

Product Hunt Gets Social with Twitter-Like Profiles, Following, Notifications - digitalcreate
http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/21/product-hunt-gets-social-with-twitter-like-user-profiles-following-features-and-notifications/

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minimaxir
Interesting to see there's a profile/follow model...when Product Hunt still
doesn't allow anyone to join and comment/submit. That does not help dispel the
perception of PH being an elitist Silicon Valley club where the cool kids hang
out.

And the self-promotion and upvote begging on Product Hunt is getting even
worse
([https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=product%20hunt%20upv...](https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=product%20hunt%20upvote&src=typd))
despite promises for improvement.

See previous rant:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8427079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8427079)

~~~
j4pe
Even though I've always been a bit repulsed by Product Hunt, I'm really glad
to see it succeeding - hopefully it will take the whole startup daily
news/gossip business away and leave HN with the cool hacks and new tech, As
Its Creator Intended.

(Why am I repulsed by PH? Not sure, but I tend to lump it in with the whole
cargo cult, ping pong tables, beers kegs, fashion and gossip and startups
Valley scene. The most common context in which I encounter it is people asking
me to vote them up so they can get 'discovered', as if entrepreneurship were
Hollywood or Nashville. It's a meta-startup for discussing other people's
startups; it's a carbuncle on a vain, self-absorbed slice of our industry. I
guess it serves a niche well and I'm just repelled by the niche.)

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tosh
A few key things that PH got right from my pov:

    
    
      * Requiring a tagline (huge time-saver, s/n!)
      * Curation (via the crowd but also via well known product people, s/n!)
      * Highlighting Makers (great game dynamic & good for s/n)
      * Profiles (& following. It is a community)
      * Embracing Twitter (great way to bootstrap & improved social signal, s/n!)
    

These things might sound like simple details but when you consider that the
magic behind services like PH is the community, attention-span & noise level
then they've really nailed it.

Of course seeding the community and growing it was important but when you
build a system these decisions make or break the whole thing.

It also makes me wonder why similar services like HN and Reddit didn't go into
that direction/depth sooner.

~~~
fifteenlong
Welll.... almost. Curation was done via a small group of friends. Much like
Hacker News, not just anyone can come and join the fun. It's not as democratic
as you might believe. Go submit your product and see if it's listed anywhere
(even with 0 votes). Go login and try to comment.

Product Hunt basically captures the buzz of Silicon Valley. It does so very,
very well. That's fine. I mean it's like the celebrity A list in a sense. We
like looking at these things. However, let's just keep this in perspective
here. It is strongly bias curation.

Whether that was something they got "right" remains to be seen. We'll see if
that scales (I think the big question people have right now).

~~~
SandraCarden
"I mean it's like the celebrity A list in a sense." Well... they let _me_ in,
and I'm as far from being any kind of celebrity -- I'm truly the most ordinary
person anywhere. And I'm pretty sure that I'm not in the usual demographic for
a site about new tech products. I like to think that I offer a mature and wise
perspective. But really, I just like to learn about tech. :)

------
akama
I guess that I am still skeptical of Product Hunt. I don't get the appeal at
all, I'm looking to spend money on less things or reduce the complexity in my
life.

The other thing that most people seem to dislike about Product Hunt is the
exclusivity, which doesn't bother that much. It is an interesting strategy to
combat the quality of a site decaying and I curious as to how it turns out.

------
rhc2104
My suggestion for Product Hunt is to be able to filter by the best of last
week, last month, or all time.

The top submissions of the past few days are pretty cool, but being able to
see the most highly upvoted submissions of all time would be an amazing first-
time user experience.

Plus, if I go on vacation, I can just quickly see the best of what I missed
last week.

~~~
ASquare
You can do the all time bit - there's a leaderboard built with the PH API:
[http://www.yvoschaap.com/producthunt/](http://www.yvoschaap.com/producthunt/)

