Followup on the $18000 StockArt.com story - <AUTHOR> http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/index.php/stock-logos-copyright-twitter/

<comment><USER2> Repost via MetaFilter (sorry it's so big):

If you're involved in the online graphic design community, you couldn't help stumble over the fracas that occurred over the weekend when a young designer - we'll call him Jon - told us how he was being harrassed, sued and billed $18K for "stealing his own work" by stock agency Stock Art (StockArt.com) and their ferocious legal beagles, The Intellectual Property Group (ArtLaws.com). According to Jon and his growing group of supporters, Stock Art had "stolen" his artwork, placed it in their library, and then turned around and billed him $18,000 for the use of that work. It's the stuff internet legends are made of.

Further, if you lived under a rock, or were out for the entire weekend, you may have missed the various incarnations of the tragic tale when it was everything that designery people on Twitter were Tweeting about. But Twittering and Tweeting they were. A hash-tag campaign called #savejon was started, and as I write this, howls of protest-laden Tweets are still ripping through at the rate of one every three minutes. And why not? The design community is outraged. One of our own was under attack by some Corporate giant and their sleazeball lawyers, and he needed our help. And man, did he get the design community's help. Hitting the front page of DIGG took out Jon's blog and company website, such was the traffic, but still the internet noise continued unabated. Boycotts, and worse, were called for. This legal outrage needed to be fought back, and fought back hard, so a legal defense fund was set up, and at this moment it boasts $1800 in contributions from concerned internet citizens (though it will probably be higher as you read this). Designers saw a great injustice being done, and admirably sought to help by blogging, Twittering, DIGGing, Slashdotting and forum posting their avenging angel vibe all over the web. Thousands of e-mails were ripped off to the corporate bullies - some terse but professional, others less so. Others were disturbingly threatening, no doubt spurred on by the anonymity of internet communication. All bore a similar variation of the message - "How dare you steal someone's artwork and then try to charge/sue/harrass them for it."

It was, it seemed, the internet at its very best, a juggernaut that could be tasked to help the downtrodden and harrassed within hours, the echo chamber bouncing the message from one avenue to another, recruiting one concerned designer after another. It's always a compelling story when the internet helps the little guy fight back 'The Man' and to take down 'The Villain'. Trouble is, none of the story may be true, 'The Man' may be right and the 'Villains' of this story may not be villains at all.

Let's back it up a bit, to August of last year when Jon was hit up for a bill from StockArt.com, a stock artwork licensing agency, supposedly for the use of his own work. Let's read a bit of the original post as it appeared on Logopond, a gallery site for logo designers.

Someone has apparently ripped several of my icons and sold/posted them across a couple stock illustration sites. The stock site watchdogs ran across my portfolio and is now threatening to sue ME. They sent me an $18,000 bill and said if I don't pay up they'll sue.

Well, that's certainly going to get any designer's attention. The idea that someone could not only copy your work and put it on a stock art site is one thing, but threatening a lawsuit if you didn't pony up $18 grand for using your own artwork? I get freaked out when my credit card company calls to tell me my payment is late. Quite oddly, the issue went on the forum back burner until this past weekend, when another post hit the thread, but this time, Jon seemed a little more frantic.

Its becoming a bigger problem. I was banned from Design Outpost this morning which led me to start talking to clients. Apparently, they're calling EVERYONE they can find to tell them I'm under investigation for copyright infringement.

Woah. Now that's a whole different ball game. The legal beagles contacting Jon's clients and telling them that he was under investigation for copyright infringement? That's certainly not fair. But wouldn't it also be on shaky legal grounds as well? When I first read it, the words Slander and Libel entered my head. But it also posed a question - what kind of lawyers would expose themselves to such legal pain in order to get even with someone even if they did copy work from their clients? Surely such actions would invoke all sorts of sympathy for the young designer, who from what I've managed to find out, was only trying to get by. Seemed to me that it was a case-destroying move, and one that was certain to garner the wrath of half the internet.

I was certainly right about the backlash. The first Tweets started on Saturday. I happened to be desk bound, so I added my comment into the feed. Those comments were re-tweeted. And again. And again. So on and so on. Before long, comments and protestations about the events had taken on a life of their own, and the news about the hapless designer's predicament began to spool out past Twitter and onto other social sites like DIGG and Slashdot. Something was happening. There was a movement afoot, and every iteration of the news added a new detail. A new wrinkle. Trouble is, no-one really knew anything, and other than the first fairly well-informed tweets and posts, everyone was making it up on the fly. Not surprisingly, the design community wanted more as it's hard to keep up the moral indignation without some salacious details to write about. Jon told us that he was hurredly working on a blog post to be published later that afternoon. That news went out via Twitter where it was added to the cacophony of drama. And to DIGG. And Slashdot. And Hacker News. The items started to number in the thousands but all the posts, blogs and Tweets had one thing in common. This outrage would not go unanswered. And sumbitch has to pay. When the blog post finally came, it was a highly anticipated event. The post itself turned out to be mildly anti-climactic.

Once the sticker shock wore off the obvious question came to mind. Where the hell did they get these from? It seems as if most or all of them were lifted from my LogoPond showcase. They especially seemed to favor the ones that made it to the gallery.

The details of what had actually transpired were strangely vague. There wasn't any real explanation of how the artwork was absconded with in the first place (other than some impractical theory that Stock Art had somehow reverse engineered John's artwork from Logopond, removed the typography from the featured logos, and added them to their site). To make matters worse, there wasn't even any examples of ripped design with the original for comparison. Rather than take everything at face value, I decided to poke around a little deeper. I didn't know much about Stock Art, but their site looked legit. They had an impressive roster of established illustrators - all of whom with impressive portfolio sites of their own - and it didn't seem like the kind of thing that made sense for a company with a client list of well-heeled companies, some of them belonging to the Fortune 500. Thinking that their lawyers might be the hardcases in all of this. I took a look at the ArtLaws.com website and the various pages and reference materials inside. It didn't look shady at all, and if anything, they seemed to be champions of designer and illustrator IP rights, as opposed to the sleazy ambulance chasers they were very quickly, and loudly, being portrayed as across most of the internet.

They were certainly legit, and have even been involved in the Zapruder Kennedy assassination movie copyright battle from a few years ago. Something didn't appear right. Not right at all. Jon had admitted to us that he was a buyer on Stock Art after all, having opened an account a few years ago. Trouble is, there are no artist accounts per se, nothing is uploaded to Stock Art's server, and Stock Art are extremely picky who they represent, claiming a roster of only 150 illustrators. One of my original theories on the 'misunderstanding' was that Jon had uploaded artwork to Stock Art for licensing and then sold the artwork to someone else. As neat and tidy as that theory would have been, it's not how Stock Art operates, their licenses don't work that way, and even Jon never claimed that he was represented by Stock Art. No, what we had here was a pretty cut-and-dry case of someone using someone else's work without payment and/or permission. But who did what to whom? The tens of thousands of people now involved in this growing controversy knew who they thought was the ripper and the rippee. But I was starting to have doubts over my original assumptions. Besides, I always like to get both sides of a story, so I decided to reach out and touch ArtLaws.com lawyers and ask them if they'd like to comment on the deluge of bad internet mojo that they were receiving.

To their credit, they did, calling The Logo Factory studio shortly after reading my email (apparently, out of thousands of e-mails, I was the first one that asked for their side of the story). I talked at length with Jamie Silverberg and John B.. Mason, two of the lead lawyers at the The Intellectual Property Group, and found them to be civil, pleasant and quite willing to discuss matters, to the extent that he was legally allowed. Not the "ambulance chasing scumbags" they were beifng called in the latest round of Twitter postings. Firstly, IPG have extensive experience fighting on the behalf of designers and illustrators (as they believe they're doing in the Stock Art matter). The partners have experience in the graphic design industry itself, helping to organize several chapters of the AIGA. They told me that "nobody" is being sued nor has a suit been filed over the Stock Art artwork, and that rather than ignoring Jon's pleas of innocence, have been trying to communicate with him ever since the licensing issues became apparent.

Seems Stock Art are ferocious in protecting their illustrators property and copyright (certainly something that I'd demand if Stock Art were representing me). Silverberg denied harassing Jon's clients, but told me that they had contacted two in order to see if the clients had legitimate licensing rights to their client's work. I wondered how likely it would be that Stock Art's established illustrators would risk their reputation, and Stock Art's business, by copying some designer they found on the internet. To make matters worse, the issue revolved around the licensing for no less than 65 images to which it appears typography was added and the images uploaded to various portfolio sites like Elance and Logopond (while they didn't expressly tell me so, the $18,000 bill is likely the result of licensing fees for the 65 images in dispute. Works out to about $275 a pop). I was also told that before contacting anyone, IPG perform extensive research into the background of any disputed images, including creation date, history and when it was added to the Stock Art site, pointing out that some of the images "in question" have been on the Stock Art website for almost a decade. Logopond, the supposed source for the designs (at least according to Jon's blog), had only been online since June of 2006 at the very earliest. The worst point, from a designer's point of view anyway, was the dispute involved the work of over twenty illustrators. With illustrations and icons that just happened to mirror their exact personal style. And if that wasn't enough, Jon had previously been billed for other Stock Art licensed work, after it was discovered that it may have been used without permission. He paid that bill.

<comment><USER3> I don't quite understand the legalities this being entirely reposted. Isn't there like copyright on the article itself. Can someone explain?

<comment><USER4> Sure, it's illegal. Probably HN would have to take it down if the original writer cared. Personally I'm happy it's here because the original site isn't loading for me.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Here is the summary:

* This is a report from a third person who have talked with the lawers representing StockArt.

* The two lawyers of StockArt claim they did not sue anyone, and that they were trying to contact Jon since the thing blew up.

* Lawers claim they did not "harass" Jon's client, but contacted two of them to check if they also "had legitimate licensing rights" from Jon's work.

* The dispute started when Jon uploaded 65 logos on a second site "LogoPond". Laywers claim that Logopond, the site, was launched in 2006 while a few of the logos in question are in StockArts pocesson for a decade. (I don't know if that says anything)

* And that they previously had once claimed right on Jon's work and Jon actually paid the bill.

Update: as davidmathers have pointed out here is the site page with comparison:

<http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/stock.html>

For quick summary seekers: Scroll bellow. The browser window at the bottom is Jon's work. The popup is from StockArt's artists. Note that every art from StockArt belongs to a different artist whos name is linked in the center of the popup window. This evidence strongly goes against Jon. Either these 20 artiest with reputation copied from Jon (unlikely) or Jon copied from them.

<comment><USER6> "Nothing too convincing for any side."

You seriously believe that a Gang of Plagiarists might possibly have copied Jon's work? Um... I don't know how to respond to that.

The side by side comparisons: <http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/stock.html>

<comment><USER7> I agree that Jon appears to be in the wrong here.

But that would imply that he intentionally ripped off a bunch of artists, then decided to go to court over it (and almost definitely lose) and to start a witch hunt by pushing a blatantly false account of the whole thing in what I'm sure will amount to libel.

That's almost as crazy as the possibility that his work was independently ripped off by multiple artists.

I haven't thought that much about this -- is there a scenario I'm missing? The situation really makes no sense at all.

<comment><USER6> Are you sure he decided to go to court? I thought he just made a blog post claiming persecution and asking for help.

<comment><USER8> While taking in $1800 in donations...the plot thickens!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've been following the story on logopond and earlier today someone posted this link:

[http://web.archive.org/web/20011128050555/stockart.com/image...](http://web.archive.org/web/20011128050555/stockart.com/images/preview/PB1/pb1x0546.gif)

It's a clipart piece from stockart.com from _2001_. And it was used AS IS, no alterations in one of Jon's logos posted in Logopond in 2008. _That_ is very interesting and basically tanks Jon's credibility.

Shortly after this comment was made, Jon purged his entire showcase, closed down his website and checked out:

<http://logopond.com/forum/viewtopic.php?pid=17903#p17903>

But the strange thing is that deleting the logo on Logopond never deletes the comments, they linger and can be read even after the logo is gone. In this case however the comments are gone too, which implies there's more to the story than meets the eye.

<comment><USER10> "In this case however the comments are gone too" There might have simply been a bug that they fixed between now and the time you first noticed comments lingering after a logo was deleted.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://twitter.com/relevantstudio> :

"Everyone's calling for my proof, but the lawyers say I to keep it to myself until we go to court. Screwed if I show, screwed if I don't. --about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck"

I have a feeling Jon isn't going to like the internet after he's made it angry.

UPDATE:

1\. MetaFilter == Win

2\. TV posters Jon claims to have designed: [http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrzarquon/sets/7215761640034318...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrzarquon/sets/72157616400343189/)

3\. "Interestingly, a look through the 'network television' section in the flash interface at Shoolery Design shows that the Veronica Mars poster, the CSI:Miami poster, the CSI:NY poster, and the CSI poster come from there. (Can't link directly to flash, sorry.) --posted by Upton O'Good at 9:52 PM on April 7"

4\. <http://www.shoolerydesign.com/sdi.html>

<comment><USER11> You need some sort of eye safety warning next to that shoolerydesign link. ouch!

<comment><USER12> Suggested text: "We think the problem with your monitor is that less than 98% of the pixels are Netflix Red. Click here to fix!"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Aside from the usual disappointments that this case brings if the StockArt's side is true, is that in the future, if there are designers/programmers/freelancers actually ripped off by a large corporation, the Internet is going to be much more reluctant to help them out.

</comment><comment><USER14> Yet another example of why we have lawyers and courts.

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm having trouble getting the page to load, and google doesnt have a cached copy yet.

Is it working for anyone else?

<comment><USER11> That's a no from me too

<comment><USER16> Nirmal (<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=nirmal>) has an RSS feed from Hacker News with inline articles (<http://hacketal.com/#hnrss>)

This article didn't load for me either, but it's in Nirmal's RSS Feed, very handy.</comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Build dApp front-ends using GraphQL - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/dsys/cleargraph <comment><USER2> Alex, could you clarify more? From initial glance of it and the blog it looks like either

(A) We have to go through your service, which clearly isn't decentralized.

or

(B) This somehow converts GraphQL queries to Ethereum lookups, somehow, all in the client? But the article says to use your endpoint, which suggests (A).

Could you explain how this is decentralized at all? I ask because I run one of the most popular P2P/decentralized projects and we have a GraphQL query layer on top ( [https://github.com/brysgo/graphql- gun](https://github.com/brysgo/graphql-gun) ) which happens all end-to-end on the peers.

I'd love to see more GraphQL dApp options out there, but I also want to make sure it doesn't lock people into a centralized service, when there are P2P alternatives.

Please let me know if I'm misunderstanding the API. If I'm not, maybe we could help you guys make it fully P2P? Cause this would be a really cool system.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey Mark, thanks for taking a look and appreciate the feedback.

You can think of Cleargraph like a proxy for geth with some bonus features. You can point a local instance of Cleargraph to your own JSON RPC API endpoints using the helm charts we provide: [https://github.com/dsys/charts](https://github.com/dsys/charts). We're looking to make it even easier to use, so if you have suggestions please let me know.

We think it's important incorporate decentralized systems where it is practical (i.e. ENS). I'm aware of projects building the Ethereum blockchain secondary index features (for things like transaction filtering) in a decentralized manner, but haven't seen one live just yet. Maybe when they're live we can switch to them, or if you have ideas regarding Gun, would love to hear! :)

The primary "centralized" component is the privacy-preserving contact discovery, which we believe is a necessary evil. Afaict, any decentralized hashing scheme is susceptible to pre-image attacks due the space for phone numbers is small, which makes publishing the entire hashed address book leak everyone's info. Signal has a good write up on an improvement we may eventually incorporate that uses SGX: [https://signal.org/blog/private- contact-discovery/](https://signal.org/blog/private-contact-discovery/)

<comment><USER2> Okay, I think I understand more, you are saying you can run Cleargraph locally, and have things proxy to it rather than anybody else's server. Good, glad to hear that!!!

Yeah, I'm not really a fan of Signal's approach with the enclave and stuff. People wanting to have their phone numbers in the system is fine, but it certainly shouldn't be necessary (I don't assume it is, for you use?), and the system definitely shouldn't build on top of that assumption. Could you back up a little bit and explain how ENS and contact names are related to GraphQL queries?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Author here: we noticed consistent sources of duplicated code when designing cross-platform dApps and built Cleargraph out of necessity. We thought it would be broadly useful as a generic dApp back-end, so we polished it up and open sourced it!

Right now we're working on some dApp/smart contract templates that use Cleargraph, and want to know what y'all would think is useful. Maybe something along the lines of a CryptoKitties clone, a token monitor, a todo-list with staking, or a graphical transaction explorer. Open to any ideas! :)

<comment><USER3> I think it would be great to have a graphical transaction explorer. It would really educate people on how the blockchain works.

I think the todo-list with staking would be interesting too.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is there any documentation at all? I couldn't find any. The playground[1] isn't useful without the schema.

1\. [https://api.cleargraph.com/](https://api.cleargraph.com/)

</comment><comment><USER5> Very cool. Thanks for sharing it!

</comment><comment><USER6> Cool! Ill give this a try. I have been working on something like this as well. :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Awesome! Would love to hear your thoughts :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I don't think I get it...

It lets you query the state of the blockchain using graphql? -- which is actually a good idea.

<comment><AUTHOR> It allows you to query the blockchain using a consistent API and offers some features not present in the standard JSON RPC API, like ENS domain resolution. Makes it useful for building decentralized apps.</comment></comment>


Just another library with the sole purpose of wait for all promises to complete - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls Just another library with the sole purpose of waiting till all promises to complete Nothing more, Nothing less. Since Promise.all() doesn't wait if an error, so I wrote it. <comment><USER2> In the case of failure what error do you return?

<comment><AUTHOR> The output will be an array. Collection of success and failures. in the same order. [https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts...](https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts#L146) [https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts...](https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts#L166) [https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts...](https://github.com/rpgeeganage/alls/blob/master/test/alls.ts#L190)</comment></comment>


Writing A Lisp Interpreter In Haskell - <AUTHOR> http://www.defmacro.org/ramblings/lisp-in-haskell.html <comment><USER2> Not sure if you've seen this one:

[http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_H...](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Write_Yourself_a_Scheme_in_48_Hours)

I haven't done it, but I hear its excellent.

<comment><USER3> This was how I learned Haskell. I rather liked it.

That said, looking back, I'm not sure it encourages the best coding style or the best idioms. It's perfect for getting your head around the paradigm though!

I'm currently writing an analogous tutorial for implementing Prolog in Haskell, but it's on a bit of a hiatus thanks to some school and research related deadlines coming up. Hopefully people are interested in something like that :).

Interestingly enough, the Prolog interpreter is actually shorter than the simple Scheme one--largely because we can take advantage of the list monad for the backtracking. I think it's still a very cool exercise.

<comment><USER4> I would be _very_ interested in seeing a tutorial detailing how to implement Prolog in Haskell!

<comment><USER5> Not really a tutorial and not really Prolog, but here's an interpreter for a logic programming language written in Haskell: <https://github.com/rikusalminen/slolog>

I wrote it as a project work in an Artificial Intelligence class. It very closely resembles the logic programming language implemented in "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs".

I'm sorry there isn't any documentation for it.

Here's a little example of what it looks like, from examples/royalfamily.slo:

(siblings ?x ?y) <\- (parent ?x ?parent) & (parent ?y ?parent)

(grandparent ?x ?y) <\- (parent ?x ?z) & (parent ?z ?y)

(cousins ?x ?y) <\- (grandparent ?x ?gp) & (grandparent ?y ?gp) & !(siblings ?x ?y)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Note that this is from 2006. "There hasn't been much Haskell-related work in [web applications]" is false, now.

Very cool read, though.

</comment><comment><USER7> For a practical version for production usage, I've found husk-scheme (<https://github.com/justinethier/husk-scheme>) quite good.

<comment><USER8> I like Husk very much. I used its TCO/K approach for my own little hobby Lisp. Great fun.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Interesting that despite having what looks to me like Haskell and CL expertise, Slava's RethinkDB (various article describe as a "founder") seems to be written in C++.

What do Haskell or CL implementation lack to be competitive with good old C++ there?

<comment><USER10> When writing a database, performance is extremely important. Languages like C++ give you manual control of the computer's resources, which means you can count on predictable performance and memory management. Why is this important? All of your database code must be written with the performance characteristics of your data structures in mind. You need to know how long certain operations or memory swaps will take so that you can optimize data throughput.

While CL and Haskell can be extremely fast and even outperform C++ in certain situations, the lack of manual resource management makes them ill suited to writing a database system. There are few, if any, applications where this matters so much.

<comment><USER11> Why can't we have the expressiveness of CL or Haskell with the performance of C++?

<comment><USER12> We do, its called the D programming language.

<comment><USER13>
      map (head &&& length) . sort . group

      filterM (const [True, False])

Can you show how you implement these in D?

If you want, I can explain these or give other examples of expressiveness I don't think you'll find in D.

<comment><USER14> I think you mean group . sort

<comment><USER13> Oops, quick-typing on my phone can have problematic results :-)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> This is, of course, a narcissistic nonsense.

A primitive arithmetic interpreter and the set primitive (why?) is not even close to what Lisp is.

Lisp _is not_ just a prefix notation with parenthesis. It _begins_ with the notion that code is data - the list structure _and_ that everything is a symbol, a reference _and_ that a value has a type, not a variable, which, _together_ , gives us macros for free.

An implementation of a prefix-notation calculator? Well. It is less than one screen of Scheme code, and is a part of one lecture of freshman's CS61A course.

btw, people who have seen Scheme interpreter from SICP and capable to appreciate its beauty and elegance (structure, clarity, compactness) would never try to do something like that.)

<comment><USER16> Parenthetically speaking, are you aware of the issue with your parentheses?</comment></comment>


F# community rally against Social Justice code of conduct - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/Microsoft/visualfsharp/pull/772#issuecomment-190309926 <comment><USER2> Just as someone using the words "patriarchy" or "cis" tips you off that they're what this guy would call a "SJW", using the term "SJW" in a serious way tips me off that you spend a lot of time contributing to Red Pill subreddits. I can't take you seriously when you start regurgitating reactionary buzzwords from the manosphere (and when most of your citations point to breitbart.com). I think there are valid reasons why one would be opposed to this proposition, but this guy can't seem to make them resorting to hysterics.

</comment><comment><USER3> It was quite something to see the massively negative reaction from everyone in the thread, followed by the original proposer ramming it down their throats anyway with a sarcastic, dismissive "I appreciate your passion" conclusory remark. Something about being a CoC proposer just makes people terrible.</comment>


GitHub is one commit away from being the ultimate blog engine - <AUTHOR> http://reefpoints.dockyard.com/2011/11/14/github-is-one-commit-away-from-being-the-ultimate-blog-engine.html I just realized the title might sound like I'm putting down GitHub, that's not the point. I love GitHub. <comment><USER2> A major feature that Jekyll is missing is commenting. Relying on Disqus, a closed source platform, is not ideal because it slows down page load times, does not contribute to SEO, and it does not let you host and search for comments in your git repo.

Some people argue that adding a dynamic commenting system contradicts the static html goal of Jekyll. Going along those lines, critics say that a conversation is best carried out on 3rd party sites like HN. However, for technical blog posts specifically, a two-way conversation helps illuminate finer points in the original blog post.

Googling around for 'jekyll comments' or 'disqus open source alternative' reveals many people who would use such an idea. However, aside from some quick-and-dirty projects, I see no compelling open source alternative to disqus that will include features such as OpenId, spam prevention, comment threads, etc. Does anyone know of such a project?

<comment><USER3> Engineer from Disqus here, I work on the front-end side of our product.

Disqus doesn't slow down page load times because we use a non-blocking technique to load required files. We work hard to make sure that we don't add any performance regressions to sites using Disqus.

We are also working on making comments made via our product indexable by search engines.

As for the open source version of Disqus, I am not sure what you mean by that since Disqus is a service and not a program that you can download and install. People prefer Disqus because they don't want to spend time implementing and hosting discussion platforms for their websites just like people using GitHub don't want to spend time implementing and hosting developer collaboration software.

Anton

P.S. If you are having problems with Disqus slowing down your page, email me at email@example.com and I will check it out.

<comment><USER4> If we put the ideological issues aside there are some other potential issues about using Disqus that I have thought of:

1.) Control of data, I am not sure what rights I am legally signing away to Disqus when using it as my comment service.

2.) Continuity, I am certain that if Disqus passes away the service won't be there and only fools would offer a free service and ensure that the data isn't lost for what ever reason. How are your data liberation policies, a simple click for a zip or a tar-ball? Or would I need to construct my own back-up using your API? If the latter, is that allowed?

<comment><USER3> You can export your data whenever you want and the process is as easy as clicking one button: <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/447925/Screenshots/ao8k.png>

Nothing changes when you comment on a website using Disqus—your comment is published on someone's website and becomes their data. That said, if a comment was not originally anonymous, you have an option to anonymize it so that it is not associated with your profile and name anymore. We are and will always be on commenters' side.

This is what I can authoritatively say as a Disqus engineer. If you want more information, email to email@example.com and folks here will be happy to answer all your questions.

Anton

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I started down this path before they even added Ace to the site.

My idea was a little bit different: I would drop in a single file to my Jekyll repo that adds a "Create a new post" page on my blog. There is a text field with a live markdown preview and a "Commit" button that would make the calls (via javascript) to the Github API to create a new commit in the repository. This commit triggers the hooks that rebuild the blog.

The main hurdle was authentication, since Github OAuth doesn't support any client-side flows (which is understandable since it's not a completed spec, to my knowledge). So I would have to pass my user/pass in everytime.

But I got the API calls all working (after Github support helped me get CORS working), but I lost interest in the project and it's just sitting around collecting dust

The code: <https://github.com/swanson/lanyon/tree/gh-pages>

Demo that doesn't quite work: <http://swanson.github.com/lanyon/>

</comment><comment><USER6> That's an incredibly low bar to set for something to be "the ultimate". I can smell the fanboyism from here!

</comment><comment><USER7> Creating new files from the web-based editor is a little feature that should really be there.

There's another good use-case, which I've suggested to them: Their "We recommend adding a README..." message could just link to a markdown editor, making it really easy to put up some documentation.

</comment><comment><USER8> While GitHub is great I think it is more likely that DropBox becomes a dominant blog engine.

Already there are things like TiddlyWiki and DropPages that do this and it's much more approachable for the average user.

I also think as DropBox teams improves and iterates it will be interesting to see more people using Dropbox for basic version control, probably not a good idea but I think it'll happen.

<comment><USER9> See my comment above. We've built and launched this at <http://droptype.com>. Would love to hear your thoughts.

<comment><USER10> This sounds like something I want to use. Some impressions:

The first thing I did was edit my profile, but I found that it doesn't give me enough feedback about errors. I tried changing everything all at once(of course) and then got greeted with the previous defaults. It took some trial and error to figure out that it wasn't accepting the RGBA PNG I had picked out for a profile picture. I'd also like a direct link to the markdown formatting docs, or even just a quick summary, on the profile editing screen.

My profile finished, I proceeded to look in my Dropbox folder. The README is not formatted for Windows Notepad and appears as one long line of text. I switched to NP++ and continued to write a "hello.txt" containing a link and an image. It shows up, so I go back and edit the README, too. Everything is in order, but what is this "cloud+arrow" button? Inspecting it reveals it's publishing, but I don't feel confident about whether I've published hello.txt until I log out and check.

I might continue using this. Some last thoughts:

I will probably want options to organize posts. There isn't enough documentation to know if I already have them.

I found myself wondering if there was a shortcut for marking up the image that would let me point to a folder inside Dropbox without tabbing out to find the public link.

I may not want the displayed title of README to be README.

<comment><USER9> Thanks for the feedback. Some quick responses:

\- You're absolutely right, we definitely need more error feedback.

\- We're planning on writing a Markdown tutorial on site and building a browser-based editor (based on Ace, most likely). Will take this under advisement.

\- I need to test with more variety of profile images. I held back on doing this until I could abstract away the entire image handling code.

\- We wrote all the text files on a Mac so we're probably seeing some problems with Windows vs. *nix line-endings. I'll address this tomorrow.

\- You're not the first person to be confused about how we're handling publishing, so we'll address this in a UI update.

\- In terms of publishing images, we want to be able to process more than just text files in your Dropbox, so eventually you'll be able to relatively link to images instead of having to host them somewhere else. Our browser-based editor will let you browse your Dropbox and select images.

\- We do support custom titles (and summaries) using the MultiMarkdown formatting syntax. Just make the first line of your text file look like this:

        Title: The title I want
        Summary: A summary of my text file

And that will customize the title and give you a summary. If that title line is missing, it'll just set the title to the filename.

\---

Again, thanks for the feedback and I hope you can give it another go once we make a few tweaks. I really appreciate you input.

<comment><USER11> Do you have any sample sites who are using your service? If so, you should feature them on the front page.

<comment><USER9> Not just yet, we're waiting to roll out our theme engine before we feature anyone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I don't think GitHub is planning to nor should compete in that market. The Jekyll/blog hosting stuff has been a neat side effect and I am glad that GitHub hasn't gone out of their way to prevent that type of use but I'm sure they have no desire to be a blog engine.

<comment><USER13> If they have the talent, time, and funds (they have all three btw), why shouldn't they? The might have not a lot of competition right now, but that will change in the future I'm sure. Any competitive advantage is a plus IMHO. As a developer who uses github everyday, I love that I can use my normal workflow to post to a blog if I so wish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> If they put a more consumer-friendly face on it, they could probably go toe- to-toe with many other platforms out there. Not quite their core business, though.

<comment><AUTHOR> definitely not their core business, but it seems like it is such a short distance to get there from where things currently stand. And I really like Jekyll and using GitHub to host.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I think version control and content management are complimentary in some ways, but how is serving static files an "ultimate blog engine"? I feel like we've had that for a few years.

What might actually happen is that Git or Dropbox become the interface through which we "put files on the web". One's blog is just a subset of files that one is maintaining anyway.

That's nice, and a consolidation of tools. But not, um, advanced.

<comment><USER16>
        What might actually happen is that Git or Dropbox become the interface
        through which we "put files on the web".

There are some tools that exist already. Here is one that I recently discovered. <http://www.kissr.co/>. There was another one also posted on HN recently, I forget its name.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> In other news, google docs is one commit away from being the ultimate blog engine.

</comment><comment><USER9> We recently launched an app - <http://droptype.com> \- that tries to do static site generation using Markdown files over Dropbox. It's still very much a proof-of-concept and we're retooling to make it a bit more full-featured; but the eventual idea is to let you let you publish web content by just arranging files on any cloud storage platform.

Again, it's still very early and this is more to prove that the idea is doable, but we'd love to hear any input. We're working on some commonly requested features like customized designs, cname redirection, rss feeds. The idea is to have a very hacker friendly publishing tool that doesn't require very much work to set up.

</comment><comment><USER18> Github's founder Tom Preston Werner had a similar article]1]: _Blogging Like a Hacker_

[1] [http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/17/blogging-like-a- hac...](http://tom.preston-werner.com/2008/11/17/blogging-like-a-hacker.html)

</comment><comment><USER19> A problem with this approach though is you end up having to manage a directory full of files called MyAwesomeBlogPost.html etc. Or perhaps using a date or sequence based prefix to keep them in some order. A little tricky to manage once you have dozens of posts...so you'd want some front-end...but these days, it could be a TiddlyWiki or some other pure JavaScript app based on CORS (like swanson mentions in the present thread <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3235457>)

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm a coder at a big media company.

I would die to find a gaggle of people who want to work with me on a simple CMS on top of Git.

<comment><USER21> Who you see as your primary audience for this type of thing? I just don't think developers do CMS a lot

<comment><USER20> It would definitely have to be designed for the kind of crowd that's never installed Jekyll.

As paleolithic as it sounds, I think a CMS build on flat files would be a lot easier to manage than a CMS built on a relational data store.

If you don't need accounts and personalization, or can just do that all client side, you could simply load balance across micro AWS instances pulling from the git repo and stick everything behind Cloudfront -- all for a few quarters an hour.

<comment><USER22> The CMS on flat files thing has been done before, for example with a Perl script: <http://www.blosxom.com/>

Nevertheless I think the concept has potential if done right (and with Github or Dropbox).</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Idea Bounce: On demand dishwashing & kitchen cleanup service - <AUTHOR>

You just threw a great dinner party. You're done with dinner and you don't want to do the dishes. Pick up the phone and call 1-888-WASHMYDISHES and someone is there pronto for $25+ tip.
Could something like this work in a big cities?
I had the idea today while we were out to dinner and someone mentioned how nice it was not having to do the dishes. <comment><USER2> I would probably use this as more of a reservation based service. If I'm throwing a party, I might say "I won't want to do the dishes after it", but I probably wouldn't say "That party was long, I wish I could call someone over to do the dishes for me". Doing it with reservations would be easier to manage on your end as well. Having a schedule for someone is much easier than having them be on call.

</comment><comment><USER3> It could work. Reservations would be better. I'd remove the expectation of a tip as well.

You wouldn't even have to employ anyone, just have a list of house cleaners willing to take jobs on a moments notice. or Partner with a cleaning service.

</comment><comment><USER4> I just woke up, so you can't hold me responsible for anything I say in the following statement:

Yes, I do think it can work, with strong marketing. This kind of business is like an ugly guy trying to pick up women. It's a numbers game. The guy will have to network and get in front of a lot of women before he'll get a yes. But there will be plenty of women who will like him - just like there will be plenty of folks who would appreciate the services of 1-888-WASHMYDISHES.

To increase revs, why not start up an associated business? Perhaps 1-888-YOURBBQFTW. BBQ masters will arrange BBQ parties, order the food and BBQ the meat and vegetables to perfection. Then bring in your 888-WASHMYDISHES people.

</comment><comment><USER5> I'm sold. Count me in as a lifetime customer. Where do I sign up.</comment>


Seven Startup Lessons from Intuit - <AUTHOR> http://www.fitzblog.com/tabid/17782/bid/2082/Seven-Startup-Lessons-from-Intuit.aspx

<comment><USER2> The ITConversations interview with Scott Cook is one of the most useful on the site:

<http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail523.html>

</comment><comment><USER3> Though this was over 20 years ago, it's an example of a founder who was an expert in business. Now what I wonder is how the two found each other. Was Cook the one generating the ideas and product vision? Then along the way he found Proulx?

<comment><USER2> Believe it or not, most billionaires are experts in business. Most startup billionaires don't found companies like Microsoft, they found companies like U-Haul and Grey Goose.

(Although I think there are a disproportionate number of CEOs with engineering backgrounds.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Is it just me or FitzBlog's website design is all over the place. I'm using FF btw.</comment>


Server side Android - <AUTHOR> http://www.trendcaller.com/2009/08/server-side-android-google-version-of.html

<comment><USER2> What the fuck is this guy smoking? Why would anyone (much less Google) want to use an oddball almost-JVM that has no JIT or most of the standard libraries on a server farm?

Google App Engine, have you heard of it?</comment>


The New Peer Review: Trial by Twitter - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110119/full/469286a.html

<comment><USER2> An important distinction is peer vs. critic. In many cases, the uproar in popular media is created by uninformed sensationalism. Journalists with deadlines and without backgrounds in niche fields just can't formulate meaningful criticism. Peers, on the other hand, provide reviews in a slower and more private manner, but it's responsible.

If it were faster and less private, but still constrained to peers, then by all means: this would be great. The concern is signal to noise ratio, with a furor of uninformed voices drowning out the meaningful discussion among peers.</comment>


Apple map problems are affecting Mac tech support - <AUTHOR>

Apple map quality problems seem to be worse than Tim Cook let on: today I talked with tech support about a defective Macbook Pro Retina, and I asked the rep for the closest store to downtown San Francisco; he couldn't find it.
He searched by San Francisco area code 415, and the results were on the other side of the country in New York City.
He searched by San Francisco zip code 94101, and the results were in the northeast U.S. in the state of Maine.
How can Apple mapping be so far off? <comment><USER2> Next time you call them, ask them to use open street maps, bing or google :)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hahah that's a good one, I will. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Why do you think he is searching on his iPhone/iPad?</comment>


Ask HN: Is Google Down? - <AUTHOR> I can't seem to access any Google website.<p>Is this something local to my network? <comment><USER2> Google's up for me. In the US midwest, btw.</comment>


An Anthropologist Investigates How We Think About How We Think - <AUTHOR> https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/an-anthropologist-investigates-how-we-think-about-how-we-think <comment><USER2> It's turtles all the way down.</comment>


Building an organic computing device with multiple interconnected brains - <AUTHOR> http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150706/srep11869/full/srep11869.html

<comment><AUTHOR> Here's a more general-audience article with different info about the research and its context:

[http://www.wired.com/2015/07/science-can-learn-wiring- monkey...](http://www.wired.com/2015/07/science-can-learn-wiring-monkey- brains-together/)</comment>


Ask HN: How do you plan to track your personal finances in 2020? - <AUTHOR> I'm just about done with YNAB due to the lack of multi-currency support. Also, as a digital nomad, fixed-size budgeting just doesn't work for me.
Manual-entry solutions like spreadsheets are too tedious. I find MoneyWiz to be clunky and ugly, and I don't trust it, perhaps because I was spoiled by YNAB's super polished clearing/approval/reconciliation UI.
For 2020, I'm thinking of building myself a Plaid API integration into Airtable or Google Sheets. What about you?
p.s. I'm Canadian, so I must pass on all US-centric software. <comment><USER2> Personally I just export a CSV file with my monthly bank transactions that I feed to a django app I've made.

1/ It flags suspicious entries according to rules that I manually add and it automatically highlights transactions involving new parties.

2/ I've added tags to be able to classify the expenses and present them in a pie chart so I can at a glance see if I was on track or not last month and adjust things the next one.

In the end it took 2h to write, I spent now 5min / month on this reviewing, I've found the bank made an error and was charging me for something I've never signed for and I'm finally following a loose budget and building savings in a "relaxed" way.

</comment><comment><USER3> ledger/hledger again, though I also use YNAB for my cash accounts, credit cards, and other debts. I can live with its single-currency support for that. But I use ledger/hledger for my total picture of my finances.

NB: I do everything manually. So I enter in my transactions with YNAB manually, then later enter them into my ledger file. I find that this keeps me better aware of my financial status than automatic downloads, but that's a personal preference.

<comment><USER4> Thank you for the hledger tip. Definitely going to look into that. I have been completely disillusioned with YNAB due to the community and almost fanatical mindset that comes with it.

<comment><USER5> Maybe also checkout beancount. It's a more opinionated and slightly simpler (h)ledger alternative, but it features an excellent web interface called fava.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> What do you you expect from the data?

As a german: we have no good software to track from banking data so I just don't. I live modest and check if my account on average goes up or down (usually goes up, so all good).

I will calc an average to see how much to put in to retirement savings monthly soon.

</comment><comment><USER7> I don't plan on tracking really, so let's see how that goes :)

</comment><comment><USER8> Same way I have tracked it all my life. Text files & spreadsheet.

<comment><USER9> That doesn't say anything about how though. What so you write in these text files and how's your spreadsheet set up?

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> I personally use app from Play store, quite handy :)

</comment><comment><USER11> Tillerhq.com is awesome</comment>


Quick IE6 Fixes (for Those That Still Support It) - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/blog/Quick_IE6_Fixes_(for_Those_That_Still_Support_It)

<comment><USER2> we're a web-based startup, and we decided not to support IE6. why?

because we're more interested in delivering a rich experience and useful functionality to our customers than debugging someone else's code. yes, i said it. fixing bugs in IE6 amounts to working for microsoft, and if you have a complex website, it can amount to half your time or more. all this for one browser, with a declining 25% of the market.

and honestly, is that 25% the 25% that's going to be interested in our product? unlikely. so we said screw it. now we have twice as much time to work on the front end. magic.

</comment><comment><USER3> The site I'm in charge of (a small local radio station, about as far from the early-adopter crowd as you can get) now only has 19% of its visitors from IE6, with 53% using IE7. (For completeness, Fx has 20%.) For the next iteration of the site, I've made the decision to end IE6 support.

We're a tiny organisation with very limited resources (the web team consists of two people and we write and edit the content as well as taking care of the design and development, plus other jobs in the station) and we can't justify spending insubordinate amounts of time supporting this ancient browser with an ever-declining share of our visitors. We'll make sure it isn't completely broken in the blasted thing, but users of that obsolete version will just have to live with design glitches.

<comment><USER4> > we can't justify spending insubordinate amounts of time

inordinate

<comment><USER3> Ta.</comment></comment></comment>


Python REST Examples For Parse - <AUTHOR> http://blog.parse.com/2012/07/09/python-rest-examples/

<comment><USER2> very nice, and very nice docs as a whole, is this built on top of an existing documentation framework, or is it a completely in house tool?

</comment><comment><USER3> Points for using Day[9] and 1337 in the example.</comment>


Minteye wants to put an end to the CAPTCHA as we know it - <AUTHOR> http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/12/15/minteye-wants-to-put-an-end-to-the-captcha-as-we-know-it/?fromcat=all <comment><USER2> That would be horrendously easy to write a bypass for. As with most of these "lets end CAPTCHA" solutions.

</comment><comment><USER3> Strangely, adblock seems to block the tech demo on minteye's site. Or perhaps not?</comment>


Review: Asus ZenBook UX305 - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/review-asus-zenbook-ux305/?mbid=social_fb <comment><USER2> The review is pretty realistic.

I use UX305 with Arch as my "procrastinate, err code, in coffeeshop" machine and it is a great notebook for the money. The keyboard with no backlight is main issue (for me). And the sound sucks.

</comment><comment><USER3> I wonder if the bios is locked to prevent installing Linux.

<comment><USER2> Ubuntu 15.04 ins some daily build version installed without any bios changes (everything, I have tried worked like a charm). Arch needed to disable secure boot (that should work in any Win8 labeled machine). Some things (GPU sleep) needed a bit of thinkering.</comment></comment>


MIP*=Re - <AUTHOR> https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=4512 <comment><USER2> Key quotation, it appears:

* There is a protocol by which two entangled provers can convince a polynomial-time verifier of the answer to any computable problem whatsoever (!!), or indeed that a given Turing machine halts.*

I wonder what kind of limitations are posed on such provers (which the article calls "all-powerful").

<comment><USER3> This lecture[0] gives a good description of MIP and MIP* and how the poly(n) verifier is permitted to communicate with them.

[0] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmPA5FfLd6k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmPA5FfLd6k)</comment></comment>


I Don't Want To Be Part of Your Ecosystem - <AUTHOR> http://shkspr.mobi/blog/2012/11/i-dont-want-to-be-part-of-your-fucking-ecosystem/ <comment><USER2> There are three things I want to do with PC technology: store stuff, run programs (which may mean consuming the things I've stored), and stay connected with friends.

None of these should be dependent on location, hardware, or my personal affiliations. Geesh, it's almost 2013 folks. I should be able to walk up to a panel at a store, have it recognize me, and have all of my stuff available. Do whatever I would do at home using my PC if I like. Walk away from the panel and it resets. There's no clue or trail that I was even there.

We keep trying to use these metaphors about how the internet should work. It's a walled garden. It's a bazzar. It's a type of newspaper subscription. It's a club for friends. Each metaphor works okay -- for a while. But then the people making money off the metaphor start trying to make sure that we never grow past their little idea of happiness.

The tech community is smarter than this. Location-free, hardware-free, non- walled technology is the goal. Let's start going there.

<comment><USER3> _I should be able to walk up to a panel at a store, have it recognize me, and have all of my stuff available. Do whatever I would do at home using my PC if I like. Walk away from the panel and it resets. There's no clue or trail that I was even there._

How is it supposed to recognize you, but then have no clue or trail that you were even there?

 _The tech community is smarter than this. Location-free, hardware-free, non- walled technology is the goal. Let's start going there._

And who's going to pay for the platform to do all of that?

How do you keep the weeds out of your garden? Simple, build a wall. There is a reason walled gardens work.

<comment><USER4> That last sentence was hilarious. Weed seeds are in almost all soil. They arrive there on the wind. What constitutes a "weed" is that it's a plant that's not desired in a specific location. What is, and is not, a weed, is entirely contextual.

The reason for walling a garden is to create a microclimate that protects the garden from the wind. It's like a greenhouse. It's protection for species that would otherwise not survive in the area.

The way to get non-walled technology is government intervention. That's how the internet was invented. Then, as it was deployed and commercialized, it "won out" because it was open, while services like AOL, Delphi, GEnie, Prodigy, Apple's eWorld, CompuServe, and MSN were closed, walled garden online services.

<comment><USER5> You can't write out that coherent of an argument and expect any free market ideologues to answer you.

Cognitive dissonance is painful!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The worst offender is actually Amazon. I just bought a Kindle Fire HD and boy am I disappointed! The only apps it runs are from Amazon App Store... but only the local one in your country. I can't access the US Amazon App store from France!!

And of course one can't transfer Kindle books from one account to another.

The answer is jailbreaking and de-DRMising; it's a pain of course but it's very much worth it.

<comment><USER7> I've recently bought for the first time an DRM protected ebook, from Kobo. Never again will I make this mistake, it's just ridiculous that I can't download a simple PDF file and read it on any device I want using any software I want, without having to install a stupid, bloated app.

No, I don't want to notify people on FB or Twitter about books I'm reading. No, I don't want to see achievements. No, I don't need personal stats. No, I don't want to join a club. I just want to read the damn book I just bought!

<comment><USER8> Great choice. There's software to remove the DRM from books, of course ... but the best way to remove it is to shop at places that don't use it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> _The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. \-- Hegel

I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view. \-- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar"_

Does anyone else remember this little thing called "the PC wars", where you couldn't use floppies from a Mac on a Wintel machine, and you actually had to care about what version of whichever word processor you were using because it might not be compatible? And then some crazy weirdo with a beard starts warning that hey, maybe user choice is important enough to be elevated to a freedom? And everyone predictably laughs him down.

But he was right, and he continues to be right, all while the fools forget history to their own detriment.

</comment><comment><USER10> Wait, whose fault is this DRM thing? Device makers or the music and movie industry? <http://www.apple.com/es/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/>

</comment><comment><USER11> It's a dilemma. For now there is good money to be made in these ecosystems, there are people that are _really_ raking it in (and in an above-board way). At the same time you're setting yourself up with your head on the chopping block, after you've sharpened the blade with your labor.

Personally I would never build something that is not as much as possible stand alone (so without reliance on some third party controlled eco-system, of course everything needs hosting, bandwidth and power but those are commodities). But I have to counter that with the fact that I realize I'm losing out on quite a few opportunities.

Choices, choices. Long term vs short term.

</comment><comment><USER12> This is one of the reasons I love services like Spotify and Netflix. They have no devices in the race, and tend to have client software for almost every platform. I can switch between phones, tablets and operating systems and still access to the same music and movies.

I could even drop Spotify and switch to Rdio if I wanted, and all I would lose are my playlists (not a big deal to me, but may be to some). These services don't lock me to devices, and I also don't feel locked into the services.

<comment><USER13> > This is one of the reasons I love services like Spotify and Netflix. They > have no devices in the race, and tend to have client software for almost > every platform. I can switch between phones, tablets and operating systems > and still access to the same music and movies.

You're joking right? Netflix? Only recently have we seen murmurs of having some hacky way of getting Netflix to run on Linux.

Microsoft Silverlight lock in was, IMHO, a huge slap to Linux. They're as bad an example of "services that support every platform" as can be.

[http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/netflix-no-change-in- our-...](http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2012/09/netflix-no-change-in-our-plans- for-linux)

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I work in scientific programming for environmental science. Whenever I see or hear the word 'ecosystem' used to refer to a technology platform, I wonder who is eating whom.

<comment><USER8> There are predators in the works, aren't there? The term is somewhat subjective, but not very much so to the people who feel like they're lunch.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> These kinds of posts really bug me. Users don't give a rat's left buttock whether the "ecosystem" is closed or open or anything in between. They want something which works well and lets them buy stuff they want. Simple observation of consumer behavior has shown over and over again that people _simply don't care_ about whether their stuff is tied to Apple or Google, or whether their location is being tracked by Twitter or Verizon, or whether they'll have a difficult time moving their music to a different device later on.

If this was written as another post trying to convince _developers_ to avoid developing for closed ecosystems it wouldn't as bad; evangelists can be a good thing, even if he's fighting a losing battle. However, as this post seems to be geared towards _consumers_ , it's almost completely pointless ranting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Author here. I'm sorry you feel that way. I think users _should_ care. These monocultures we're breeding are - I think - harmful to society and the economy - see this excellent article about predatory pricing [http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/03/editorial-amazon-and- goog...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/03/editorial-amazon-and-google-are- undermining-mobile-pricing/)

I'm naive enough to think that we can change people's minds.

<comment><USER15> I hear you, sorry if I came across too harsh. While you may or may not be correct, I don't think these posts do anything to help the situation, and particularly given that you don't propose any suggestions it comes across (to me) as ranting. I personally think that nowadays, given where the industry is headed and how consumers have demonstrated their interests, it's completely unreasonable to expect the purchase of computer software to be similar to that of durable goods (e.g., your oven), and I don't see that changing without a sufficiently strong business model supporting whatever alternative that you can devise.

<comment><AUTHOR> Oh, it's totally a rant. I'm just a lone blogger trying to see if anyone feels the same way I do.

It just disappoints me that industry is trying to move to a "buy everything from us - because that's the only guarantee it will work" system.

Good discussing things with you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> > On a mobile phone network in the UK, you can use any phone you want.

That's the same in India. Standalone iPhones aren't affordable to a vast majority. If they come in tied with an operator where you walk in a store and get an iPhone with a small payment, and a monthly plan which covers your calls, data and phone installment, many people will happily buy it.

A separation of service provider and phone is good, but the customer has other data points to evaluate as well.

I was wondering though. From the way author emphasizes the separation of service and hardware, can't you buy an iPhone in US which isn't linked to a provider? You don't have buying phones and buying sim cards separately anymore?

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm the author. I'm UK based, so I can't speak for the USA. Over here, you can buy the iPhone and SIM separately - or you can get them in a bundle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I think Google Wave is an undeserved mention in the list of killed off DRM services.

First of all, Google supported data export from Google Wave[1]. Additionally, Google open sourced the project and it's available as Apache Wave[2] or as a protocol[3].

[1] [http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/11/multiple-wave- export....](http://googlewave.blogspot.com/2010/11/multiple-wave-export.html)

[2] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apache_Wave>

[3] <http://www.waveprotocol.org/>

<comment><USER18> I'm still amazed that almost everyone just laughed at Wave. We're still trying to break the hold of a proprietary document format (.doc), and now platforms like Google Docs have a proprietary protocol for real-time changes. Google offered us an open, federated version of that protocol - I think we should have seized it with both hands.

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> I'm annoyed that its difficult and time consuming to move to a new house in a new city. I mean you have to hire movers, pack up all your stuff, and find a new place to live.

<comment><USER20> Well yes, but those are physical barriers that society has strived to solve by inventing transportation etc.

The author is complaining about more arbitrary restrictions such as in certain countries where you must fill out paperwork to inform the government that you intend to move.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Don't you know there's an app called Doubletwist that syncs your itunes collections to android phones? That music bought from the iTunes store is DRM- free?

</comment><comment><USER22> So in a nutshell, Some chap doesn't seem to know the history of how music and movies became available online. So it's Apple's fault.

</comment><comment><USER23> I would submit to you that the reason why Apple is what it is today is because software & hardware are intertwined.

</comment><comment><USER24> The odd thing is that people who hate walled gardens also hate systems like Ultraviolet which are meant to brdige them.

You could criticize Ultraviolet for being a DRM system, but if you look closely at it, you'll see they've worked pretty hard to build a system that prevents casual copying while being pretty fair to the consumer

<comment><USER25> How is that odd?

Replacing a walled garden with a walled park does not improve the situation a lot for people who do not like walls at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I'm pretty invested in apps for iOS. I'm okay about this, I don't begrudge being locked into an ecosystem as I made a choice to be in that ecosystem.

I bought a piece of software on a Windows machine a while back, which was a PC, but because it was Windows software it's not usable now I use a Mac. It's locked to an ecosystem. We can all look back at that shiny, lovely past with our rose-tinted glasses, but it's a fallacy. For the most part you were as locked to an ecosystem then as you are now. There's plenty of people who bought music from Microsoft in DRM protected WMA files that ended up being locked in.

And games. And books. And software. And movies. And x. And y. And z. Smartphones are a microcosm of the exact same thing from the PC days, we just get fancy and call it an ecosystem and pretend like it's a new, bad thing that's been invented by Apple to horsewhip us.

<comment><USER27> > I'm pretty invested in apps for iOS. I'm okay about this, I don't begrudge > being locked into an ecosystem as I made a choice to be in that ecosystem.

That would be great, if it were easy or even feasible to be a member of _no ecosystem_ , but it's really not.

<comment><USER28> There are always web apps. I'd argue that they are as close to a non-ecosystem as you can get...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> I haven't really had problems with this. I have an Android phone, an iPod, and dual boot Ubuntu and OS X. Google Music syncs iTunes to my phone via the cloud just fine; the iPod naturally syncs with iTunes. On Ubuntu I just use Google Music via the browser, or Pandora.

The tech community is _already_ smart enough to deal with their stuff. And the consumer community doesn't seem to care much about being locked inside a brand; they don't know any better, for some reason, to most people, it makes sense that if you have a Mac, you need an iPad, not a Kindle Fire. Or if you get a Kindle Fire, you simply adjust your expectations accordingly.

Obviously it's unethical for companies to do this, but when was the last time megacorps operated with any higher morality than economics demanded?

</comment><comment><USER30> Why now? All this was obvious at a time of first iPods..)

</comment><comment><USER31> Media is what ties the uninformed to an eco-system. There are more options for paid DRM-Free media today and several DRM systems are trivial to break. I remember people that had an iPod and MP3 player because they thought that their Napster music couldn't work on their iPod and didn't know how to add them to their library.

More telling is the author's complaints about the complexity of integrating his Android device to a NAS, etc. It is the pre-built integration between Apple devices that sell their ecosystem and keeps people coming back for more. All of the integration in the world is meaningless if it doesn't work when your friends are over or it crashes halfway though a movie (Windows Media Center anyone...)

</comment><comment><USER32> Agreed. This is exactly why I don't buy "new" hardware like a tablet.

<comment><USER33> you are missing out

<comment><USER34> See, this I'm not getting about tablets. What am I missing out on? Basically just when Laptops had hit a critical milestone of being thinner than ever, light(weight)er than ever -- MBA and Ultrabooks and so on -- at that crucial point tablets "happen" (iPads first, sure) and everybody is totally into them.

It's been a few years and their value proposition is the same as as a few years back: yay, vastly less power/performance, lower resolution, crappier sound, no keyboard, and just about equally painless in terms of weight or form-factor. Sure they're a bit smaller and lighter but just at a point in time where the weight and size of current-gen netbooks/ultrabooks/notebooks simply isn't an issue anymore _anyway_.

Smartphones, I get them. Neat to have a Maps app with a phone attached in your pocket. And commuters can play Sudoku on them, fine.

But tablets? What's the big appeal about them? Why have they become such a popular gadget for all their shortcomings compared to same-generation net/ultrabooks? I don't think I'll ever get it...

But since we're on Hacker News... what exactly is a Hacker Newser missing out on by forgoing a tablet?

<comment><USER35> Honestly, for a typical Hacker Newser, not much.

The people I've seen using a tablet most expansively are some combination of:

A. people never fully comfortable with a full laptop (meaning they effectively aren't losing much functionality by switching), in fact are gaining from the simplification of features they never really got

B. People doing field work, where a tablet's weight and form factor is strongly superior to a laptop (lighter, can operate standing up easily, etc.)

C. People who like to surf the web in bad, but find using the form factor of a laptop too awkward and a smartphone screen too small

<comment><USER4> D. People afraid of, or who never learned to, install applications on their computer.

<comment><USER36> This seems to portray them in a negative light, but I think the lack of installers/uninstallers is wonderful.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> That's the reason I really hope most of the software will be webbrowser-based in the future. I know that right now native apps give you a better overall experience but too often they pull you into the walled garden of hardware vendor.

There are solutions like phonegap etc. that let you write semi-native apps that use embedded browser inside it, but with HTML5 and successors I believe it will be possible to just have everything run in a browser, setting everyone free from any vendor specific solutions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Well.... yes and no. What happens if Google Docs goes down - or is killed?

<comment><USER38> I think it all comes down to standards, as the OP mentioned in the article. Google services usually support open standards (ODF for google docs), which makes migrating your data, when the service closes, a whole lot easier.

If only there was an open standard for "offline" apps that could be used on android, iphone, iOS, windows, linux...etc with the same end user experience.

<comment><USER39> There was one called java once. Oh wait...

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> The truth is that only the illuminati care about inter-compatibility and data freedom. Most people (myself included) value more something that works, not a hodgepodge of solutions from 15 different vendors where nothing integrates with nothing.

Provide _both_ inter-compatibility and a good user experience and you win everybody. Android promised that, but failed.

</comment><comment><USER41> Not to suggest breaking the law, but pirated music, movies and books are not locked into any device or ecosystem.

</comment><comment><USER42> Agreed, and much of this would not have been possible without the draconian government protection of DRM (such as in DMCA). I could totally see some kind of PC application that would liberate all your iTunes, Kindle etc. material (which you legally own, mind), but it's illegal under the current laws.

</comment><comment><USER43> Stream or rent media. "Buying" songs in an online service is as quaint as maintaining a collection of 8-track tapes. The "buy" option for movies and TV shows exists purely to extract extra money from anal retentives (what percentage of "purchased" shows ever get watched a second time?)

<comment><USER44> Yeah, there's no chance I'll want to listen to a song in ten years when the record label that owns the copyright has gone out of business and so can't license it to whatever streaming service is new and trendy. No chance of that at all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> The same thing that happened when vinyls and cassettes went bust. Content is ephemeral (except for books!)

<comment><USER46> And some e-books are now ephemeral because of the DRM or licensing.

That's a weird idea to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> I live in the Apple ecosystem for one simple reason. Out of every other collection of technology items I could use for both work and entertainment, Apple products are the least frustrating ones to use.

I value my time above everything else.

I used Windows for years. Built, repaired, and maintained Windows systems for work. Setup and ran email servers. Even did some initial web development on IIS servers.

I am 32 and visibly grayer than I probably should be. If you know me in person, you can see it in my beard and in my hair when I let it get longer.

Getting nearly anything done with Windows has always been an exercise in frustration for me. Tools, user interfaces, etc. Even their best products always had something wrong, something just wasn't built right. One more little speed bump to slow down what I want to do.

Eventually I switched to Macs about 6 years ago. I had used them as a kid and it was easy, from that exposure, to switch back. Anything that needed terminal tools to get done, just works. Lots and lots of open source projects that run on Linux almost always just work on Mac OS. For the ones that don't work off to bat, its usually easy to fix.

In terms of phones, I've stuck with iPhones since they came out. For the first couple years, it was because there were no comparable products on the market in term of fit and finish. Android was a swamp of sorrows for the longest time. Any hardware companies made and slapped Android onto were just sorrows layered onto junk devices that were a miserable experience to use.

I had the joy of working with various Android handsets and tablets a few years ago for testing. It was good exposure that reinforced the simple "it works" of the iPhone.

When the iPad came out, I was excited by it like millions of other people. Oddly, while I still have my first-gen iPad and while I love it as a device, it turns out its never been a form factor that I have really been able to incorporate into my life. It wasn't that the iPad is a bad device, but rather that it hasn't been a tool that I really needed. But its a great tool that millions of other people have found to be very useful indeed. Any other Android tablets just couldn't compare in usability or hardware fit, which is why the earlier ones fell so flat.

More recently, I found the Windows Phone OS to be intriguing. A good friend that works at MS showed me the first ones that came out. I rather liked the fresh new take on a phone OS. Loved the interface. I seriously considered switching over to one for a while. But then as I used it, the rough bits showed through. Subpar hardware. Bad battery life. Random crashes. Oddly incomplete UI choices that made some simple tasks frustrating to complete. So, I kept my iPhone 4 for a long time.

Very recently, Windows 8. Metro UI. Looks great on a tablet, same nice looking interface. A couple years had gone by and more than enough time had passed for Microsoft to work out some of the early kinks. I excitedly bought a new copy the day it came out and installed it on a spare machine at the office. The installation went really smoothly.

But when I started using it, it was literally only a couple of minutes before the "wtf" moments started. The biggest issues I saw immediately was that too much of the UI is hidden away. I got very frustrated trying to do things like switching between apps, using IE 10, getting away from the completely anachronistic Desktop app. I tried installing some apps and some went to Metro, others went to Desktop with no clear indication why. When I needed to make some adjustments to system settings, it took me over 5 minutes to figure out how to even get to the settings.

I'm also still really pissed with my nice long complex password being chopped to 16 characters on Windows, Live, etc. Its fucking annoying.

Anyway, while I like the direction that MS is going, they still haven't gotten their stuff together. Its not the same as it used to be, but the frustration level is still there.

I've had an Xbox for years too. In its simplest form, I put a game disk in and it loads up, and I play the game. But in the last few years, they've added all of this extra stuff. New UI, music services, movie services, constant updates, Kinect, etc. And while it all looks shiny, none of it really works together that well. So, I almost never use my Xbox anymore because its just gotten too complicated to do what I want, which is to simply play games. Ugh.

The non-Apple tech I use and love: Gmail, Ubuntu for servers, Dropbox, github, Audible, Rdio, Netflix, torrents, Google Maps (PLEASE release an iOS app for this!), and others.

Notice that at no point in this ramble do I mention Music or Movies as keeping me with Apple. It literally has nothing to do with an "ecosystem". It just has to do with building superior products that have the least frustration to getting shit done. That's the sole thing you need to worry about when building a product that people will love.

Be less frustrating than your competitors, and you have a good edge.

Lots of companies make individual products that are well polished. Only a few make lots of products of high quality.

<comment><USER48> This is pretty much my philosophy. People rant and rave about what you can hack Linux and Android to do, without realizing that it's a hobby for them - one that I don't enjoy. Maybe I'm too stupid, slow, or lazy, but I don't give a shat if my phone can run apps that aren't in the app store - all the apps I need are there.

I want stuff that doesn't cause me trouble and doesn't make me think. Every time someone tries to tell me about all the stuff they can do in Windows or Android that I can't do, I stare blankly and wonder why anyone cares.

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Amazon is a bit of worry for me, I like the Kindle software especially being able to use the Web version, but only being able to download (some of?) my books in AZW3 format is a PITA that is making me think twice about buying books from them in future.

<comment><USER50> I hear that in the new Kindle Paperwhite you can't even add other type of books anymore. Only Kindle ones.

<comment><USER49> Looks like it does still support mobi, and i'm guessing you can still use an app like Calibre to load them onto it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> For a lot of apps these days, you're only forced to use Android/iTunes to actually pay for it initially, but then you can access your data from either; I'm thinking of apps which store their data in the cloud - evernote, dropbox, etc.

</comment><comment><USER52> Ohhhh, you are just _sooooooo_ edgy saying 'fuck' in your headline.

</comment><comment><USER53> Resistance is futile.

<comment><USER54> So sad but so true.

Forever with GNU!

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Yes! Sounds awesome. Of course, it's unclear how such a system would produce beautiful and easy-to-use products so that users clammer to use them.

</comment><comment><USER56> My brain had trouble parsing the headline:

I don't want to be part of your fucking (ecosystem) -vs- I don't want to be part of your (fucking ecosystem)

<comment><AUTHOR> Well, we're all born out of an ecosystem of fucking - and I've no desire to leave that :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> As long as it is available I will buy physical media.

</comment><comment><USER58> > _Music, movies, TV, and podcast subscriptions. All tied up in Apple's little > ecosystem. A very pretty noose to keep people chained to its hardware._

Really? Because, last time I checked, people mostly RENTED movies and series off of iTunes -- not outright bought them (except some tiny majority of bizaros). In which case there is nothing to be "tied to".

As for music, last time I checked, iTunes sells DRM-free music, something that was first achieved for major music companies there, after Job's open letter on matter. So you can move your music to Android just fine. And even if it wasn't DRM-free (which IS) you can of course use your own DRM-free music collection with iTunes, like the vast majority of people do.

And podcast subscriptions? Really? Aren't they available everywhere, anyway?

People buy the hardware because they like it, and bought it since the first iPod, even before there even was an iTunes Store. Heck, they bought the iPhone even before there were third party apps too.

<comment><USER59> I think he means tied up more in the sense of its 'difficult' to move it for the average user. sure you can pull out your content and sync it to android if you know what your doing (read - tech savvy-ish) but the vast majority of the users use iTunes and have never used anything else. It's these users that will have the problems of being 'seemingly' locked into an ecosystem.. mainly because they don't know (or care to learn) anything different and it becomes too hard.

<comment><USER60> What the heck does he want? Should Apple make iTunes work for all 50 thousand different android devices too?

<comment><USER61> Apple doesn't need to do anything to make iTunes work with other devices. In fact, they go out of their way to make sure it doesn't. Palm figured out how to make it work, and Apple figured out how to break it.

<comment><USER62> Palm made it work? Isn't this the same hack where they advertised themselves as an Apple device completely breaking the USB standard? They made it work by breaking their own agreements to be USB certified.

<comment><USER61> True. But that was Palm's decision. Apple was under no obligation to make any changes to prevent Palm's questionable decision.

<comment><USER62> Let me be clear here, advertising your device as another manufacturers is a BAD precedent be setting. For any company.

It also violates the agreement companies agree to to be usb certified. What Apple did afterwards to ensure only their devices were being advertised is their own business. But lets be clear. Palm was in the wrong here. It doesn't absolve Apples decisions, but I can see why they did what they did.

It also likely explains why Apple started doing drm-like authentication to its devices.

<comment><USER61> True. But that was Palm's decision. Apple was under no obligation to make any changes to prevent Palm's questionable decision.

That's literally the only point I was making. Apple didn't need to do anything to have other devices working with iTunes. Once they were, by whatever means, Apple made the decision to make changes to further disallow it. Apple didn't need to go out of their way to provide interoperability, but they did go out of their way to break interoperability, no matter how the competitors achieved it.

What Apple did wrong and what Palm did wrong are not part of my argument.

<comment><USER62> Its a bit of a useless point then to be honest. Apple is under no obligation to allow anyone to impersonate an iphone as a usb device with their software.

Apple making changes to disallow it were because they were breaking their usb agreement to do it. You are not supposed to identify your devices as anything but what they are. Explain to me how Apple is doing anything bad here because of what Palm started doing? As mentioned elsewhere, the xml file itunes generates is there for interoperability, Palm chose to do something they should not have. There is a difference of "breaking interoperability" (sic), and acting as if you are some other device to an operating system. Palm was doing the latter, not the former.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> You may not want to be part of an ecosystem, but every business ever wants you to be in their ecosystem exclusively. If Amazon can keep your credit card on hand, it makes it easier for you to buy things from them, whether they be physical goods (how they hooked me) or digital goods (how they are trying very hard to keep me).

I lobbied for a long time against DRM, and then I gave up, because I did want some of the content that was only available via DRM. I'll probably regret that the day Amazon decides to change the way their purchased movies work, or iTunes decides that it's streaming only (like Amazon is currently). But the fact is that unless I want to only consume Louis C.K. standup shows, it's really hard to not have DRM.

I still buy physical media a lot of the time. I would assume Sony would still make money on the Bluray licensing, the cost is passed on to me, but then I have a copy of the movie with which to watch on any of my TVs or loan out to someone else.

<comment><USER64> Contrary data point: the only DRM I regularly pay for is Netflix streaming, and I could drop that without too much pain. (I do wish I could buy ebooks more often instead of paper books.)</comment></comment>


I'm Not Returning to Google After Maternity Leave, and Here Is Why [pdf] - <AUTHOR> https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6240022-I-m-Not-Returning-to-Google-After-Maternity.html#document/p1 <comment><USER2> Sounds like Google is going to get sued over this incident, and given HR's lack of interest in fixing it, it seems that this kind of behavior is implicitly tolerated by corporate policy. But if I were going to sue my employer, I wouldn't post all my evidence in a public forum; I'd save it for the legal proceedings.

<comment><USER3> Unless the original author doesn't want to endure going to court over this for a settlement check but still wants to try to invoke change by telling the world (or at least all Google employees) her story.

<comment><USER4> The point is, getting punitive damages from Google and shaming Google from how you were treated are very different endpoints.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> "My director/manager started making inappropriate comments about a member of my team, including that the Googler was likely pregnant again and was overly emotional and hard to work with when pregnant."

So she reported her female manager to HR for gossiping, which the manager can easily deny since words are different than actions. HR exists to protect the company. It's best to only go to HR when there is illegal conduct.

 _" HR is not like a playground teacher whose job it is to solve all problems and stop bullies from acting."_ [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-your-hr- department-is-your...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/when-your-hr-department- is-your-friend/)

<comment><AUTHOR> > So she reported her female manager to HR for gossiping

Not for gossiping, for creating a hostile work environment through repeated discriminatory comments. And the manager's gender is irrelevant since women are just as capable of sexism and discrimination as men.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Of course your attitude will change if you find out your colleague is a dibber dobber.</comment>


Tipjoy (YC winter 08) Adds Auto-Twitter Integration So You Can Tweet Your Tips - <AUTHOR> http://mashable.com/2008/08/01/tipjoy-twitter-bookmarklet/

<comment><USER2> The bookmarklet is really fun to use. 2-clicks to tweet and when you push the link to your friends, they can give some cash to the site. Link-love++

<http://tipjoy.com/bookmarklet>

</comment><comment><USER3> better yet, tip your own tweets ;)

<comment><USER2> or eachothers: <http://tipjoy.com/8Xn/>

<comment><USER3> so you tweet about tipping a tweet? now that's meta...

<comment><USER2> actually I tweeted about tipping a tweet about tipping a tweet

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I still don't see the usefulness of :(tipjoy, let alone Twitter integration.

<comment><USER5> The usefulness is being paid for writing your blog without having ads.

The Twitter integration is just a marketing thing; your followers will see you talking about Tipjoy and immediately sign up (hopefully, anyway). Plus, social news sites love the word "Twitter", so this feature will get Tipjoy to the top of those sites. It even worked here.</comment></comment>


The Best Way to Pay Your Overseas Tuition Fees - <AUTHOR> https://blog.paxcredit.com/how-to-save-money-while-studying-abroad-e56fc794ccb <comment><USER2> Seems like this service is currently open only for international students from India.

\+ Are the savings only available during the promotional period? How do you ensure competitive rates consistently? \+ Do you intend to open the service in other markets?

</comment><comment><USER3> Is this open for students in S.Korea?</comment>


How to make a Twitter bot - <AUTHOR> http://servletsuite.blogspot.com/2008/12/how-to-make-twitter-bot.html <comment><USER2> I wrote a bot that generates @replies a little while back. The motive was to "send" a message that refers users to our service when a specific type of URL is mentioned by a user. We have a policy which we adhere to VERY strictly regarding messaging users one time only. You'd be surprised at the amount of positive feedback we received.

<comment><USER3> Is that a little spammy considering the users haven't asked to be send a message?

(Oh, here's my News.YC Twitter bot if anyone's interested: <http://twitter.com/newsycombinator>)

<comment><USER2> It's kind of a gray area. If we received negative reactions, we'd stop, but so far the responses have been overwhelmingly positive.</comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: When to approach the press for coverage? - <AUTHOR>

Ask HN: When to approach the press for coverage?
We run an local SMS service and have just around 100 users. It's been just a week since the launch.
Last week during the Yahoo Hackday I met a press reporter for a local newspaper when she was passing by the Hackday hall and I explained to her about the service (then it was barely new  just 2 days after launch). She listened to me for about 15 minutes. She then gave me her card and asked me to contact her when I needed help with the media.
Couple other well known SMS services have shut-down in the previous 3-4 months (one shutdown and the other has been blocked by two major cellphone operators). There are now only 2 that exist currently in my geopraphical area, of which we are one and the usage cost of the other competitor is more.
Now my first thought is to approach for media coverage only after a while (with maybe atleast 1000 regular users). But I think word-of-mouth isn't just enough for this to pull off successfully.
Should I approach the local media now or later? If yes, how? What data should I provide them with? (I mean, should I be open about the number of users I have and sms traffic etc)
We have an online webpage incase you want to know about the service. The service is available for the state of Karnataka (includes Bangalore) in India. http://www.shoutjamit.com
Thanks to swombat, spydez and wheels (HN) for helping with refining the idea.
P.S: The reporter whom I spoke to, works for a newspaper who's audience is mostly teens and college goers (my target audience) <comment><USER2> I would go to the press as soon as you feel you're ready for public exposure (which you are, since you have around 100 users). That means now. Tell people about your service soon and often. I have a college textbook website that had membership triple from a press release to a local paper when I was just getting started.

Don't be afraid to 'waste' your coverage now. Use it as soon as you get it. If you need more publicity, it's relatively easy to find another reason for the paper to cover you.

My $0.02

</comment><comment><USER3> Use all the contacts you have. But also think more strategically and plan what your press contacts _should_ be and go out and get them.

Forget about press releases. Establish direct connections with the press now, before you know them. If you say one day "oh, let's get press coverage" and expect it to happen instantly, you don't know how it works.

Also, question the usefulness of getting press coverage. We were on TechCrunch. It sends shockwaves all over the blogosphere for a week, which is nice. But you need to make your users happy. We also were on the front page of smaller, but still national media: got 100 visitors that day (barely measurable and completely insignificant).

I guess my point is that the days where the press would make or break a company are over. Media is too fragmented, too many people get their news from "alternative" media, you can't expect to kill all your birds with one shot.

<comment><USER4> _We were on TechCrunch. It sends shockwaves all over the blogosphere for a week_

Don't be afraid to go out and approach normal media too - by far the biggest reaction I received last year from normal media outlets occured after I was interviewed by David Sarno on an LA times blog.

This is especially true if you're a young guy that's trying to build something...the media loves stories about underdogs.

<comment><AUTHOR> "the media loves stories about underdogs."

Thanks for that. That's given me more ego points to approach the media with a bit more hope.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for your words.

But if I go for local press coverage now (which is my only target since my service is local too), what data should I provide them with apart from about the service which is already displayed on the website?

Should I tell them about the current SMS traffic with my service and the number of users or any other info?

Also I was thinking if I could also give her a hint that we could collaborate with them for SMS announcements and stuff like that for contests or polls their newspaper conducts. Should I mention such stuff in the first mail itself or should I go slow with the press. I haven't dealt with the media anytime, but have heard some say that the press guys are really in a hurry always since they have a lot of data to wade thru for interesting news.

<comment><USER5> Call and speak with her again - ask her what stories her readers want to read, and tailor your information and data to that. If that's unclear, think about a good 'angle' on your business - this is a small part of your data which is easy to understand (eg, 0-100 in 7 days; or 'Local group responds to economy by saving teens money').

Re: collaboration, this is a different discussion than getting some coverage. I would wait until after you've discussed the story, then ask her who you need to talk with at her paper about collaboration - unless they're really small, it's likely to be somebody else - and then get her permission to use her name when calling that other person to introduce yourself.

Good luck!

<comment><USER6> > Call and speak with her again - ask her what stories her readers want to > read

Before you do that, read her stories and see what kind of stories she's written in the past. That will help you "pitch" her with "what kind of story do you like to tell?"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> The longer you take, the less she'll remember you. Go get press.

<comment><USER4> Absolutely - I got on Wired last year by doing this.

Also, perhaps sign up to something like Google Alerts for various key phrases that are relevant to your area. When stories/posts pop up that you might be able to add some value/expertise too, don't be afraid to make contact with the authors.

You just have to go out and get noticed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Go to press now, but one important note: go to press with a "Story".

A Story is something the press will be able to tell. Something that captures the imagination. Prepare that Story in advance of going to that journalist, so that it comes out naturally while you talk to her. It should be inspiring, positive, human, not arrogant, something people can relate to.

</comment><comment><USER9> What is holding you from the press coverage? I personally think that it wouldn't hurt if you go through it. If you already have 100 users, what is the difference with the 1000 users? So, I say go ^__^ and good luck!

</comment><comment><USER10> Load test your service first. If you go to press and your service fails, you're doomed.</comment>