4 ms·

sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....

by aubhat 16y ago

protomyth 16y ago
There might be a lesson here on how to get a lot of positive press, inform people that you are taking quality really seriously in an indirect way, and don't spend much money doing it.
- simonsarris 16y ago
  Yes, doubly so if the event never happened.
  - protomyth 16y ago
    Well, given the lack of fact checking on the 24-hour news networks, truth is not a pre-requisite.
Mafana0 16y ago
It's the sort of story I'd love to see more of on HN. Quite amusing and an insightful idea about PR for tech-companies.
- lawnchair_larry 16y ago
  PR has nothing to do with hacking. Just saying.
  - Mafana0 16y ago
    True. However, HN isn't just about hacking, it's about anything "good hackers would find interesting"[1]. [1]:http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - bartman 16y ago
    But with startups and business success.
  - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
    >PR has nothing to do with hacking. Just saying. Isn't PR "hacking" public perception?
    - vacri 16y ago
      We can expect more articles on cooking, which is just "hacking" food? Gardening, as it's "hacking" vegetation (literally, sometimes)? Mental illness treatment advances, because it's "hacking" the psyche?
      - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
        FWIW I've seen cooking and gardening articles here. Can't recall seeing things on mental illness but possibly stuff about drug regimens; sleep disorders have been handled several times.
  - alain94040 16y ago
    That story is a perfect example of how to hack PR for startups: do a few stunts like these, word will spread. That's hacking. Spending $1M on banner ads is not hacking.
  - rokhayakebe 16y ago
    "What would happen to overall customer satisfaction if instead of simply refunding his money, we sent an Ipad2 and added a funny note? Could that story go viral and create enough buzz that we could not get for less than $400,000 in marketing budget and countless meetings?" That sounds like hacking to me. But hey, I am no hacker, so....
cryptoz 16y ago
> sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become.... How can you possibly make a statement about the quality of Hacker News articles in a comment without proper punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, or even content? I think that if any argument is made about the trending quality of Hacker News, the evidence presented should be your comment and not this article.
- vacri 16y ago
  While content is better expressed with correct grammer, it does not automatically follow that poor grammar = no content.
teej 16y ago
I hate to be "that guy" but from the guidelines: "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" If you don't think the article is noteworthy, flag it. It's really as simple as that.
- skeletonjelly 16y ago
  That's a great policy. Ironically, I wish reddit had this in their reddiquette.
fara 16y ago
A blog post about an Apple tree could reach the home page of HN before anyone noticing it is about a tree...
jasonkester 16y ago
If you can't see why this belongs here, I'd say you're in the wrong place. This is a story of a tech company gaining a huge PR win for an incredibly low price by performing a feat of over-the-top customer service. Apple is going to get a lot of mileage out of this, and it will make up the $500 it cost them dozens if not hundreds of times over by the time the dust settles. If you run a software business, you should be paying attention to things like this and trying to figure out ways of emulating this behavior to your favor. That's the reason we're here. The place used to be called "startup news" because most of us are entrepreneurs who just happen to be computer programmers. If you're here and you're just a programmer, you need to understand this, and not get offended when you see an article discussing things other than the inner workings of haskell.

sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....

by aubhat 16y ago

sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become....

There might be a lesson here on how to get a lot of positive press, inform people that you are taking quality really seriously in an indirect way, and don't spend much money doing it.

simonsarris 16y ago
Yes, doubly so if the event never happened.
- protomyth 16y ago
  Well, given the lack of fact checking on the 24-hour news networks, truth is not a pre-requisite.

Mafana0 16y ago

It's the sort of story I'd love to see more of on HN. Quite amusing and an insightful idea about PR for tech-companies.

lawnchair_larry 16y ago
PR has nothing to do with hacking. Just saying.
- Mafana0 16y ago
  True. However, HN isn't just about hacking, it's about anything "good hackers would find interesting"[1]. [1]:http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- bartman 16y ago
  But with startups and business success.
- pbhjpbhj 16y ago
  >PR has nothing to do with hacking. Just saying. Isn't PR "hacking" public perception?
  - vacri 16y ago
    We can expect more articles on cooking, which is just "hacking" food? Gardening, as it's "hacking" vegetation (literally, sometimes)? Mental illness treatment advances, because it's "hacking" the psyche?
    - pbhjpbhj 16y ago
      FWIW I've seen cooking and gardening articles here. Can't recall seeing things on mental illness but possibly stuff about drug regimens; sleep disorders have been handled several times.
- alain94040 16y ago
  That story is a perfect example of how to hack PR for startups: do a few stunts like these, word will spread. That's hacking. Spending $1M on banner ads is not hacking.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  "What would happen to overall customer satisfaction if instead of simply refunding his money, we sent an Ipad2 and added a funny note? Could that story go viral and create enough buzz that we could not get for less than $400,000 in marketing budget and countless meetings?" That sounds like hacking to me. But hey, I am no hacker, so....

cryptoz 16y ago

> sorry but is this what "Hacker News" has become.... How can you possibly make a statement about the quality of Hacker News articles in a comment without proper punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, or even content? I think that if any argument is made about the trending quality of Hacker News, the evidence presented should be your comment and not this article.

vacri 16y ago
While content is better expressed with correct grammer, it does not automatically follow that poor grammar = no content.

teej 16y ago

I hate to be "that guy" but from the guidelines: "If your account is less than a year old, please don't submit comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit. (It's a common semi-noob illusion.)" If you don't think the article is noteworthy, flag it. It's really as simple as that.

skeletonjelly 16y ago
That's a great policy. Ironically, I wish reddit had this in their reddiquette.

fara 16y ago

A blog post about an Apple tree could reach the home page of HN before anyone noticing it is about a tree...

jasonkester 16y ago

If you can't see why this belongs here, I'd say you're in the wrong place. This is a story of a tech company gaining a huge PR win for an incredibly low price by performing a feat of over-the-top customer service. Apple is going to get a lot of mileage out of this, and it will make up the $500 it cost them dozens if not hundreds of times over by the time the dust settles. If you run a software business, you should be paying attention to things like this and trying to figure out ways of emulating this behavior to your favor. That's the reason we're here. The place used to be called "startup news" because most of us are entrepreneurs who just happen to be computer programmers. If you're here and you're just a programmer, you need to understand this, and not get offended when you see an article discussing things other than the inner workings of haskell.