7 ms·

HN frontpage 3 years ago

152 points by whyleyc 16y ago

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: - DropBox soliciting early feedback - PG's business plan for ViaWeb - Even then people were complaining about YC News addiction :) Other frontpage editions here: http://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com

biggitybones 16y ago
Pretty cool to see Dropbox's Tell HN post on there.
- eekfuh 16y ago
  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.)
far33d 16y ago
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.
whyleyc 16y ago
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 http://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com
- Estragon 16y ago
  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...
edw519 16y ago
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?
- winter_blue 16y ago
  It's sad that HN had lost so much of its former quality. Makes me yearn for the good old days.
- philh 16y ago
  If you're comparing your current interest in two iterations of hn, presumably it's hn that's changed. For myself, if anything I'm more interested in today's front page, but there's not much in it. And I'm more into the hacking aspect than startups specifically, which might be relevant.
- iamwil 16y ago
  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.
  - iamwil 16y ago
    Then again, glancing at the front page, there are still interesting things. Perhaps I just have less time to read it all and this is a compromise.
  - edw519 16y ago
    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.]
locopati 16y ago
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
GFischer 16y ago
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)
yread 16y ago
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 16y ago
  There's currently a 3 hours old story with 13 points in position 27; ie near the bottom of the front page.
joegaudet 16y ago
Where are all the Apple and Erlang stories?
apgwoz 16y ago
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 16y ago
  Probably. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283312 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283312
fogus 16y ago
Viewing your 3-years-hence profile is fun too. http://web.archive.org/web/20080113124511/news.ycombinator.com/user?id=fogus http://web.archive.org/web/20080113124511/news.ycombinator.c...
strait 16y ago
HN has now gone back in time and jumped itself!
Legion 16y ago
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?
Readmore 16y ago
Haha awesome! One of the, very few, days that one of my posts was in the top 3. Thanks, you just made my day.
rokhayakebe 16y ago
I felt emotional for a quick minute.
yan 16y ago
Does anyone conclusively know what happened to nickb?
- prakash 16y ago
  The last Miles & I heard from his friend, Nick B was/is alive. After that we didn't pursue it.
brown9-2 16y ago
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.
jayair 16y ago
I remember emailing Dharmesh after he made that post. I was still in school and had just started getting absorbed into the startup culture.
chaostheory 16y ago
The change in content is by design: http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=78166 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."
ashishb4u 16y ago
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!!
iamelgringo 16y ago
The articles were really only the gravy. The meat and potatoes back then were the discussions and comments.
- ax0n 16y ago
  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.
jrockway 16y ago
The leaders page is interesting: http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.c... I think I've gotten more karma on some posts than existed in the system at that time :)
mwilcox 16y ago
Holy shit, 2007 was 3 years ago
chipsy 16y ago
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.
elblanco 16y ago
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
danudey 16y ago
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.
samratjp 16y ago
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."

152 points by whyleyc 16y ago

biggitybones 16y ago

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

eekfuh 16y ago
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.)

far33d 16y ago

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.

whyleyc 16y ago

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 http://web.archive.org/web/*/news.ycombinator.com

Estragon 16y ago
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...

edw519 16y ago

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?

winter_blue 16y ago
It's sad that HN had lost so much of its former quality. Makes me yearn for the good old days.
philh 16y ago
If you're comparing your current interest in two iterations of hn, presumably it's hn that's changed. For myself, if anything I'm more interested in today's front page, but there's not much in it. And I'm more into the hacking aspect than startups specifically, which might be relevant.
iamwil 16y ago
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.
- iamwil 16y ago
  Then again, glancing at the front page, there are still interesting things. Perhaps I just have less time to read it all and this is a compromise.
- edw519 16y ago
  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.]

locopati 16y ago

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

GFischer 16y ago

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)

yread 16y ago

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 16y ago
There's currently a 3 hours old story with 13 points in position 27; ie near the bottom of the front page.

joegaudet 16y ago

Where are all the Apple and Erlang stories?

apgwoz 16y ago

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 16y ago
Probably. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283312 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1283312

fogus 16y ago

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

strait 16y ago

HN has now gone back in time and jumped itself!

Legion 16y ago

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?

Readmore 16y ago

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

rokhayakebe 16y ago

I felt emotional for a quick minute.

yan 16y ago

Does anyone conclusively know what happened to nickb?

prakash 16y ago
The last Miles & I heard from his friend, Nick B was/is alive. After that we didn't pursue it.

brown9-2 16y ago

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.

jayair 16y ago

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

chaostheory 16y ago

The change in content is by design: http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://ycombinator.com/hackernews.html http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=78166 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."

ashishb4u 16y ago

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!!

iamelgringo 16y ago

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

ax0n 16y ago
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.

jrockway 16y ago

The leaders page is interesting: http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://web.archive.org/web/20070406233614/news.ycombinator.c... I think I've gotten more karma on some posts than existed in the system at that time :)

mwilcox 16y ago

Holy shit, 2007 was 3 years ago

chipsy 16y ago

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.

elblanco 16y ago

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

danudey 16y ago

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.

samratjp 16y ago

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."