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Kevin Rose usually gets a lot of crap about Digg when posts about him show up. And you know, sure, Digg might be considered a tragedy to some (which, come on, r
by reason 16y ago
Kevin Rose usually gets a lot of crap about Digg when posts about him show up. And you know, sure, Digg might be considered a tragedy to some (which, come on, really isn't), but I really, really respect the guy.
He really helped usher in the social web era, as neither a designer or a coder, mind you. He hustled his site using the opportunities at hand, raised tons of money, got shot to be on covers of some really huge magazines, and probably had a ridiculously fun time through it all.
If you listen to some of his videos, it's easy to see that he's got lots of big ideas, and he's put himself in a position to make it happen (again, without bringing any technical skills to the table, which, I think, is impressive and speaks to his ability to inspire people). If you look at his about.me/kevinrose, you'll find that he's also an investor in lots of really popular services, and he's well-connected with the best of the best in the valley.
So, props to Kevin. He's done some big things (Digg, Revision3), other smaller ones (Pownce, WeFollow), and seems to be onto others. I certainly would love to be in his position.
- bkudria 16y agoAccidental downvote, sorry! You make a good point of course.
- aaronbrethorst 16y agoAccording to his Wikipedia article, he spent some time at UNLV pursuing a Computer Science degree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rose#Early_life http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rose#Early_life)
- alnayyir 16y agoHe's still not an HN caliber programmer and it wasn't his primary contribution to the company...which is the point.
- igorgue 16y agoHN caliber I'm sorry but there are lots of non-programmers here (even in the top 10 users). You might consider them not HN caliber.
- alnayyir 16y agoIf they're not programmers then I'm not talking about an HN caliber programmer am I? Programming is like sex. Once you've found somebody enthusiastic about it, true excellence will come naturally with time and practice.
- mattdeboard 16y agoWith logic like this, I suspect you're not what you meant by "HN caliber programmer" either.
- PostOnce 16y agoI think it would be safe to say that there are more amateur and intermediate programmers on HN than there are consummate professionals...
- patrickod 16y agoI think you raise one particularly good point in that while not everyone has the coding skills to make things many people have as you say "big" ideas. Bringing them to fruition by any means possible helps everyone as it brings the field forward. Digg started a trend of such sites and has in doing so made the web a better place to browse, even if the original site is no longer the best example.
- jrockway 16y agoHow was Digg fundamentally different from Slashdot? No editors?
- blutonium 16y agoYeah, articles on /. were approved by CmdrTaco et al. Digg was basically the first to let users vote on stories to get them to the front page.
- jdp23 16y agowell, kuro5hin and others had done this before. Digg was the first to break through to broad usage on this (at least in the US).
- mkramlich 16y agoYeah I remember fleeing to Kuro5hin for a while when it appeared Slashdot was first "degrading", back in the late 90's. I don't think K5 ever got really attractive enough for me to stick with them for very long. I then had a pretty long gap in my "uber-nerd website addiction feeding" department until I discovered HN.
- ojbyrne 16y agoDigg really took off when two things happened: 1. Silverorange came on board and made a beautiful design. 2. We jumped all over this cool new thing called "Ajax," though really we were on it when it was still XMLHttpRequest. Humbly, I think I deserve credit for 2 at digg. I didn't invent ajax, but I was kind of enthusiastic about it back in 2005, enough to make it work for us.
- btucker 16y agoDigg showed a lot of people that crowd-sourced editorial curation could work. While Digg certainly wasn't the first to do this, I think it was the first to reach a certain level of critical mass to make it an incredibly compelling news portal.
- Stormbringer 16y agoHe had some amazing achievements, but got too greedy and didn't sell on the way up. Problem is, on the way down you don't get a premium price...
- shareme 16y agoahem, you are mistaken that Kevin has no tech skills..his degree area of concentration was CS in fact..
- ojbyrne 16y agoNo he's not. Kevin is a product person, a tv host, but if by tech skills, you mean ability to program, then no.