

My view on TechCrunch's "Some things need to change" post and a proposed solution. - amichail

The problem here is that starting a web service has become so cheap and easy that there is now ridiculous competition for eyeballs.<p>The vast majority of startups probably don't get a fair chance at success and this can be very frustrating to their founders.<p>IMO, we need a new way to advertise.  Paid advertising doesn't work particularly well when targeted to early adopters (who tend to ignore/block ads).  And bloggers such as Arrington are already overwhelmed.<p>The solution IMO is to make self-promotion socially acceptable and mutually beneficial.<p>This means not getting upset when people self-promote on reddit and Hacker News.<p>But we can go further with services such as  http://www.readmytweets.com that are designed specifically for mutually beneficial self-promotion.
======
ericwaller
Self-promotion already is socially acceptable, so long as it's tactful and
respectful. Submitting a ton of blog posts to social news sites and twittering
non-stop about yourself is neither.

 _"The vast majority of startups probably don't get a fair chance at success"_

No one comes to _deserve_ success just by starting a company.

~~~
amichail
That's why we need new kinds of mutually beneficial self-promoting services
where non-stop self-promotion is the norm.

------
pclark
I don't think people get upset when they self promote on Hacker News.

There is a very fine line between self promotion and spam. I've said it in
other threads - I can't think of anything cooler than the "review my app"
posts here, and love it when people email/twitter me cool stuff.

~~~
amichail
People should not be accused of spam no matter what. That's why things need to
change.

~~~
simonk
No, you have to be nice to your customers and if your promoting it to us then
that's what your looking for.

Freshbooks just did a blog post (
[http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/01/28/techcrunch-is-
not-...](http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/01/28/techcrunch-is-not-a-
marketing-plan/) )

"You need to be out in the world, going after your own customers, treating
them well, earning their admiration and recommendations, and continuing to
build your business for the future."

If you can't take enough of your time to figure out how to write a self-
promotion post here than why would we think your going to care about us if we
become an actual customer.

Almost everybody here does a self-promotional post but they do it with care,
stay active and the thread and make people that go check out the site and
comment feel like they've helped.

