

HN frontpage 3 years ago - whyleyc
http://web.archive.org/web/20070405175109/http://news.ycombinator.com/
Thought it would be amusing to take a trip down memory lane. I'd forgotten that we used to be "Startup News". Standout items for me:<p>- DropBox soliciting early feedback
- PG's business plan for ViaWeb
- Even then people were complaining about YC News addiction :)<p>Other frontpage editions here:
http://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com
======
chaostheory
The change in content is by design: <http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html>
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=78166>

PG: "As of today we've expanded the focus of news.ycombinator.com from news
about startups to news interesting to hackers generally. To reflect that we've
changed the name to Hacker News."

"The goal is not to have just articles about hacking, but articles of interest
to hackers. We're not trying to make something like programming.reddit.com,
but something like www.reddit.com was in 2006."

------
biggitybones
Pretty cool to see Dropbox's Tell HN post on there.

~~~
eekfuh
Exactly what I was thinking. \-- Update 4/4/07: We haven't launched yet, but
we are admitting people into the beta. We'd be happy to keep you posted about
the beta program and launch (your email won't be used for anything else.)

------
whyleyc
Made me chuckle - I'd forgotten that we were "Startup News" back then too.
Posts of interest for me include:

\- The original DropBox post

\- Paul Graham's business plan for ViaWeb

\- People back then complaining of addiction to YC News :)

Other frontpage versions at
<http://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com>

~~~
Estragon

      People back then complaining of addiction to YC News :)
    

It's interesting, that link isn't in either the archive or the contemporary
HN. I wonder what happened to it...

------
apgwoz
Also interesting to note that there are 50 stories on the front page instead
of 30. Was loading 20 more stories really that inefficient that this had to be
dropped?

~~~
coderdude
Probably. See <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283312>

------
yan
Does anyone conclusively know what happened to nickb?

~~~
prakash
The last Miles & I heard from his friend, Nick B was/is alive. After that we
didn't pursue it.

------
yread
Interesting to see the points inflation: where would you now find a 3 hours
old story with 14 points? Certainly not at the top of front page!

~~~
jonp
There's currently a 3 hours old story with 13 points in position 27; ie near
the bottom of the front page.

------
edw519
I'm interested in almost every item on the hn front page from 3 years ago. Now
I'm usually interested in only about 25% of them. I wonder what's changed, me
or hn?

~~~
iamwil
Probably half and half. I read less than half of the stuff on HN now.

Part of it is a lot of it is not new now. I've read a lot about the lean
startups, or joel's ben and jerry vs amazon, or mel the programmer, or the 500
mile email. I've been here long enough to have seen repeats of the same
themes. As you grow, the less things surprise you, and hence perhaps less
interesting.

And the other part is that I don't really care for the apple gossip, or a
picture of woz, or the lighter stuff, but then again, I've only sporatically
submitted stuff too.

I've noticed you've submitted less stuff and don't participate as much. The
edw519 era has gone, where you submitted stuff and commented. Nowadays, it's
the patio11 era, where he submits his own stuff and comments.

~~~
edw519
_The edw519 era has gone_

Oh I sure hope not. I love building things. I love hacker news. And I love
talking about building things on hacker news.

It just seems that lately, I've been doing a whole lot more building than
talking. Whenever I take my hn breaks, not much on the front page jumps out at
me, so I just get right back to work. (This is a good thing).

It's probably just another phase. For the edw519 era to be truly gone, they'd
have to pry my keyboard from my OCD hands.

[Ditto on patio11. Great stuff.]

~~~
iamwil
Haha, great! I just notice that you've been posting less.

And where the heck is nickb? He also disappeared off the leader board, so I
have my suspicions. :) hrm.

~~~
philwelch
A lot of people whose karma otherwise rate leaderboard status have been
manually removed (especially pg).

In nickb's case, it's likely because his account has been dormant for almost a
year. He may have passed away (<http://markenomics.com/item?id=395>) but it's
also likely he just decided to take his leave of Hacker News and a number of
other online communities.

------
Legion
I'm glad it's not called "Startup News" any more. I probably would have just
glanced at the page and left. And then where would I find the kind of techy,
software development article links that I regularly add to my company's wiki?

------
fogus
Viewing your 3-years-hence profile is fun too.
[http://web.archive.org/web/20080113124511/news.ycombinator.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20080113124511/news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fogus)

------
far33d
Ah how times have changed. Two of those top stories were submitted by me
(albeit, not very interesting ones). I haven't submitted a front page story in
ages.

------
brown9-2
Wow, I was just accidentally browsing the "3 years ago" HN for about 5
minutes, not even realizing that I wasn't looking at the current view.

------
locopati
The more things change the more they stay the same?

MSFT: Always one step behind I am addicted to YC News Why to Not Start a
Startup

------
mwilcox
Holy shit, 2007 was 3 years ago

------
jrockway
The leaders page is interesting:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.c...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.com/leaders)

I think I've gotten more karma on some posts than existed in the system at
that time :)

------
danudey
Did anyone else open the page in a new tab and forget about it, and then later
on wonder why the heck every link on the HN front page went to archive.org?

It was crazy confusing until I noticed the address bar.

------
jayair
I remember emailing Dharmesh after he made that post. I was still in school
and had just started getting absorbed into the startup culture.

------
chipsy
I have some occasional complaints, but I like it how it is now, and it seems
to be handling growth reasonably well. I vaguely remember reading it when it
was Startup News, but I feel like I've absorbed most of the "common startup
knowledge" already, hence those articles are ones my eyes drift pass. There
was also a lot more overt pg-fandom in the early site.

------
Readmore
Haha awesome! One of the, very few, days that one of my posts was in the top
3. Thanks, you just made my day.

------
iamelgringo
The articles were really only the gravy. The meat and potatoes back then were
the discussions and comments.

~~~
ax0n
While there are less "start a thread without a URL" discussions on the HN
front page these days, I still value greatly the HN discussion about the
links.

------
GFischer
Quite a lot more emphasis on startups. I like the current mix of news more (I
wasn't here back then), but the original crew apparently doesn't like it that
much (I've seen complains about us new readers turning this into the new
Slashdot/Reddit/whatever)

------
samratjp
The page back then feels like a small village community. There aren't a crazy
number of comments, just a few tacit ones. Today, HN feels like as if the
small village had a gold rush of visitors and "tourists."

------
ashishb4u
How come nobody appreciated the UI!!! I personally believe HN has an awesome
UEx quotient and would look the same even 3 and more years later!!

------
joegaudet
Where are all the Apple and Erlang stories?

------
elblanco
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

------
strait
HN has now gone back in time and jumped itself!

------
rokhayakebe
I felt emotional for a quick minute.

