
Show HN: HN Follow – Follow Your Friends on HN - film42
https://hn-follow.desh.es/
======
napoleond
Cool! I've been working on a little Chrome extension that does something
similar (and has a quite similar name ;) ):
[https://github.com/napoleond/follow-hn](https://github.com/napoleond/follow-
hn)

Have been meaning to polish it a bit more, but I suppose now is as good a time
as any to share it. One outstanding feature that I think will be pretty useful
is caching user comments--right now it re-constructs the comment feed on every
page load, which isn't ideal.

~~~
fivedogit
Same here. Finished it a couple of days ago.

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh)

[https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-
backend](https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-backend)

[https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-
chromex](https://github.com/fivedogit/hn2go-chromex)

The funny part is that @raquo and I posted our "follow" apps/extensions
(separate projects) this week and got no love from HN. And then this thread
took off for some reason. Timing? Titling? God I hate the randomness of
marketing.

~~~
austenallred
I don't think it's random at all. From a would-be user's perspective it makes
complete sense to me that this post took off and yours didn't get too far. I
want to explain why, not to be a dick, but because I feel like all hackers
(myself included) have a hard time seeing things from the user's perspective.

First, the title of your submission: > Show HN: Search HN by keywords, user,
score, Read online, on mobile or RSS

It's completely unclear what your product is. Honestly it sounds like you
packaged up HN with some more CSS and an RSS reader or something? I don't
really know. "Read online?" How else would I read HN? "Search HN?" I don't
really have anyting to search for, and if I did I would just use Google.

The reason film42's post took off is because people were interested in
following. Yours didn't even mention following.

Now let's look at film42's title:

> Show HN: HN Follow – Follow Your Friends on HN

My first reaction? "Oh cool, I have a lot of friends who use HN, I wonder what
they've been saying."

Then perhaps the best part of film42's app is that he used HN's styling in a
way that almost felt like you hadn't left HN. It is completely familiar, and,
as others have pointed out, it feels like something that should have been part
of HN already. The friction of onboarding was completely eliminated - I didn't
have to sign up for or download anything, but I could use it and wanted more.
The missing auth is probably a mistake in the long-run, but missing that
feature probably reduced some friction getting started.

At the end of the day, you have 5 seconds to impress me or I'm gone. It's
quite possible, when your app doesn't take off, that the only thing you did
wrong was not use those 5 seconds.

~~~
fivedogit
You're talking about @raquo's post, not mine. I don't know raquo and they are
separate projects. Mine read: "Show HN: Follow HN users and get notified when
they do stuff". I deleted it when it got 2 upvotes in an hour.

I'd be interested why you think mine didn't work. Chrome extension link:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/logdfcelflpgcbfebi...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh)

~~~
austenallred
Ah, I thought you were working together. My apologies.

It certainly could have been a matter of posting time - film42 posted early in
the morning when most of the stuff was old. It only took a few votes to get to
the front page, yet a lot of HN users were online and voting.

But I think perhaps the bigger problem is around simplicity and familiarity. A
chrome extension is always a hard sell because to play with it I have to
download something that I have to dig out and uninstall later. I want to play
with something before I "buy" it. Now people are asking for film42's app to
become a chrome extension, but I bet if he had posted a chrome extension few
people would have downloaded it.

Getting people to a moment when they are pleased with your product before they
give up on it is probably the most difficult aspect of marketing/growth.

------
film42
Hey everyone, this was a little weekend hack. I hope you find it useful! Let
me know if you have any questions.

Feel free to check out my follow page: [https://hn-
follow.desh.es/?user=film42](https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=film42)

Another example, HN top 10: [https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=hn-
top-10](https://hn-follow.desh.es/?user=hn-top-10)

~~~
3rd3
You should verify users by giving them a code they have to put in a comment
somewhere.

~~~
austenallred
Probably in their HN profile would make the most sense.

~~~
3rd3
That’s a much better idea. It wouldn’t even require storing credentials since
the profile page can be updated pretty quickly.

~~~
film42
Feel free to make a contribution! Source: [https://github.com/film42/hn-
follow](https://github.com/film42/hn-follow)

------
porter
I honestly don't know why this isn't already built into HN.

~~~
eevilspock
Because it would undermine HN's goal that we vote for and comment on content
on its own merits, not whether it was posted or commented on by someone you
like.

I don't think HN is doing that great a job in surfacing the best content or
encouraging better discourse in comments, but making it easy to follow
favorite users instead of going to the front page would make it worse, IMHO.

~~~
fivedogit
As I was building my "follow" chrome extension...

[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpg...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/hn2go/logdfcelflpgcbfebibbeajmhpofckjh)
(shameless plug)

... I definitely wondered about this. All of a sudden, it turns HN into a
popularity contest where the elite get all the attention and everyone else is
completely ignored.

~~~
minimaxir
It should be noted that YC founders have a special Orange username that's
visible only to other YC founders. The purpose is to prevent flame wars
between founders, but I have my suspicions that such submissions receive more
up votes on average. (Cannot prove statistically without the list,
unfortunately.)

~~~
dang
> The purpose is to prevent flame wars between founders

I've never heard that one, and it's not the purpose. PG added it years ago
when the YC alumni community had gotten too big for everyone to know each
other.

------
nickstinemates
I have been using HNWatcher for this - I especially appreciate the emails it
sends.

I'll take a look. Thanks for sharing!

------
JacobAldridge
If you're scratching your head trying to think of 10 names, this might help
jog your memory -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders](https://news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

~~~
spindritf
'tptacek maintains a "must read" list in his profile. I'd add kasey_junk to
it.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek)

~~~
film42
I made one with a few of the usernames on his must follow list: [https://hn-
follow.desh.es/?user=tptacek-must-read](https://hn-
follow.desh.es/?user=tptacek-must-read)

------
RRWagner
Is there a current open-source version of HN that one could use to create a
small HN for a group of friends? How close of a clone to HN could one create
using Wordpress?

~~~
chriskelley
You could start from the lobste.rs source, available here:
[https://github.com/jcs/lobsters](https://github.com/jcs/lobsters)

There is a mirror floating around of news.arc[1], the original version of HN
from pg, but it's pretty dated and missing tons of the secret sauce.

[1][https://github.com/wting/hackernews](https://github.com/wting/hackernews)

------
vermooten
I haven't got any friends :(

~~~
mhurron
Quit complaining, it simplifies a lot.

------
liotier
Follow you enemies too !

