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Show HN: ReadThisThing – One piece of journalism in your inbox daily

45 points by awwstn 11y ago

awwstn 11y ago
Hi HN, I posted this once before when I first launched it, but it wasn't received very well. Since then I've added ten thousand subscribers and have turned the RTT newsletter into something I'm quite proud of. And I got an email from Dang (HN's moderator) asking me to repost it to give it another chance. So, here's my second attempt to show it to HN - a v2, if you will.
- sorenbs 11y ago
  Thanks - enjoying the Colbert cover right now. In a world of abundance Curation is the real value.
- minimaxir 11y ago
  > I posted this once before when I first launched it, but it wasn't received very well. A note on Show HNs: there is a difference between "wasn't received very well" and "my submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921936) didn't get any upvotes." Upvoting is a function of luck and timing and failure to get upvotes should not be taken personally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864254
  - samstave 11y ago
    +1
- krrishd 11y ago
  Really like this. One suggestion/request: Is is possible to crosspost it daily to an official Twitter account for it? The benefit being that I could turn on notifications for every time the account would tweet, as opposed to having to sift through emails to find it.
roymurdock 11y ago
Here's a list of recent articles for anyone who is interested but wants to sample before committing: http://readthisthing.com/archive http://readthisthing.com/archive
- azinman2 11y ago
  I was just about to say that I wish the home page had this. Now that I look back again I see a 'see the archive' link, but considering I was skimming the page in the first place the design didn't pop. I'd suggest having a section that is the latest 3 things, or something to that effect that takes as much space on the page as all the other bits so I figure out better if I want this or not.
nathancahill 11y ago
If you like this you might also like Longform (http://longform.org/ http://longform.org/)
- a_t 11y ago
  Also http://www.aldaily.com/ http://www.aldaily.com/
daturkel 11y ago
Not to poach—I'm a big fan of Read This Thing!—but I've been semi-frequently updating great reads to a side-project site of my own. Reads, etc.: http://readsetc.com/ http://readsetc.com/ I recently started working full time so I'm still trying to figure out how best to schedule it (and I can see now that I'm definitely due for a few new posts!), but I intend to keep it going for the time being. I'm open to any and all feedback.
azinman2 11y ago
So I tried to sign up, got the capcha, and then was redirected back to the main page. Don't know if I was signed up or not (or what the error was otherwise), but so far nothing in my email. Update: I did receive the email, but some kind of confirm on the web would be helpful.
- awwstn 11y ago
  Shoot. It's supposed to redirect here but was broken: http://readthisthing.com/success http://readthisthing.com/success Fixed now, thanks for pointing it out.
sanderjd 11y ago
Do you have an RSS feed? I understand why collecting email addresses is more attractive for providers of newsletter services like this, and it's true that people with RSS readers are a niche audience compared to people who will read emails, but from an RSS-user's perspective, I find email newsletters much less convenient, and end up unsubscribing from nearly all of them. Edit: But good job on the curation! I didn't mean to sound so negative, I bring this up because I want to subscribe.
- daturkel 11y ago
  It's funny, I used to be a heavy Google Reader, and then Feedly user. But eventually I switched over to newsletters for "push" news discovery. I think in some ways, an inbox is an appropriate way to consume news (and seems to almost always come with a degree of curation and digging out the signal from the noise).
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    > I think in some ways, an inbox is an appropriate way to consume news I guess I really don't see any ways in which it is superior (for me, the reader) to a feed reader. I use email to communicate with people, not to consume content. They are such different use cases that I just don't see why it makes sense to have them in the same place.
- awwstn 11y ago
  For me, part of what has been fun about this project is exploring email as a content delivery platform. Obviously, that's not a new thing, but I sort of got to a point of thinking email was dead for this type of thing – and it's been cool to see how engaged people are with it. I'm not sure what the plans are going forward beyond continuing to curate awesome stories, but I'll chalk up one vote for getting RSS on the roadmap.
  - sanderjd 11y ago
    Yeah totally get it, the curation is the important part! Keep up the good work, and thanks for the project.

45 points by awwstn 11y ago

Hi HN, I posted this once before when I first launched it, but it wasn't received very well. Since then I've added ten thousand subscribers and have turned the RTT newsletter into something I'm quite proud of. And I got an email from Dang (HN's moderator) asking me to repost it to give it another chance. So, here's my second attempt to show it to HN - a v2, if you will.

sorenbs 11y ago
Thanks - enjoying the Colbert cover right now. In a world of abundance Curation is the real value.
minimaxir 11y ago
> I posted this once before when I first launched it, but it wasn't received very well. A note on Show HNs: there is a difference between "wasn't received very well" and "my submission (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921936 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9921936) didn't get any upvotes." Upvoting is a function of luck and timing and failure to get upvotes should not be taken personally: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9864254
- samstave 11y ago
  +1
krrishd 11y ago
Really like this. One suggestion/request: Is is possible to crosspost it daily to an official Twitter account for it? The benefit being that I could turn on notifications for every time the account would tweet, as opposed to having to sift through emails to find it.

roymurdock 11y ago

Here's a list of recent articles for anyone who is interested but wants to sample before committing: http://readthisthing.com/archive http://readthisthing.com/archive

azinman2 11y ago
I was just about to say that I wish the home page had this. Now that I look back again I see a 'see the archive' link, but considering I was skimming the page in the first place the design didn't pop. I'd suggest having a section that is the latest 3 things, or something to that effect that takes as much space on the page as all the other bits so I figure out better if I want this or not.

nathancahill 11y ago

If you like this you might also like Longform (http://longform.org/ http://longform.org/)

a_t 11y ago
Also http://www.aldaily.com/ http://www.aldaily.com/

daturkel 11y ago

Not to poach—I'm a big fan of Read This Thing!—but I've been semi-frequently updating great reads to a side-project site of my own. Reads, etc.: http://readsetc.com/ http://readsetc.com/ I recently started working full time so I'm still trying to figure out how best to schedule it (and I can see now that I'm definitely due for a few new posts!), but I intend to keep it going for the time being. I'm open to any and all feedback.

azinman2 11y ago

So I tried to sign up, got the capcha, and then was redirected back to the main page. Don't know if I was signed up or not (or what the error was otherwise), but so far nothing in my email. Update: I did receive the email, but some kind of confirm on the web would be helpful.

awwstn 11y ago
Shoot. It's supposed to redirect here but was broken: http://readthisthing.com/success http://readthisthing.com/success Fixed now, thanks for pointing it out.

sanderjd 11y ago

Do you have an RSS feed? I understand why collecting email addresses is more attractive for providers of newsletter services like this, and it's true that people with RSS readers are a niche audience compared to people who will read emails, but from an RSS-user's perspective, I find email newsletters much less convenient, and end up unsubscribing from nearly all of them. Edit: But good job on the curation! I didn't mean to sound so negative, I bring this up because I want to subscribe.

daturkel 11y ago
It's funny, I used to be a heavy Google Reader, and then Feedly user. But eventually I switched over to newsletters for "push" news discovery. I think in some ways, an inbox is an appropriate way to consume news (and seems to almost always come with a degree of curation and digging out the signal from the noise).
- sanderjd 11y ago
  > I think in some ways, an inbox is an appropriate way to consume news I guess I really don't see any ways in which it is superior (for me, the reader) to a feed reader. I use email to communicate with people, not to consume content. They are such different use cases that I just don't see why it makes sense to have them in the same place.
awwstn 11y ago
For me, part of what has been fun about this project is exploring email as a content delivery platform. Obviously, that's not a new thing, but I sort of got to a point of thinking email was dead for this type of thing – and it's been cool to see how engaged people are with it. I'm not sure what the plans are going forward beyond continuing to curate awesome stories, but I'll chalk up one vote for getting RSS on the roadmap.
- sanderjd 11y ago
  Yeah totally get it, the curation is the important part! Keep up the good work, and thanks for the project.