5 ms·

It starts out with that title trying to piggyback on Marc Andressen's famous article. Then by 1/3 of the way through, it's full on "Apache Kafka® and its uses"

by ken 7y ago

It starts out with that title trying to piggyback on Marc Andressen's famous article. Then by 1/3 of the way through, it's full on "Apache Kafka® and its uses". I feel cheated. I was ready to defend the non-software companies of the world, but the article has very little to do with the title. It seems like just an ad.

flashgordon 7y ago
Thank you thank you thank you. As soon as I saw your quote "Apache Kafka" the first thing that went through my mind was whether this was going to be a Confluent article and lo behold the title (and link) said it all, saving precious cycles!
arthurcolle 7y ago
Agreed. There should be law that forces all advertising to be within a dedicated HTML tag called <marketing> so that anyone can just opt in to a plugin that deletes all marketing tags. Would that clean up the Web or what!
- rolltiide 7y ago
  But then ad companies wouldn't be software anymore!
  - arthurcolle 7y ago
    Win-win!
- dominotw 7y ago
  HN is "marketing" for ycombinator.
  - arthurcolle 7y ago
    Well somehow it doesn't seem quite as toxic as newsvertisements similar to original post in question, and despite my original statement, I still enjoy posting here, so clearly this is a spectrum and what you are describing and what I am talking about are not quite identical. There's a difference between offering up a startup-oriented forum that still encourages people to post anything that is intellectually stimulating and interesting, while still allowing it to be an outlet for YC-backed startups to post and share things for discussion vs. posting a news article that piggybacks on Andreessen's well-publicized and becomes marketing spin about a specific product after a few introductory paragraphs. Just like how there's a difference between allowing a few "sponsored posts" on a search page, and having all of the front page be sponsored posts. Does that make more sense? Do you disagree that there's a difference between those two things?
    - dominotw 7y ago
      > Do you disagree that there's a difference between those two things? Yes. Although, I didn't make the assertion that they are the same.
- anticensor 7y ago
  <marketing>They will just wrap everything in said tag.</marketing>
hobofan 7y ago
Sadly these days (probably has been true for a long time) the first thing to do when reading an article is checking the authors ties to a topic, and what agenda they might be trying to push. Since I already knew the company, when I saw the headline and their domain, my immediate reaction was: "Of course they would say that. They are a software vendor!"
- rstuart4133 7y ago
  My technique is to read the comments on HN first. Only this time it almost failed me. The top comments were lamenting on how misleading the headline is. They were correct of course - but nonetheless it is in in-depth article on Apache Kafa discussing it's origin story, use cases, how it was used at Linkedin, and most interesting how it used to replace ACID applications with eventual consistency. All in all, a very good article, despite the lead in waffle at the start.
behnamoh 7y ago
>> It starts out with that title trying to piggyback on Marc Andressen's famous article. Do you mean this? https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/ https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world...
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  The first sentence of the article refers and links to that article, so yes.

by ken 7y ago

flashgordon 7y ago

Thank you thank you thank you. As soon as I saw your quote "Apache Kafka" the first thing that went through my mind was whether this was going to be a Confluent article and lo behold the title (and link) said it all, saving precious cycles!

arthurcolle 7y ago

Agreed. There should be law that forces all advertising to be within a dedicated HTML tag called <marketing> so that anyone can just opt in to a plugin that deletes all marketing tags. Would that clean up the Web or what!

rolltiide 7y ago
But then ad companies wouldn't be software anymore!
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  Win-win!
dominotw 7y ago
HN is "marketing" for ycombinator.
- arthurcolle 7y ago
  Well somehow it doesn't seem quite as toxic as newsvertisements similar to original post in question, and despite my original statement, I still enjoy posting here, so clearly this is a spectrum and what you are describing and what I am talking about are not quite identical. There's a difference between offering up a startup-oriented forum that still encourages people to post anything that is intellectually stimulating and interesting, while still allowing it to be an outlet for YC-backed startups to post and share things for discussion vs. posting a news article that piggybacks on Andreessen's well-publicized and becomes marketing spin about a specific product after a few introductory paragraphs. Just like how there's a difference between allowing a few "sponsored posts" on a search page, and having all of the front page be sponsored posts. Does that make more sense? Do you disagree that there's a difference between those two things?
  - dominotw 7y ago
    > Do you disagree that there's a difference between those two things? Yes. Although, I didn't make the assertion that they are the same.
anticensor 7y ago
<marketing>They will just wrap everything in said tag.</marketing>

hobofan 7y ago

Sadly these days (probably has been true for a long time) the first thing to do when reading an article is checking the authors ties to a topic, and what agenda they might be trying to push. Since I already knew the company, when I saw the headline and their domain, my immediate reaction was: "Of course they would say that. They are a software vendor!"

rstuart4133 7y ago
My technique is to read the comments on HN first. Only this time it almost failed me. The top comments were lamenting on how misleading the headline is. They were correct of course - but nonetheless it is in in-depth article on Apache Kafa discussing it's origin story, use cases, how it was used at Linkedin, and most interesting how it used to replace ACID applications with eventual consistency. All in all, a very good article, despite the lead in waffle at the start.

behnamoh 7y ago

>> It starts out with that title trying to piggyback on Marc Andressen's famous article. Do you mean this? https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world/ https://a16z.com/2011/08/20/why-software-is-eating-the-world...

sixstringtheory 7y ago
The first sentence of the article refers and links to that article, so yes.