The HN Digest trial
hndigest.wordpress.com
The HN Digest trial
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: The HN Digest trial
#2I would love to see this fly. I can't count the number of 1000+ word articles I've read that could have been reasonably summarized in a paragraph or two. Sure, there are long articles that are so engrossing or relevant that you wouldn't want to skip a sentence, but in my experience they turn out to be the rare exception.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#3For Techzing (techzinglive.com) fans, this idea came out of Jason and Justin debating the merits of a 'TL;DR for Hacker News' service on a recent podcast. I figured it would be simple enough to test, hence, HN Digest.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#4I would love to see this fly. I can't count the number of 1000+ word articles I've read that could have been reasonably summarized in a paragraph or two. Sure, there are long articles that are so engrossing or relevant that you wouldn't want to skip a sentence, but in my experience they turn out to be the rare exception.
Thanks Jayro, five people have expressed interest in the few minutes this post has been up, so fingers crossed!
Re: The HN Digest trial
#5I love the idea, but I don't know why your poll didn't include a $0 option. Personally, I would prefer to simply "be interested" in an ad or two on your site every once in a while if I enjoy the service. I think you need to show people that your digested articles are worth >= $3 per month before you start charging. Get some dedicated readers who really value the service by doing it for free/with ads at first, then change to a subscription-based service. Maybe even offer a short "early adopter" program where those who sign up early can read for free after you start charging. Just my opinion.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#6I have a small app which provides you daily archive of HN
http://ankushhn.herokuapp.com/days?date=20130501
Re: The HN Digest trial
#7I love the idea, but I don't know why your poll didn't include a $0 option. Personally, I would prefer to simply "be interested" in an ad or two on your site every once in a while if I enjoy the service. I think you need to show people that your digested articles are worth >= $3 per month before you start charging. Get some dedicated readers who really value the service by doing it for free/with ads at first, then ch…
Hi Alex, I think a free option would be a great idea for a summary service with a larger market, I just don't know if the HN audience could sustain it. If I get a ton of responses who are just curious but not many willing to pay I will come back to that as a concept.
On gauging the quality of the service, I've included a sample digest on the site which I hope helps. However I take your point. People may well want to see that the level of quality is sustained.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#8What's the difference between this service and the Hacker Newsletter I already get for free?
http://www.hackernewsletter.com/
edit: "free" in the sense that I do not pay anything. However, there usually is a sponsored ad (obviously geared towards the HN community) with the weekly email.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#9What's the difference between this service and the Hacker Newsletter I already get for free? http://www.hackernewsletter.com/ edit: "free" in the sense that I do not pay anything. However, there usually is a sponsored ad (obviously geared towards the HN community) with the weekly email.
Hi Sam, Hacker Newsletter provides a list of the most popular links, whereas HN Digest summarises those posts. The idea being, you might want to get the gist of an article without reading the whole thing.
I'm pretty sure Hacker Newsletter has been around for quite a while, so it's interesting that they have been able to make the free model work.
Re: The HN Digest trial
#10What's the difference between this service and the Hacker Newsletter I already get for free? http://www.hackernewsletter.com/ edit: "free" in the sense that I do not pay anything. However, there usually is a sponsored ad (obviously geared towards the HN community) with the weekly email.
Hacker Newsletter is simply a weekly coalition of curated links. HN Digest would aim to provide a short summary for every article that makes the home page. So, if say fifteen of the articles on the home page look interesting to you, but you don't have time to read them all (because actually you do have work to do ;)), then you can just read the summaries for all but the two or three most interesting. Anyway, that's how I'd use it.