
Union Square Ventures' new website - igul222
http://www.usv.com/
======
buro9
Saw that yesterday, and I find it weird.

Twitter login and author info, standalone posts (submitted links/stories), and
Disqus comments.

It feels broken already, using a strange mix of identity from one
communication tool and the interface from another ✝.

What I like is that by connecting to Twitter and using the USV team's accounts
as the source you get a great idea of the character and interests of the VC
team and fund.

What I dislike is that by opening that up to anyone, the front-page just
becomes a mini-HN and the insight into the character of the team is
immediately diluted.

I also dislike that they use Twitter identity as the author for a
conversation/debate, but then use Disqus as the medium for the debate. This
has two effects:

1) It breaks the feel of the audience, people present themselves slightly
differently to different groups, for example how many HN profile pages carry
identical info on the individual's Twitter page?

2) It splits the debate across Twitter (where some will reply directly to the
author) and Disqus.

I also find the blog post placement weird. All of the design hints on the blog
posts (the grey squares to the right) make me think that they are stories,
just "Hot" stories that are being featured. Not the case though, grey squares
are blog posts that are masquerading as submitted stories (the design
consistency of the block).

It's a weird experience overall. I liked the effect that was achieved early-on
of gaining insight into what the team are following and debating, but it feels
confusing. Ultimately I think the best thing to do is just to follow
interesting people on Twitter to gain this insight, follow trends and
interests.

✝ Should probably be pointed out that Twitter and Disqus are both portfolio
companies of USV, and perhaps that's why they chose to do this weird mashup.
Makes me wonder about the comedy gold or real opportunities that might be
achieved from mashups of other portfolio company offerings. Code academy
lessons that start where you left off, every time you get a cab using Hailo?

~~~
fredwilson
yeah, we've talked a lot about having two identity systems on usv.com. it is
not ideal. but twitter doesn't have comments and disqus doesn't have the user
base that twitter has, yet.

we are thinking about ways we can connect the two together in a tighter way to
reduce some of this

as you point out, twitter and disqus are USV portfolio companies and we love
using and supporting the products our portfolio companies make

~~~
kmfrk
You could invest in buro9's [http://microco.sm](http://microco.sm) and just
use it for both those things instead. Problem solved. :)

~~~
fredwilson
checking it out now

------
codezero
None of the links off the main page seem to work.

Honestly, the page looks pretty decent. It seems less of a clone of HN, than
just a page where you can comment and vote on links, which frankly, wasn't a
concept created by Hacker News.

------
ig1
HN has been going downhill for a long time; while I think the YC team know
this it's not something that they have had time to try and improve.

Voting rigging is the norm, companies flag posts about their competitors,
there's zero transparency about moderation or flagging. The community has
become a lot more negative, less supportive and less startupy.

There have been a number of attempts to build HN clones/rivals but generally
the people creating them have focused on the technology rather than the
community which is the important thing. USV is someone who could potentially
build a great community and we should applaud them for trying.

~~~
fredwilson
we are not trying to compete with HN. We use it every day and find it
invaluable.

what we are trying to do is open up our link sharing to the public so everyone
can see what we are thinking about, reading, and discussing

and while doing that, we thought it would be great to let others do the same

i did give PG a preview of this about a month ago in case he was upset about
it. he replied to me and did not seem to be

~~~
seferphier
It would be useful if someone can tag the topics.

HN is useful to see what is hot. Hot does not mean it is relevant to all of
us. If I am raising money, I would be interested in topics tagged to raising
money - the fact that you (fred wilson) posted, up voted, commented the topic
is a good signal that topic is relevant.

I also like the idea of commenting system that rapgenius and medium deploys. I
believe that the idea of seeing the most up voted comment is broken. You might
have something to say on a particular sentence in fund raising article- I'm
interested to see that. Others may have interesting things to say about other
sentences. If USV can pull content online and allow people to comment each
sentence, I believe this would really add value to our community.

~~~
minimaxir
USV does have a tag system on the full body of the post submission.

------
codexon
I don't see this as an HN clone. If anything is a clone, HN is a clone of
Slashdot->Digg->Reddit. Not that I think any of these sites have an exclusive
claim to a threaded discussion board.

------
abcd_f
AAARGH.

Who edited the title? You just took a discussion of how this was a clone of HN
website and half way through turned into... into what exactly?

The submission was about USV and HN designs being similar, not that USV got
new design. You just nuked the context. Seriously, mods, get your shit
together.

~~~
taspeotis
> You just took a discussion of how this was a clone of HN website and half
> way through turned into... into what exactly?

Considering the conversation was "it's not a HN clone" I think the mods have
their shit together.

~~~
lnanek2
Sure looks like one to me. HN is a tech startup focused link sharing and
discussion site. So is this. The one claim to the contrary by those involved
in this thread doesn't even contradict that, they say it is for sharing the
links they are browsing. Basically the same except they have more power on
their site than here.

------
k-mcgrady
I wouldn't call it a HN clone. It's not like HN was an original idea - it's
just a news voting site (Reddit, Digg etc.) with a specific niche. The
important part of each of these sites is the community, not the idea.

~~~
lnanek2
And the niche in this case is exactly the same...

~~~
alexanderpease
We'd like it to be differentiated. Discussions on how we view things can be
quite different from how the tech community at large does. So we think there's
value in other people seeing a discussion from that angle, as well as being
the first online community in which you can directly engage in a discussion
with a VC

------
minimaxir
I just registered using Twitter and submitted a post of my own content. Seems
to work, although I'm curious if it will get deleted since I'm not cool enough
to associate up-and-center with the venture crowd.

Unlike HN, you _must_ submit text in the body of a submission. Which is
somewhat redundant.

~~~
alexanderpease
our thought process was that if you can't write something interesting about
the link, even just a sentence, it's probably not worth posting

it also has the benefit of engendering more of a discussion. i'm more likely
to comment on a post if the OP has already commented on it him/herself

but yes this is something we talked about internally

~~~
minimaxir
In my case, I just copy/pasted a sentence from the article itself, and that
seems to be the case for many of the current submissiosn to USV.com.

------
thejosh
Pretty sure it's a digg/reddit/hn/whatever clone.

~~~
simlevesque
I call them linkdumps.

------
briandear
At least the USV site looks good on mobile unlike the pinch to zoom nonsense
needed for HN.

------
downandout
Ironically, this post is currently #1 on there.

[http://prntscr.com/1xn49j](http://prntscr.com/1xn49j)

------
beingpractical
I loved their 404 page - [http://www.usv.com/404](http://www.usv.com/404)

------
danso
This is an attractive design and it's always good to have another place to
discuss things.

My biggest problem, on first impressions, is that the design gives the most
emphasis to the least important part: the submitter. What I love about HN and
Reddit is that I can get through someone's 600-word comment and be thoroughly
enlightened or angered and not care or even notice that it was authored by
tptacek or some long-time lurker with just 50 karma. It's only because I've
read HN frequently that I quickly associate tptacek's handle (if I stop to
look at the handle) with having karma...otherwise, he's just some other
commenter with something very insightful or aggravating to read...HN's design
rightfully de-eephasizes the authority given by identity to a comment and
submission, letting the content stand for itself. This is the exact opposite
the USQ forum's current design, with Twitter handles overpowering everything
else, even the already too-large and boldened headlines.

Edit: I don't mind the use of Twitter handles. I think the avatars should be
axed, though, and perhaps the handles should be moved to the far right so that
the user has to read the headline before being able to notice the submitter
name. Yes, I realize this would make it very close to a "HN ripoff" but big
deal...copy the best parts of HN.

~~~
lnanek2
There have been studies showing pictures with articles increase interest. Even
GMail and Google search have been moving that direction. GMail on Android now
has pictures next to the emails. Google search now checks the site author
information and shows pictures. So USV is inline with modern best practices,
HN isn't on this. You have good ideals wanting no pictures and to decide
everything on text, but if your ideals make the site only good for techies, it
isn't a good change for getting users and interest and contributors in
general.

------
igul222
USV.com post about this HN post: [http://www.usv.com/posts/union-square-
ventures-new-website-i...](http://www.usv.com/posts/union-square-ventures-new-
website-is-an-hn-clone)

~~~
joshdotsmith
HN post about this USV.com post about this HN post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6558580](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6558580)

------
joshdotsmith
I think it's okay to be an HN "clone". They're taking a clearly successful
model and using it for a community. And it's an _existing_ community, which
makes it all the more workable. Kudos!

Disclaimer: I "cloned" HN when making
[http://lifestyle.io](http://lifestyle.io). I didn't have a preexisting
community, but a small handful of people find it useful. Is there a lot of
overlap in content? Sure. Do I discover stuff I might have missed on HN? Yep.

I just wish I were a better community organizer.

------
niico
Wow. I just hope their EIR didn't come up with this. Otherwise I would feel
very disappointed. What surprise me is the lack of identity. Why? Why would
they even want to do this? They are USfuckingV. One of the most aspirational
and important funds and yet they do this. Meh. Instead of us posting stuff on
their WhateverTheyCallNewsSite we should be reading them and learning how to
do stuff.

~~~
fredwilson
this is not about you reading us

this is about us reading you

------
yeukhon
"What's going on?!

Not your fault, we're experiencing a server error. Try again in a moment!
Fail-Fred "

 _face plam_ thats all I get when I click on comment.

~~~
Blocks8
Fixed!

404 was a surprise from Nick.

------
gailees
I think we'll see a trend of VCs creating HN clones. Wouldn't be surprised if
they are already working on them.

------
antr
Brad Feld already tried starting a HN clone and didn't pan out.
[http://tech.co/brad-feld-startup-revolution-hub-2012-12](http://tech.co/brad-
feld-startup-revolution-hub-2012-12)

I don't think USV's case is any different.

~~~
fredwilson
maybe, but he didn't put in on the front page of foundry's web site.

we've been using this internally for a while to share and discuss links and we
find it very valuable

so if a community doesn't develop around this, it will likely just be a public
page where USV posts and discusses links, which in and of itself should be
useful to entrepreneurs to see what we are interested in and talking about
with each other

------
90002
Very weird approach by one of the most recognized and respected venture firms
in the industry.

Other than connecting people to unique content, I don't really get what's
going with the whole redesign and HackerNews-esque feel.

~~~
Blocks8
We wanted to take conversations that we have internally and share those with
the community. Opening it up for others to create and join conversations.

~~~
90002
Fair enough.

------
lnanek2
Haha, I liked the old title better, "Union Square Ventures' new website is an
HN clone". Much more informative and the first thing I thought when I followed
the link anyway.

------
conradfr
Well, what do you think of this French site :
[http://news.humancoders.com/](http://news.humancoders.com/) ?

(not mine)

------
kripy
At least it's responsive aka mobile friendly.

------
poink
The webfont used for the boxes down the right hand side seems to render really
poorly in Windows w/Chrome.

------
anigbrowl
Amusingly, this thread is the top story.

------
gailees
HN clone without any real userbase at all.

