

The Fans Are All Right - phil
http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/10/the_fans_are_all_right/

======
Steko
"By 2008 a whole suite of theoretical ideas about folksonomy, crowdsourcing,
faceted infomation retrieval, collaborative editing and emergent ontology had
been implemented by a bunch of friendly people so that they could read about
Kirk drilling Spock. "

It was a good run English, a solid four centuries at the top but can't really
top a sentence like that so it's all downhill from here. Chinese you've got
some big shoes to fill, 祝你好运.

~~~
sp332
Web 2.0 jargon really does sound like a parody of itself. "Microshaft Web 2.0"
video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmo1ef7tVso>

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ionfish
The really key underlying point here is that to make a web service that
expands its audience beyond people would be likely to read Hacker News, one
must consider the needs of other groups, especially those who will find the
service useful without many changes, and _reach out to those people_. That
it's the fandom community in this case is largely pertinent to Pinboard (and
anyone else working on services which might benefit that community), but the
wider point has relevance for everyone interested in more paying customers
than just web nerds.

~~~
peterb
I agree 100%, but maciej has also found something rare and rather special. A
technically savvy group that has a non-technical use case and the ability to
clearly articulate their need. Further, their needs are widely applicable to
other groups. This does not happen very often.

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jonbro
I was one of the people that was wondering about the slash fic that was
showing up on popular. Quite truthfully I don't mind it, as the popular lists
on bookmarking sites are dominated by so much link bait as to be unusable.

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phil
Man, I love everything about this post. Well written, funny title reference,
yeah, but in particular it expresses two ideas that I think are extremely
important:

* Hypercard was pretty much the high water mark as far as normal people controlling technology is concerned, and we're still trying to make the web that effective.

* When the strange people doing things you don't understand arrive, you must welcome them, and treat them with respect.

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steerpike
This is such a great and fascinating post. Really interesting information and
a really positive reaction from a developer.

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diamondhead
The real mistake is that the founder of Pinboard does run a wrong business.
I'm saying this as a Delicious user who uses it for 6 years and lost some
bookmarks during the recent retooling. It's bad for running a bookmark website
for several years and keeping emphasizing that "we're unsocial and will not
be."

maciej, I hope you'll read this; bookmarking has a bright future because it's
social and has the enough potential to replace all search engines.

an unsocial bookmarking service is a real example of waste. to me, people who
buys your unsocial archiving bookmarking service are not able to type 6 lines
of bash scripts to keep their bookmarks in a plain text file. this is what I
will do when avos kills delicious. I'll not pay for just archiving website who
thinks I'm an idiot enough to buy a poor clone of delicious of 2005.

How can you be proud of selling a clone of an old version of a popular
website? Come on!

~~~
tptacek
I pay for Pinboard. Am I an idiot? I didn't think I was, but I suppose the
jury is always out.

Maciej makes a living off Pinboard. Silly Maciej! He could be betting his
company on a 100-1 shot of making $4MM if he'd just get off his ass and talk
to the VCs! Don't worry, silly Maciej. When you inevitably fail, because 100-1
is bad odds, there's a comfortable job at any of 50 other startups waiting for
you in the valley.

~~~
diamondhead
You pay for the delicious of 2005. No more comment.

~~~
tptacek
You think I'd be better off paying for the Delicious of 2011?

~~~
diamondhead
it's your choice. I'd pick the honest one.

