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Svbtle Funding

blog.svbtle.com

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Re: Svbtle Funding

#121

Post by alexqgb »

nchlswu wrote: post #97
Avshalom wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The prospects of Svbtle are directly related to the brand of the people involved though.

If I understand you correctly, you're saying Dustin's reputation can negatively affect the prospects of Svbtle. While Dustin's brand own brand spills over into Svbtle's, I think the network's prospects can be sufficiently differentiated from Dustin's brand. Seems to me that the network is becoming large enough where the "tech blog" echo chamber opinion (about one individual) is inconsequential to Svbtle's fate

That also suggests that if Svbtle were to find its way into something good, Curtis may not be seen as essential to ongoing success, whatever that may be. It's founder as catalyst, rather than architect, making it more like Twitter, less like Apple.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#122

Post by pg »

jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #114
pg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN users are sophisticated enough not to simply post comments saying "I hate Dustin Curtis." Here they resort to something more akin to concern trolling. The way you can tell something is amiss is the volume of commenters who seem worried about e.g. how Dustin is going to make money. If most startups issued such a bland funding announcement, it would sink beneath the surface of HN with barely a ripple of comment.

Really? Wondering how to monetize a blogazine is concern trolling driven by hating Dustin Curtis? I worry that moderating this community has jaded you. (That's concern trolling.) It's a valid question, and one I'd ask of any blogazine that received funding; do you stick ads on it? Charge a subscription fee? Sell user data?

Not all of it, no, but some of it. (The whole point of concern trolling is that the two are indistinguishable, so you only notice something's amiss when you see odd patterns.)

Re: Svbtle Funding

#123

Post by webology »

camworld wrote: post #8

It's interesting what Dustin is trying, but I find the utter lack of design personality across the sites to be quite off-putting. It's trying to fix 200+ differently-shaped circles into the exact same square.

I agree. I was really impressed with Dustin's blog where each post had a different design theme. I was hoping that svbtle would pull something more creative off. The network itself is fine but the quality doesn't seem to be better than my rss feeds. /me shrugs

Re: Svbtle Funding

#124

Post by heartbreak »

tptacek wrote: post #109
heartbreak wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the problem with Svbtle. You can't just "be" that. You have to earn it.

Says exactly who, and with what evidence?

Well I account for respect on a personal level so the answer is me. Other readers may behave the same way, and they could also feel that respect is something which must be earned.

As for evidence, plenty of research has gone into respect and credibility, particularly as they relate to leadership.

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=leadership+credibility

Re: Svbtle Funding

#125

Post by jspthrowaway2 »

pg wrote: post #122
jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Wondering how to monetize a blogazine is concern trolling driven by hating Dustin Curtis? I worry that moderating this community has jaded you. (That's concern trolling.) It's a valid question, and one I'd ask of any blogazine that received funding; do you stick ads on it? Charge a subscription fee? Sell user data?

Not all of it, no, but some of it. (The whole point of concern trolling is that the two are indistinguishable, so you only notice something's amiss when you see odd patterns.)

That's fair, I suppose. Probably a good sign for you, though, as you mentioned re: controversy.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#126

Post by chrisgoodrich »

Svbtle sounds eerily familiar to the old 9rules blog network. The only difference (from what I can tell) is that Svbtle provides the bloggging platform and site design as part of membership in the "network."

If Svbtle is to ever monetize as a "publication" aren't they going to pay the writers? Or maybe they'll take the HuffingtonPost route and not pay them?

Not a hater, just voicing some legitimate concerns.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#127

Post by mnicole »

bri3d wrote: post #118
jessaustin wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no opinion of Sᴧbtle, but I can't fault Curtis's conduct in this episode. He offered a completely valid critique of the antiquated web presence of a large and poorly-managed company. When he received a response from someone involved in the production process, he republished it w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶p̶e̶c̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶o̶r̶d̶i̶a̶l̶i̶t̶y̶ [edit: OK that was a bit strong] cordially. It is unfortunate that someone lost…

Suggesting people he'd never interacted with in any way (who, mind you, ended up not being the responsible parties anyway) be fired wasn't a valid critique of much of anything. And I don't think that registering that Dustin was "astounded" that the designer he received the email from had a good portfolio or only admitting to having been "partially wrong" with respect to the firing comment was particularly cordial or…

I'm an in-house designer at a company whose print and web design I detest, and I would hardly blame anyone for going off on a rant about it, including telling the company to get rid of their current crop of designers (which can be a part of the problem, because even after shareholder input there are still little things you can do, and often times they can only go off of what they're presented to begin with).

Truth be told, I would be grateful because my voice has gone unheard. That's the name of the game with a lot of in-house design; you make due with implementing non-designer's ideas for a steady paycheck and good benefits.

Re: Svbtle Funding

#128

Post by [deleted] »

jerrya wrote: post #116
pclark wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News doesn't have an undo button for upvotes and no one seems to care.

Yeah, but 1) there's no down-kudo, and 2) kudos are mysterious, what's a kudo, and then SURPRISE, it's a 0-click rollover vote. I find kudos deceptive for both those reasons. That's not what subtle should mean.

[deleted]

Re: Svbtle Funding

#129

Post by bravura »

w1ntermute wrote: post #89
jspthrowaway2 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same; there's been discussion about this recently linked elsewhere in the thread that I won't rehash here. If he's genuinely confused by the hate, that'd be surp…

> I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same I'm guessing that pg's comment was at least partially in response to my own below[0], and you've exactly stated my issue with Curtis and the Svbtle networ…

I've only been following Svbtle with passive interest, so I cannot recall or comment on how his responses may have been off-putting.

I would like to explain my hypothesis as to why he jumped on the fact that people copied the theme.

Consider pg's statement: "it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations"

If you are building brand around a loose confederation of writers, decentralized between domain boundaries, then brand recognition (and, conversely, brand dilution) is an important issue.

Just to dig into your example a little further: Yes, the value in the NYTimes is the content. But if you can't tell whether the content is from the NYTimes or a knock-off competitor, then you don't get the value of recognition when you see something that resembles the NYTimes before you consume the content. So brand differentiation is important for value-creation.

As I said, I don't know how he addressed this question of brand dilution. Nor do I know exactly what the right way to preserve the brand of a loosely federated organization on the wild wild web. Perhaps a trademarked seal for all participating sites?

Re: Svbtle Funding

#130

Post by notatoad »

tomkin wrote: post #110
pg wrote: post #53

Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is. One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a trad…

I think most people separate Svbtle from Dustin, although I don't think Dustin necessary is advocating for this separation himself. You can see this in the comments. When people are being critical, it generally leans towards Dustin and not the product. When people are boasting Svtble, they rarely mention Dustin. There's a reason for that. It was clear to most that Dustin was expecting adoration and when that didn't h…

I don't see how anybody can separate Svbtle from Dustin. The whole selling point is that it is curated by him. It's a collection of blogs from authors that he likes. The product here is Dustin Curtis's opinion, not the content or the platform. Blog posts and blogging platforms are a dime a dozen, the only differentiating factor of Svbtle is Dustin Curtis's curation.
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