I love this for weeks when I'm particularly busy. But even on weeks where I check HN very day, I still go through the newsletter each weekend and re-visit the "Ask HN" and "Show HN" threads.
Thanks, and actually the "Ask HN" and "Show HN" threads were the original reason behind the newsletter... since those seem to not stick around on the front page very long.
Thanks Peter! I don't know how you do two newsletters and all your great sites... these things take a good bit of time. I don't even want to keep track of how long it takes me just to click the publish button when I think I'm done. I know if there was an edit button that would reduce it for sure. :)
And I have another couple of newsletters coming out in the next few weeks too! :-) I need to write about it sometime - there are some big wins you can make by cobbling together various scripts and techniques. Need to get today's Ruby Weekly out the door now though.. ;-)
Sounds good. I built a Sinatra app that helps me build out the newsletter each week. It works pretty well, but I have a lot of tweaks I want to play with. I couldn't do it without it though.
I've subcribed since the begining. I like the way the sessions are divided. I also passed the newsletter to friends I know that they would not follow HN everyday. I understand there is always some bias in any news selection but I believe Kale is doing very well!
Good question. I had posted a "Tell HN" when I started it, but it just didn't get much traction. My thinking was that a lot of HN "meta" type projects die off after a month or so, and one that requires an email is even a tougher sell. So I waited and tried other things to gain traction. I had wanted to do this earlier, but wanted to get somethings in place before and just never got to it. Glad I posted it now though! I need to do some other write-ups based on what I've learned (thanks peterc for that idea) as I'm sure that will help too.
Yeah, having the "history" is a big deal. People are far more reluctant to sign up for things that look fresh out of the gate because it's an unknown quantity, there's little social proof to find, and because so many people give up on projects in the short-term.. There are some "tricks" you can employ to lower these barriers a bit but since I'm still using them, I'll have to write about them a little further down the track!
Yeah, it's tough to get traction. Especially without some kind of history. And for people who like to participate in all sorts of different fields, you constantly have to keep proving yourself.
It's too bad human psychology works that way and ideas can't be judged at face value. I'm sure there's a lot of amazing and useful ideas that just didn't have the personal history behind the implementers that failed to gain traction. HN gives me hope though, since there's a ton of smart people who are willing to give new ideas a chance.
Not really a fan of Flattr or donate now buttons, but I've had a lot of subscribers ask about it. I just started using some affiliated type links and would like to run ads at some point if I can keep them relevant (which I think will be easy to do). After today I'll probably have to start paying for MailChimp (which is a good problem to have), so I need to figure that out sooner than later.
Thanks, Kale