Hi gjulianm - sorry you didn't agree with this post.
My hope wasn't to tout 5in5nyc so much as to call others to action to start things like it in their areas to help fix the problem themselves. 5in5nyc is very much a side project for me, and I have no intentions for it other than to do something good for the community rather than simply complaining.
I do disagree regarding whether there's an establishment, and I'm hearing the same from the founders I'm talking to. It's becoming extremely hard to get covered by the existing blogs even with exciting, relevant news. In turn the big tech blogs have become "kingmakers" where a post can be a crucial factor in a startup's success.
That imbalance has many side effects, very few of which are good for the community in my opinion. I hope to help, and that others join in with us.
First of all, sorry for the tone of my previous comment - shouldn't comment when I'm in a hard day. As I said, I like the idea of covering new startups, and the way you're doing it seems pretty good.
About the establishment. Yes, it's becoming harder to get covered, but I don't think that's a problem, neither is fault of the editors of these blogs.
In tech blogs, you don't get covered only because your startup is so well done, or so technically perfect. You get covered because the writer thinks that their readers can be interested in your startup. This is the main reason most of the time. Exciting, relevant news? That's under your point of view. For the writer of a blog, that new feature you're adding may not be that interesting for the readers. Why? Well, there're a bunch of reasons: it does not change the main purpose of your startup, it's cool but not really useful... Or maybe the writer thinks it's great and you get covered, who knows. In a world where new startups and new features appear every day, you need something special to stand out. I'm both a writer for a tech blog and an app developer, so I know a bit of both worlds and things that are ultra-exciting to me as a developer, are pretty boring to me as a writer.
Also, take into account that getting a post in TC, or TNW or whatever does not mean you're going to succeed. Here in HN there was a post which showed that these posts drive a lot of traffic, but few users become active users of your startup. I've checked this with some friends, the last one I can remember got ~1% conversion rate (from visitors to active users) after being reviewed in a tech blog.
And also, you can succeed without being reviewed in a tech blog. You know, make a great product and you will have few customers but they will be very engaged. Eventually this user base will grow and you will get covered just because they want to write about you, not the other way round. It's harder, but more secure.
Well, why don't you write an article about this establishment, it's strengths & weaknesses? It's a system, and hackers like to understand how systems work. I think if you're getting static it's because your title promised some insight about a system, an error mode, and correcting for that error (which is particularly juicy) but offered none of it.
My hope wasn't to tout 5in5nyc so much as to call others to action to start things like it in their areas to help fix the problem themselves. 5in5nyc is very much a side project for me, and I have no intentions for it other than to do something good for the community rather than simply complaining.
I do disagree regarding whether there's an establishment, and I'm hearing the same from the founders I'm talking to. It's becoming extremely hard to get covered by the existing blogs even with exciting, relevant news. In turn the big tech blogs have become "kingmakers" where a post can be a crucial factor in a startup's success.
That imbalance has many side effects, very few of which are good for the community in my opinion. I hope to help, and that others join in with us.