

The HN Digest trial - juliancorlet
http://hndigest.wordpress.com/

======
brianchu
It isn't the article that I usually spend the most time reading. It's in the
comments where most of HN's learning value lies, and thus where most of my
time is spent. If the summaries included an outline of the
opinions/takeaways/great resources mentioned in the comments, that would make
the product that much more worthwhile.

I also tend to hoard links. If there's a great thread on Haskell, for example,
I'll bookmark it (save it to Pocket), with the intention of going back to the
thread if/when in the future I decide to learn Haskell.

Ultimately, though, the problem is that whether or not I pay for this depends
on whether this tool actually weans me off HN. If the summaries are so high
quality as to get me off HN (except to post comments myself), I would pay $50
a month for this. If I still find myself reading threads by myself on HN, I
wouldn't pay anything.

~~~
juliancorlet
A couple of excellent points there! You're right, so much of the value is in
the comments. I guess it comes down to scale. There is a minimum threshold
required to justify producing the summaries. The more subs, the more features
can be justified.

To your point on hoarding links, a comment came through from the form that
they would like to see tagging functionality. I wonder if there's something
there?

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alexvr
I love the idea, but I don't know why your poll didn't include a $0 option.
Personally, I would prefer to simply "be interested" in an ad or two on your
site every once in a while if I enjoy the service. I think you need to show
people that your digested articles are worth >= $3 per month before you start
charging. Get some dedicated readers who really value the service by doing it
for free/with ads at first, then change to a subscription-based service. Maybe
even offer a short "early adopter" program where those who sign up early can
read for free after you start charging. Just my opinion.

~~~
juliancorlet
Hi Alex, I think a free option would be a great idea for a summary service
with a larger market, I just don't know if the HN audience could sustain it.
If I get a ton of responses who are just curious but not many willing to pay I
will come back to that as a concept.

On gauging the quality of the service, I've included a sample digest on the
site which I hope helps. However I take your point. People may well want to
see that the level of quality is sustained.

------
dy
If this service interests you, you can also subscribe for free to my Hacker
News daily summary at [http://hnsummaries.com/](http://hnsummaries.com/)

(the summaries are automatically generated)

------
samjc
What's the difference between this service and the Hacker Newsletter I already
get for free?
[http://www.hackernewsletter.com/](http://www.hackernewsletter.com/)

edit: "free" in the sense that I do not pay anything. However, there usually
is a sponsored ad (obviously geared towards the HN community) with the weekly
email.

~~~
juliancorlet
Hi Sam, Hacker Newsletter provides a list of the most popular links, whereas
HN Digest summarises those posts. The idea being, you might want to get the
gist of an article without reading the whole thing. I'm pretty sure Hacker
Newsletter has been around for quite a while, so it's interesting that they
have been able to make the free model work.

~~~
samjc
Are all these summaries going to be hand-written? Who will be writing them,
how many people would you have on backup in case you can't write the summaries
for that day? -- Since, you know, people would be paying for the service.

With the Hacker Newsletter, if I don't get it sometimes, I don't really care,
since it's free. However, if I were paying for a service I might feel
different about it.

I wouldn't mind trying it, but I don't think I'd pay for it. But, who knows,
others might! Good luck to you.

~~~
samjc
Here's an Idea: See how many people show interest in paying for it, and how
many do not want to pay for it. If it's worth it, let the people not wanting
to pay for it summarize it for "free" access to your service, now you don't
have to write the summaries, you just approve others' summaries.

Just an idea, also sounds like a fun project :)

~~~
juliancorlet
Awesome, awesome idea. Love it! Maybe they get a bio link out of it or
similar.

~~~
samjc
Maybe if a user writes 5-10 summaries in a month, and his summary gets picked,
he/she get's access for free the next month. Can't wait to see what you do now
:D

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jayro
I would love to see this fly. I can't count the number of 1000+ word articles
I've read that could have been reasonably summarized in a paragraph or two.
Sure, there are long articles that are so engrossing or relevant that you
wouldn't want to skip a sentence, but in my experience they turn out to be the
rare exception.

~~~
juliancorlet
Thanks Jayro, five people have expressed interest in the few minutes this post
has been up, so fingers crossed!

------
juliancorlet
For Techzing (techzinglive.com) fans, this idea came out of Jason and Justin
debating the merits of a 'TL;DR for Hacker News' service on a recent podcast.
I figured it would be simple enough to test, hence, HN Digest.

------
vimhacking
I have a small app which provides you daily archive of HN
[http://ankushhn.herokuapp.com/days?date=20130501](http://ankushhn.herokuapp.com/days?date=20130501)

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hayksaakian
instead of asking people what they would pay, just ask them to pay.

asking people what they would pay is so weak in the age of the internet and
stripe.

------
eranation
If this manages to summarize well, including explanation of complex long
technical articles, and top comments - SUATMM

