
Svbtle is hiring to build the future of news and opinion on the web - dko
http://blog.svbtle.com/the-future
======
SCdF
So I'm just a simple country lad who doesn't understand the big silicon valley
city, but I really don't get svbtle. This is coming from someone who is (I
imagine) part of 'the masses' who has been linked posts from there but
otherwise has no involvement.

It's.. a curated collection of blogs? Why can't you just have a blog? I've
probably been linked a dozen or so blogs inside that network (always from HN,
I've never noticed traction anywhere else), but at no point has there been any
cross promotion, so the fact that it was inside svbtle barely seemed to
matter.

On 'barely': so far the fast majority of posts that have come out of svbtle
have not actually been very good, and the curated 'we are the cream of the
internet crop' pretentious feeling you get is not that positive.

Basicially, for me, a blog being inside svbtle seems to have negligible
effect, and that effect is a negative one.

Maybe I'm missing the point though.

~~~
dorian-graph
Why are there so many people here on HN to reflexively find Svtble pretentious
and whatever similar adjectives they use??

When it was first shown, there was a common feeling in the posts of not being
picked by a kid at school to play in the lunch time soccer team. :P

The internet, and I guess I'll say life in general, needs more curation and
less dumping. We speak of design and other wonderful things yet we encourage
mindless undesign dribble in apparent content creation, relationships and
other ways—it strikes of me being partial whores.

~~~
jmduke
A lot of the blogs on svbtle aren't very good.

That is not to disparage the platform itself -- I like the style and the
emphasis it places on content -- nor Dustin, who I find pretty fascinating,
but the blogs just aren't good. I don't mean 'not good' in the sense of 'oh,
this is poor writing', but in the sense of 'the consumption of this content
was not worth my time.'

A few examples: \- Dave McClure, who I admire and respect, writing a
ridiculous blog post about 'hoping to be a late bloomer.' Dude, you have a
Wikipedia article about yourself.

\- Dalton Caldwell, who's proved himself time and time again to be prescient
(his 2010 YC speech is wonderful in its truths), has been blogging about the
importance of app.net. If I'm a developer, a tweeter, and a general tech
enthusiast who, after three pretty lengthy blog posts, still doesn't
understand what a "decentralized real-time feed" is -- let alone why its
important -- then something is wrong.

\- Dozens of fluff pieces which serve as little more than porn for the SV
crowd.

I want Svbtle to succeed, and honestly think it will. I don't think that
success is going to come when its definition of 'curation' involves what it
currently does.

~~~
dorian-graph
> A lot of the blogs on svbtle aren't very good. I want Svbtle to succeed, and
> honestly think it will. I don't think that success is going to come when its
> definition of 'curation' involves what it currently does.

I agree with you—there needs to be a lot more than just curating _who_ posts
or at least the seemingly main prerequisite being well known in an area.

Yeah, over time once the network matures, Dustin improves upon his idea, etc,
it will be much better.

------
bslatkin
We've completely severed the relationship between us and reality

~~~
tptacek
I know it doesn't feel like it now, but I promise it will wear off. Next time
don't take so much.

------
pbiggar
When I read this, I see my old YC2010 startup NewsLabs/NewsTilt. I maintain
that was a good idea, but I wasn't the one to do it. My lessons are at
<http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut-newstilt-down>, and it looks
like Dustin has a handle on most of it.

Dustin has a lot that we didn't - a good sense of design, a large following,
writers already contributing, and from the look of this, some cash. We had
writers too, but they were checking out the latest fad, not actually writing
for their own purposes. We didnt have the followers/brand awareness to
bootstrap traffic - I think svbtle does.

I think he's doing some of the things which for us were mistakes, but they
might not be in the context of svbtle. For example, we also made our own CMS
instead of using wordpress. That was definitely a mistake for us, but I'm not
convinced it is here - could go either way.

He's making the branding all about svbtle instead of about the journalist.
That was definitely a mistake for us, again I'm not positive it is a mistake
here - svbtle actually has a brand (even if some people think its a
pretentious one).

He's making it about journalism instead of about blogging. I think that's a
mistake. Journalism is a horrible niche to be in and I would hate to be a
journalist. It has expectation of journalistic purity and a hypocritical hype
machine around traffic. Better to be a blog network - I think it's closer to
what svbtle is now and I believe that has the potential to be bigger than just
journalism.

We werent motivated by journalism - I've never heard of Dustin being either. I
think he made svbtle to be a better blog, so why not focus on that? I could be
wrong here - I dont know Dustin well at all.

I think they're aiming for the right level of writer - definitely those who
want to make something for themselves. We didnt:
[http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut-newstilt-
down...](http://blog.paulbiggar.com/archive/why-we-shut-newstilt-down/#worse-
is-better)

Anyway, this looks like it might work. I cringe when I read about it because
it brings back the awful memories of a failed startup, but I could see this
succeeding. Best of luck Dvstin!

------
marcamillion
Err....what? Am I missing something here? While I know Dustin is a "design
genius"...did he raise some money or is there some monetization plan (in the
short term) that I am not aware of?

I mean, I fully agree with the premise of the current state of journalism.

This solution does seem awesome - it's one of the reasons I love The
Economist.

But as a potential writer, I am not keen on necessarily jumping into something
where I don't know what the future might look like.

------
malandrew
I get the impression that Svbtle is more trying to be the TED network of
blogging (with a focus only on the T and not the ED right now), since most of
the people who've been invited to participate are accomplished in tech some
way.

------
petercooper
_We’ve completely severed the relationship between content and revenue_

It's a bold claim/goal with, in my experience, a dearth of successful
precedent (in cases where there _is_ non-trivial revenue, of course) and tells
me the business model will certainly be interesting.

~~~
loceng
I assume they're expecting to get free content creation from their curated
selection of blog posters, and part of to keep 'quality' up offer editorial
services. I see some flaws in what they're doing so far. Will have to see how
they navigate it all. Certainly be interesting is right.

~~~
tptacek
You don't think that when they say they're looking for people to write long-
form journalism, they expect to pay people to write long-form journalism?

------
wmf
"make something noteworthy" — interesting choice of words. Nothing is
noteworthy until Svbtle chooses to take note of it.

------
danielpal
Great job ad. Journalism is historically a career were people are very
unhappy. This is due to many many facts, which are hinted in the post. I bet
theres a lot of great journalist that will read this and would want to jump
into such opportunity.

------
vipervpn
Love the design of the blog. It's brilliant. So swish. The problem is they all
look the same, and it kills the branding aspect of it.

Still, there is a very clever plan unfolding and it's pretty cool. Look
forward to seeing more.

------
revelation
It's really hard to tell if they want to be the future PandoDaily or The New
York Times.

~~~
tptacek
It's really hard to understand what this comment means, as it boils down to
"it's really hard to tell if they want to be the worst of online journalism or
a rival for the best of it".

Is there some cue in the writing on this page that suggests that they're
hoping to suck?

~~~
revelation
The one has a clear focus on tech and startups, the other has a broad network
of correspondents spanning the world.

In retrospect, PandoDaily would probably make me jump to "terrible
journalism", too.

~~~
tptacek
I see the conclusion I jumped to. You were just saying, "tough to see whether
they're launching a tech news site or a global news site".

I hope it's more like the latter!

I think sites like PandoDaily have a problem similar to the one CNN has: they
have a mandate to produce more news content than there is to report. In CNN's
case it's because they've commandeered a 24/7 cable channel and entered into a
ridiculous competition; in the tech/trade press, it's because they've got such
a narrow scope --- and again, because they're in what they perceive as a
winner-take-all competition with each other.

------
nobody_nowhere
can i short this company?

~~~
tptacek
No, but if you'd like to make a bet on it, and are happy to lose money, I'm
probably happy to put $500 on the line, winnings to charity (mine's Partners
In Health).

What would you like the terms to be?

~~~
nobody_nowhere
Sure! 36 months to deadpool. I'd do $200 to NGLTF.

~~~
tptacek
You're on. My contact info is in my profile. When I inevitably win, I'll match
your dollars, because PIH is awesome. :)

~~~
petercooper
I've totally added this to my calendar for July 2015 and will be calling you
guys on it! ;-)

BTW, congratulations are in order for you topping the 100k!

------
mvzink
Based on Curtis' explanation of Svbtle[1], I took "the essence of blogging" to
be more in the graphical design sense. I wonder what Curtis (and who else is
behind Svbtle?) imagines "the future of news and opinion" looks like, and
whether he's/they're thinking about it in the socioeconomopolitical sense as
well as the graphical design sense.

[1] <http://dcurt.is/codename-svbtle>

~~~
mvzink
On another, unrelated note, I'm excited to see a company whose first hiring
post on HN is for writers and reporters, not engineers. Interesting times!

------
gunter69
Cool another propaganda network

------
Zaheer
Beautiful format and great bloggers. I love the sheer simplicity of the site
and focus on quality content. Every time I'm linked to Svbtle blog I am really
genuinely interested on what the writer has to offer because you've done a
great job of maintaining quality. Looking forward to these new writers!

------
trevorturk
I'll stick to 9rules.com, thank you very much

