dustin's elitist attitude got in the way and I think it's only a matter of time before Svbtle dies.

This is naive. This is an indie side project compared to Medium (started by a billionaire tech darling).

Re: Open for everyone

#147

Post by zem » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:14 PM UTC

pclark wrote: post #140

DigitalSea wrote: post #119

Dustin is a little too late on this one. Medium came along and scooped up whatever chance Svbtle had of becoming accepted by the masses. It should have been open from the start, Dustin's elitist attitude got in the way and I think it's only a matter of time before Svbtle dies.

this comment is unreal

why? i completely lost interest in svbtle when it did the whole "invitation only" thing, and i'm pretty sure i'm not the only one. for a blogging platform, mindshare is reasonably important, and they threw a lot of it away. i'm not sure if medium is relevant, but svbtle's erratic start did hurt it.

Re: Open for everyone

#148

Post by Iftheshoefits » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:17 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #61

corresation wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good design is a fleeting, abstract concept that has more to do with correlation than anything else: Correlate something with good content and the design seems good by association. When it becomes common, though, it is ready for displacement. This is true of virtually every "good design" over the years. At the beginning people almost always thought it was superior in some way.

Apple became the most valuable company in the world by focusing on good design.

"Good design" is in the eye of the beholder. For example, personally, I find Apple's designs to be a bit contrived, pretentious, and having the feel of trying too hard to be simple. However, a lot of people don't agree. In particular, people who: a) have a lot of disposable income or b) who want to attach themselves to a "sexy" technology brand probably either don't even think about Apple's designs, or else find them attractive or c) both of those.

In other words, they became the most valuable company in the world, even though they have a tiny share of the market in almost every segment they're in other than the mobile handset space, because enough people are willing to pay the "Apple Tax".

Re: Open for everyone

#149

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:21 PM UTC

Touche wrote: post #146

DigitalSea wrote: post #119

Dustin is a little too late on this one. Medium came along and scooped up whatever chance Svbtle had of becoming accepted by the masses. It should have been open from the start, Dustin's elitist attitude got in the way and I think it's only a matter of time before Svbtle dies.

This is naive. This is an indie side project compared to Medium (started by a billionaire tech darling).

Is Svbtle competing with Medium? I genuinely thought it was a side project created by a group of friends for their personal use.

Re: Open for everyone

#150

Post by fredgrott » Tue, Jan 28, 2014, 9:21 PM UTC

corresation wrote: post #71

jimbokun wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple became the most valuable company in the world by focusing on good design.

Apple grew because they made products people wanted at opportune times, executing brilliantly. Indeed, though, Apple proves the point I was making: They executed well and made products people wanted, so every decision they made goes backwards into justifying itself as good design. Speaking of Dustin Curtis, that the iPhone was 3.5" was held as some holy number of smartphone size (rather than being the size that Apple…

You forget something...

Ever hear of Frog Design?

Frog Design was the main motivation behind Apple hardware design..look up its history its a great read on the true story of Industrial design at Apple