
What happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for a day - pieterhg
http://levels.io/hacker-news-number-one/
======
RyanZAG
Really interesting read on how much interaction HN brings. There is a lot to
be said for quality over quantity when it comes to page views.

I believe you are wrong about dismissing that top comment in the other post as
snarky, negative and useless. That comment has a lot of very useful
information from someone who appears to have been doing the Thailand thing
longer than you have.

1) Thai law was brought up a number of times and you do appear to be violating
it. This is probably something that needs to be said.

2) You mention how cheap it is while he believes its more expensive, but you
may have gotten a good deal or stayed in areas that others wouldn't want to.
It's your experience vs his; I see no reason to dismiss him as 'snark'.

3) He shares a number of anecdotes (sex workers, etc) that differ from your
anecdotes. Thailand is a big place, you can both be right, and the more
information the better.

~~~
phaus
One of the annoying parts of this article was that the author dismissed the
comment as "non-factual" without providing any evidence or explanation.

Apparently whenever someone writes something that the author disagrees with,
it is automatically categorized as snark.

~~~
itafroma
It's somewhat apt that a snarky, non-factual comment attacking the author like
this has risen to the top once again.

> One of the annoying parts of this article was that the author dismissed the
> comment as "non-factual" without providing any evidence or explanation.

He didn't dismiss the comment as non-factual without providing any evidence or
explanation. If read carefully, he:

* stated the other commenters called it out as non-factual (it appears at least one commenter did do that[1])

* claimed half of the dispute could be attributed to not reading the post carefully

* provided an example of where the top comment was mistaken or misread (commenter focused on Bangkok when the original story explicitly stated Bangkok was a bad place to live)

* offered up an example of a comment that he believed to be factual (the second-to-the-top one[1])

> Apparently whenever someone writes something that the author disagrees with,
> it is automatically categorized as snark.

No, it isn't. But this sentence here—where an author's attentions are
sarcastically and baselessly mischaracterized off of a misreading (or lack of
reading?) of his or her post would definitely qualify as snark.

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541956)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540371](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540371)

~~~
phaus
The original comment wasn't attacking the author, it was simply stating that
while many people seemed excited at the prospect of flying off to Thailand
(one person even emailed the author after booking tickets) that they should
slow down and consider the expenses and lifestyle changes involved. His
response was clearly intended to be humorous, but that doesn't mean that it
was intended to reflect negatively on the author. His experience was that
Thailand was an expensive place to live, I don't understand how you interpret
that as an attack against the author. Like other people have mentioned,
Thailand is a rather large place.

>He didn't merely dismiss the comment.

In his article, he only mentioned that he and many others felt that the
comment was inaccurate. That doesn't constitute evidence or explanation. If
you are stating something as a position in an article, it makes sense to
present at least a modicum of support for that position within the article
itself. Sure, you can cite sources, but in this case, his citation amounts to
"some other people said that the statement I'm about to make is correct."

~~~
chris_wot
It didn't "simply state", it used snark to do so. The tone was awful and it
wasn't necessary.

If it was simply stated, then it could have read something like this:

"Thailand has a number of issues, of which cost of loving is the main problem.
Etc."

~~~
phaus
I agree that it wasn't written in a formal, etiquette-laden tone, but I didn't
find it to be malicious or insulting. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

~~~
chris_wot
We can certainly agree to disagree. But as has been pointed out, the following
wasn't really necessary:

> Before your pop your Macbook Air in a backpack, read my points.

> Yes, you can live in a concrete block with plastic furniture and eat noodles
> on the street every day.

> Once you're sick of your local noodle vendor you'll find food prices quite
> high as well.

> If you can stomach the local swill (think Budweiser without the quality
> control) knock yourself out.

> When you're sick of taking taxis and the BTS/MRT, have fun buying a car at
> 50% - 300% above US prices.

> If you really want to fake it here it means constantly traveling in and out
> of the country.

> To not do it properly means breaking the law in a country where you most
> likely don't speak the language. Have fun with that.

> If it's not someone you've known for a decade then, well, good luck with
> that.

I think it's worthwhile quoting the HN guidelines, because they are simple to
follow and increase the quality if discussions here:

 _Be civil. Don 't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face
conversation._

 _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to
"1 + 1 is 2, not 3."_ [1]

1\.
[http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
clamprecht
Next week: What happens when your follow-up to being #1 on Hacker News ends up
being #1 on Hacker News.

~~~
Systemic33
Also featuring a snarky comment, but now about how the top comment isn't
snarky. This is so meta.

~~~
GhotiFish
Well no one was gonna make the top comment snarky after he complained about
how the top stories in Hacker News always have snarky comments. That's just
_letting_ him win.

------
balabaster
Dear Pete's Mom,

You really have no idea how much of a time sink HN really is. If I said it
took a fair portion of my day, it would be the biggest understatement of the
year.

Love from everyone who reads Hacker News

~~~
ajtaylor
I was going to post the same thing but since you've beaten me to it I'll
simply say I couldn't agree more.

------
lancewiggs
Nobody has yet given feedback on your landing page for Tubelytics (1), where
you said only one person signed up from the HN post.

From my perspective there is simply nothing there(2), and 5 seconds looking at
a static page is just not enough information for me to make a decision. That
decision is not just to give you my email address, but to "sign-up", which is
a huge step too far.

At the very least I need a "find out more" option, and I'd need that without
having to give you my email address or other details.

You clearly write very well, so why not tell the Tubelytics story underneath
the landing page. Let me scroll down and read the story, see the screenshots,
hear about the use cases and experience the success stories.

By the time people get to the end they should know what the product is, how
awesome it will be for them to use it, how much it costs and whether or not
they will buy.

(Advanced) Ideally I could play with the product and even set it up with my
youtube videos(3) without logging in, and once I experience the product then I
can save the data by creating an account and, more likely, pay you.

So rather than not getting an email, perhaps there is a better way to get a
paid sign-up.

(1) [https://tubelytics.com](https://tubelytics.com) (2) I'm OSX Safari with
flash block on (3) I'm not a target customer

~~~
pieterhg
Thanks so much for the feedback and I agree completely. I need to tell about
the product. I will relaunch it in the next 7 days.

~~~
NicoJuicy
Good luck getting on top of HN again :P

------
pothibo
For those of you who think you need a "good server" to be on the front page of
hacker news, you're wrong. My blog hit #2 on HN and landed on the front page a
few times in the last six months.

I have a Rackspace 256mb ram slice hosting Wordpress. No caching at all, none.

I also run, on the same server, a teamspeak server for a friend that still
plays games.

I peaked at 290 simultaneous people reading my post. Teamspeak server was
still working fine.

------
benologist

        These numbers tell me I’ll have to completely change 
        the landing page as it’s not converting well. 
    

Don't optimize your site for HN unless you want to spend the next two years
crawling towards your first thousand users - YouTube publishers in significant
numbers just don't hang out here. Most startups should take heed of those
numbers[1] too before they design a content strategy around HN hoping that
will give them traction.

[1] 15,000 uniques led to just 78 trials, 1 paid customer

~~~
pieterhg
For sure, although my landing page is not really telling my product's story
very well yet.

~~~
NicoJuicy
I also thought the same, if your core-audiences visited your site and they
could need it, they are probably gonna enter their mail.

But i don't think a lot of HN people have YouTube video's so important, they
would pay for tracking it.

I could be wrong though :)

------
philangist
1\. Your mom's comment was hilarious.

2\. I agree with your point about the standard top comment on most Hacker News
posts being contrarian. It can be very annoying, but having a strong
dissenting voice also helps keep BS posts in check. I have noticed a lot more
jokes as the top comments within posts though. I'm not sure if that's good or
BSD. The first example that comes mind is a post titled 'You have a 0.000007%
chance of becoming a billionaire'. The top rated comment was the common Reddit
joke 'So you're saying I have a chance'.

~~~
marcamillion
+1 on the number 1.

It's funny how all moms are the same. Hilarious!!!

------
Avalaxy
Hacker News is strange... Post that describe a product that was built in a
weekend manage to reach #1 all the time, but when I submit my project that
I've been working on for more than a month, everyone collectively ignores is,
and it receives 0 upvotes.

~~~
pieterhg
You might be suffering from the fact that HN seems predominantly OSX-based and
your app is for Windows 8. From my stats, only 1/5 of HN is on Windows.

~~~
lelandbatey
That's actually very interesting. Do your stats tell you what portion are on
Linux?

~~~
pieterhg
Yes. This is from the last two posts:

31.64% Macintosh 24.01% iOS 22.29% Windows 13.93% Android 6.95% Linux

That's ~55% on Apple browsers and at least 65% on Webkit (if you assume
everyone on Mac, iOS and Android is on Chrome/Safari).

------
anuragramdasan
I had my last post on the home page for almost a day. That spike in the
viewers count and twitter feeds are probably the most notable effect out of
it. If you need to spread any sort of awareness about any topic, HN seems to
be a great way to do that, also the fact that so many other platforms pick up
their news from HN only helps.

------
joeblau
I wrote [http://gitignore.io](http://gitignore.io) and I saw a lot more
traffic and traction by posting a link to my website in Reddit's /r/git than I
did on Hacker News. Have you tried posting on different mediums and comparing
the results?

~~~
pieterhg
Not yet, I'm finishing the launch version this week and will start posting it
around then. Thanks for the tip :)

~~~
joeblau
Cool, can't wait to see the results.

------
gtirloni
HN people rediscovering the /. effect? Learnt nothing new at all.

------
wamatt
I enjoyed reading the report back. The author laid it out clearly and
informatively. However the dismissal of the top HN comment, appears unfounded.
_[1]_

It reads like a case of minimizing dissonance. In other words, it seems the
author is attempting to rationalize away another person's viewpoint, by simply
characterizing it as snark.

Some more probable explanations why the comment made it to #1, could have
been:

\- It felt authentic. _" I've lived and built two companies in Thailand over
the last 14 years."_

\- The answer expressed a contrary viewpoint, giving HN readers a more
balanced view of the topic.

_[1][https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6541441)
_

~~~
biot
Agreed. "I had a different experience" isn't snark, it's a counterpoint.

------
gmcgraffin
Clever f __*er! Looking forward to round two of the statistics and how they
compare with the one in this article.

------
jlongster
I know I'm not the only one to find it hilarious that for every single top-HN
post you make, you can double the traffic by simply posting the status of each
one.

As much flak as HN gets, I have found that it's the best source of traffic. My
post yesterday about building a desk stayed at #2 for half a day and I got
about 20,000 views with an average time of 40 seconds.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566643](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6566643)

------
geekuillaume
I think this post will receive the same amount of viewers than the last one,
prepare your servers ! :) Joke apart, your content is quite good, well
redacted but you also have a nice and content-centered blog. It's far more
readable than other blogs or academic papers and I think it's also thanks to
this that you were featured. Keep posting your posts on HN ! Thanks

------
qwerta
Front page for a day is not that hard, if you have something relevant and
interesting. I think it is better to avoid direct description of your project,
and choose unique scenario or good story. Also good idea is to run stress test
on your site before.

I made it last year. I needed some feedback and early adopters, it was great
to kick start small community. Also my project changed name and that post made
it #1 result on Google in 3 weeks. There was handful of serious job offers as
direct result of that post, last one 3 months latter.

It has been year since my last post on HN. My project is stable-enough, I have
some pilot customers, and even made first profit this month. On other side I
have only 50 twitter followers and no invitations to conferences. So I will
probably hit HN again in a few weeks :-)

------
NicoJuicy
As a user, i interacted a lot on you're blog (read many articles and etc).

It's very well designed, has interesting content and it's easy to just read
the next article.

It's probably one of the best blogs i've ever met (excellent place for your
links (at the end of your article for a follow-up story).

And, you have converted me to the panda show. Great music!

So congrats and nice job :)

PS. You didn't convert a lot of your users, because it had nothing to do with
Tubelytics. It was an awesome read, but probably missed your core audience
attention :-) (personal opinion though).

------
AndrewKemendo
Thus Narcissus fell into the lake

~~~
GuerraEarth
This is all rippingly hilarious. Especially the last point about the mom. Then
I read the Narcissus comment. And I lost it laughing. Yet the really funny
part is that I don't think he sees himself as a Narcissus at all. He's
pointing out some stats--out loud.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
Honestly, I would have done exactly the same thing as him if I were in the
same position.

I think however we as founders can easily get focused on tracking metrics that
in the end amount to fairly trivial things. They help us make changes around
the margins, which can payoff big or just be small gains.

I think what he did was a good exercise, however the whole post, analyze, post
thing though is a tad navel gazing for my tastes.

~~~
GuerraEarth
Hey. Then if you don't really thing he was Narcissus tumbling into the
reflective pool, why did you make the remark? I thought you were criticizes
him. He wrote the article as an innocent analysis, like your reply to me said.
A lot of good people are so insulated that they have no idea how they are
viewed by others. And, to be fully analytical, I got voted 0 for my comment. :
) Which honestly, I'd rather have than a 100. It gives me challenge fodder for
improvement.

------
001sky
This is a meta test piece also on the power of sequels ! Once people are sold
on a story, you can double-down quite readily by a small incremental
expenditure of work on the n+1 piece of information that enlightens/informs
the previous one that people have a previous investment in (learning the
plot/characters/setting, etc).

Good work !

_________

150+ points on HN 170+ comments on HN

280+ points on HN 90+ comments on HN

The sequel has ~2x upvotes, plus a better karma/comment ratio as well...

------
marincounty
I wish people would stop using the word "snark". I want to believe B.F Skinner
wasn't completely right.

------
dutchbrit
Result of one of my front page articles on HN: [https://fbcdn-sphotos-
c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/41591...](https://fbcdn-sphotos-
c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/415919_10152092562360434_1943483137_o.jpg)

------
tmo9d
OMG who cares. I'm sorry, but this is just technology startup navel gazing
nonsense.

~~~
nilliams
Y Combinator is an incubator for startups. Do you also get frustrated when you
see pictures of cats on icanhascheezburger?

------
Sam121
You deserve it and your luck was with you. Finally will say
Lucky(2%),Work(49%)and Content(49%)makes your post #1. But i can understand
this awesome feeling when you receive traffic more than your month in a single
day. Keep going

------
cstrat
Am I the only person who actually enjoys Thai beer?!

~~~
nilliams
I'm with you, most beers sold in Thailand are pretty good. Singha, Tsingtao,
Tiger, Chang. The comparison to Budweiser is way off imo!

~~~
cstrat
Love them all!

------
mrpdaemon
Nice metrics, I especially liked the device breakdown: 66% desktop 25% mobile
and 9% tablet. Welcome to the post-PC era (!)

------
TallboyOne
What you need to post now is... what happens when you're #1 on Hacker News for
2 times out of 2 days.

------
itry
How do you measure the facebook shares?

------
zinx
OMG, those are great stats, I created a new account just after reading this
article.

------
macarthy12
Pieter,

Would you be interested in doing a talk on all this at the next Beercamp at
Punspace?

------
talles
I love how you are #1 talking about what happen when you're are #1

------
brenfrow
...Your website crashes and you discover what memcache is for.

~~~
justinhj
Memcache is used for storing binary data usually from web queries. This site
was all static content.

------
pattle
It's ironic how this post is also number 1

~~~
interstitial
I wish it was ironic, but I find it typically narcissistic. HN can resist a
good navel gaze with a side of a lint-picking.

------
vladmk
I imagine the next post is gonna be titled: "What happens when you're #2 on
Hacker News for a day"

------
lelf
You're again. Sorry for that

