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Open for everyone

blog.svbtle.com

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Re: Open for everyone

#171

Post by yapcguy »

js2 wrote: post #153
zem wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Because it stinks of haters gonna hate. The personal attack on Dustin is completely uncalled for. It makes me sad that it's the top-voted comment.

Maybe it's because Dustin is a wannabe elitist who thinks he knows better than everyone else.

Proof #1

http://dcurt.is/3-point-5-inches

Proof #2

"Until now, we’ve been an exclusive platform open only to approved users. We took this initial approach because we wanted to ensure that the software worked, first of all, and that the platform was seeded with great content by seasoned and experienced authors."

Re: Open for everyone

#173

Post by pg »

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.

If you pick software based on your opinion of the attitude of the authors, rather than its actual qualities, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.

Do you have any opinion about Svbtle itself, incidentally? Have you tried using it? What do you feel are its advantages and disadvantages compared to Medium?

Re: Open for everyone

#174

Post by snirp »

lhnz wrote: post #5

Anybody else get invited a few weeks back and now feel the pang of no longer being in an exclusive club? I need a hug. Aside: I think this is a great blogging platform that turns quite a few people away because of Dustin's bravado.

group hug I got the invite some two weeks ago. The acceptance of my sloppy application already lead me to believe they were opening up the site pretty soon. Just working through the backlog.

Re: Open for everyone

#175

Post by sethkojo »

mikeg8 wrote: post #108
vph wrote: post #70

I hate blogs without dates. A good blog article is dated properly when it was created and revised. If you want to promote a new blog platform, better date your blogs properly.

I emailed Dustin about providing more emphasis on dates just yesterday and this was the response I got. > We want to encourage people to write stuff that has lasting impact. I think dates can just add an extra piece of messy context for some articles. What kind of increased emphasis do you want to see? The more I though about it, the more I realized my desire to see dates is because that is what I know. In retrospect…

It's not really about impact, but about context. If someone writes something that turns out to be obviously wrong, given the time-period, you could excuse them -- quite a few great physicists come to mind. Without that information, you might mistake them for an idiot. Or it can make a work even more impressive given the limited knowledge of that time-period.

Dates can also help when someone is talking about a technology which might have iterated past the point that their article is even relevant.

Language is very much context-dependent. Providing less context usually only helps misunderstandings.

Re: Open for everyone

#176

Post by puffin »

plorkyeran wrote: post #19
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.

It's interesting how much such an utterly irrelevant thing annoys me. There's really no reason why accidentally making a number increase by one should matter, but I suppose it's the fact that the site is falsely representing it as a deliberate action by me.

It's a UI troll, really.

Re: Open for everyone

#177

Post by ToastyMallows »

oddevan wrote: post #58
lbr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It feels to me that they did build this for a certain type of person. One who likes writing without distractions. One who likes to brainstorm. One who appreciates simplicity. I assume that the initial product was built around the "seasoned and experienced authors" who initially populated the site. And the founder, Dustin Curtis. It seems that this was built for a very small group of people. But like many products tha…

I'll add that the original "selling" point of Svbtle was its "drafts first" approach (that I really appreciate). There's also a few references in the announcement post today mentioning writers' identity (free custom domain support, full name on everything) that could appeal to some people turned off by Medium's "nice article you just read now here's something else by someone completely different" approach. Basically,…

Wait is there custom domain support? If so I'm in! I can't seem to find info anywhere.

Re: Open for everyone

#178

Post by snirp »

mikeg8 wrote: post #107
aroman wrote: post #40

Honestly, when Svbtle first came out, I thought it was really cool and I wanted to use it. Now I use Medium and I have no interest in it — and most people I know (who blog) do the same these days.

I have been using svtble for a few months now and when asked by a friend how it is different from Medium, I created an account on Medium to see for myself. I personally prefer svbtle's dashboard as I feel it's much smoother than Medium with the flow of: idea > draft > published. Svbtle is also less focused on images and commenting. These small details are preferable to me but to each his own.

When I checked out Medium, they had no Markdown support and very limited formatting options. Not good for code examples. Also no option to use your own domain.

Also I think that the copyright is (better) protected on Svbtle. All in all it seems like a better option to me.

Re: Open for everyone

#179

Post by resu_nimda »

minimaxir wrote: post #2

Svbtle’s dashboard is designed to work the same way your brain works. It encourages you to dump ideas, links, and thoughts into a flow of draft posts, and then makes it easy to slowly sculpt those ideas into publishable articles. It just feels natural. This isn't the type of marketing copy that makes me want to use the product, and in-fact drives me away from it. Contrast with Medium's more neutral, objective copy: h…

I also read that and thought "Oh, they know how my brain works? Seems a bit presumptuous..."

I thought the next section of copy was even more off-putting. "It cares about your identity." Because your name appears on the article and you can use your own domain and avatar. How is that differentiated from any platform that allegedly doesn't care about your identity?

Writers shouldn’t be defined by the brands of their publishers...

And yet, every svtble blog I've seen is very clearly a svtble page first, text content second, and any consideration for personal identity a distant third. I don't really have an issue with that but why feature such a ridiculous claim?

Re: Open for everyone

#180

Post by tomasien »

pg wrote: post #173
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.

If you pick software based on your opinion of the attitude of the authors, rather than its actual qualities, you're going to make a lot of mistakes. Do you have any opinion about Svbtle itself, incidentally? Have you tried using it? What do you feel are its advantages and disadvantages compared to Medium?

They're pretty different actually. Medium posts feel like posting on Medium, Svtble feels like my blog and my voice. You can't design or monetize it, but that's not my goal when writing - it's about my words. Svtble is all about my words, Medium is all about Medium.

I always write on Svtble (because it's better and it's mine) and sometimes post on it later as a Medium post so I can submit to collections. But they are NOT one in the same, not at all.

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