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1. Medium is not competing for people willing to spend 30 min playing with the command line to get a blog up. (Note) 2. Discovery! Medium is about getting peop

1. Medium is not competing for people willing to spend 30 min playing with the command line to get a blog up. (Note) 2. Discovery! Medium is about getting people to read your blog. (Note) there is an obvious opportunity to create a medium like experience that lets people blog using Hugo and Netlify. I open an app, connect to my account (GitHub pages, or Netlify) type my article and post. P.s I tried to put an asterisk instead of Note but it ended up putting everything in between in italics.

jonsen 5y ago
Pps. * Just put a space after asterix.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  The correct syntax is \*, so you can write ***lala*** or \\* or something.
  - mattowen_uk 5y ago
    I noticed early on in with HN that the culture for references when commenting is to use [1] -- [1] so I just simply adopted it also.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
anamexis 5y ago
I think what you're describing is Forestry: https://forestry.io/ https://forestry.io/
shados 5y ago
> Discovery! Medium is about getting people to read your blog. This. I feel like as a reader, medium is becoming pretty useless, with the gate screens and stuff. But back when I was using it a lot, I published my stuff on Medium because it gave me eyeballs, the same way I put videos on youtube now as opposed to hosting them myself (even if it was easy to do). If I put a post on my own blog, I'll be lucky to get 20 people looking at it. Last time I posted something on Medium, it went viral and got several hundred thousand views, including from this very website (and I hadn't even submitted it to Hacker News). That's hard to beat. If someone else wants to make something similar, to help blog authors get the same thing publishing to Youtube or Spotify get you, that isn't Medium, go right ahead. I'll certainly consider your product.
gompertz 5y ago
Hugo user here. I just wanted to reinforce your message - I sometimes think about posting on Medium instead, for "hits"... When I crave attention; but as you said, those readers likely aren't my target audience anyhow. For those thinking of using Hugo (or any static site generator), do it!
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  Similarly, it took me about 2 hours to set up a personal Jekyll website with a deployment script to a S3 static website cached by cloud front. I usually pay less than $1 per month in AWS fees. No trackers, no JavaScript, no third party assets. If you can get away with a static website it is definitely the way to go and the tools are out there and easy to use.
  - strokirk 5y ago
    Don't you also need to pay for a domain name?
    - approxim8ion 5y ago
      Not if you use GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Netlify, Neocities etc etc. They all offer the same kind of deal substack and wordpress do, ie an author.platformname.com kind of domain.
    - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
      Yes, I have a route 53 domain name for approx $14/yr
- ghoward 5y ago
  Yes, do it! Hugo is great because it's fast. [1] Fast software is the best software. [2] (Comments: [3]) Speed is the killer feature. [4] (Comments: [5]) Slow software is an opportunity for competitors. [6] [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2019/12/performance-matters-jekyll-vs-hugo/ https://gavinhoward.com/2019/12/performance-matters-jekyll-v... [2]: https://craigmod.com/essays/fast_software/ https://craigmod.com/essays/fast_software/ [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20517144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20517144 [4]: https://bdickason.com/posts/speed-is-the-killer-feature/ https://bdickason.com/posts/speed-is-the-killer-feature/ [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26312516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26312516 [6]: https://fabiensanglard.net/silicone/index.html https://fabiensanglard.net/silicone/index.html
lamontcg 5y ago
> (Note) there is an obvious opportunity to create a medium like experience that lets people blog using Hugo and Netlify. I open an app, connect to my account (GitHub pages, or Netlify) type my article and post. This is what I'd really like. All these alternatives assume you want to use your editor in the terminal and git and CI publication process. I want to edit markdown text in a web browser and click a button to see how its rendered and then go back to the editor without changing contexts at all. The editor/git/CI model feels too much like actual fucking $dayjob work. Writing is already a difficult enough process -- lets turn it into software development while we're at it! I need to worry more about dependency management of my plugins while I'm trying to write and publish something. Medium is worse though, its very annoying.
- wikibob 5y ago
  This is exactly what I want. A modern Wordpress. But with strict guide rails and simplicity. Does such a thing exist? I’ve seen ghost but it’s quite expensive for personal use.
  - collinmanderson 5y ago
    I’ve ended up using something like the “headless WordPress” technique mentioned in the article on one of my websites, though I use a simple Django front end to pull directly from WordPress db. It’s super fast. I really like WordPress’s out-of-the box classic editing experience and revision history. It’s probably missing some of the “strict guide rails” you probably want, but I can at least disable user-uploaded plugins which helps a lot.
- ssb1 5y ago
  Well there is https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/
- seg_lol 5y ago
  https://hackmd.io/ https://hackmd.io/ is pretty nice for editing markdown, I haven't used the site in a long time. It looks like they are offering something commercial which is nice. Anyway hackmd+zero click integration to posting to a serving system, anything.
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
Check out http://getpublii.com http://getpublii.com, it is quite similar to the app you're describing. (it's not Hugo-based, but similarly outputs a static site with easy upload options, including to GitHub Pages or Netlify, and is free and open-source)

jonsen 5y ago

Pps. * Just put a space after asterix.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
The correct syntax is \*, so you can write ***lala*** or \\* or something.
- mattowen_uk 5y ago
  I noticed early on in with HN that the culture for references when commenting is to use [1] -- [1] so I just simply adopted it also.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

anamexis 5y ago

I think what you're describing is Forestry: https://forestry.io/ https://forestry.io/

shados 5y ago

> Discovery! Medium is about getting people to read your blog. This. I feel like as a reader, medium is becoming pretty useless, with the gate screens and stuff. But back when I was using it a lot, I published my stuff on Medium because it gave me eyeballs, the same way I put videos on youtube now as opposed to hosting them myself (even if it was easy to do). If I put a post on my own blog, I'll be lucky to get 20 people looking at it. Last time I posted something on Medium, it went viral and got several hundred thousand views, including from this very website (and I hadn't even submitted it to Hacker News). That's hard to beat. If someone else wants to make something similar, to help blog authors get the same thing publishing to Youtube or Spotify get you, that isn't Medium, go right ahead. I'll certainly consider your product.

gompertz 5y ago

Hugo user here. I just wanted to reinforce your message - I sometimes think about posting on Medium instead, for "hits"... When I crave attention; but as you said, those readers likely aren't my target audience anyhow. For those thinking of using Hugo (or any static site generator), do it!

__turbobrew__ 5y ago
Similarly, it took me about 2 hours to set up a personal Jekyll website with a deployment script to a S3 static website cached by cloud front. I usually pay less than $1 per month in AWS fees. No trackers, no JavaScript, no third party assets. If you can get away with a static website it is definitely the way to go and the tools are out there and easy to use.
- strokirk 5y ago
  Don't you also need to pay for a domain name?
  - approxim8ion 5y ago
    Not if you use GitHub Pages, GitLab Pages, Netlify, Neocities etc etc. They all offer the same kind of deal substack and wordpress do, ie an author.platformname.com kind of domain.
  - __turbobrew__ 5y ago
    Yes, I have a route 53 domain name for approx $14/yr
ghoward 5y ago
Yes, do it! Hugo is great because it's fast. [1] Fast software is the best software. [2] (Comments: [3]) Speed is the killer feature. [4] (Comments: [5]) Slow software is an opportunity for competitors. [6] [1]: https://gavinhoward.com/2019/12/performance-matters-jekyll-vs-hugo/ https://gavinhoward.com/2019/12/performance-matters-jekyll-v... [2]: https://craigmod.com/essays/fast_software/ https://craigmod.com/essays/fast_software/ [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20517144 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20517144 [4]: https://bdickason.com/posts/speed-is-the-killer-feature/ https://bdickason.com/posts/speed-is-the-killer-feature/ [5]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26312516 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26312516 [6]: https://fabiensanglard.net/silicone/index.html https://fabiensanglard.net/silicone/index.html

lamontcg 5y ago

> (Note) there is an obvious opportunity to create a medium like experience that lets people blog using Hugo and Netlify. I open an app, connect to my account (GitHub pages, or Netlify) type my article and post. This is what I'd really like. All these alternatives assume you want to use your editor in the terminal and git and CI publication process. I want to edit markdown text in a web browser and click a button to see how its rendered and then go back to the editor without changing contexts at all. The editor/git/CI model feels too much like actual fucking $dayjob work. Writing is already a difficult enough process -- lets turn it into software development while we're at it! I need to worry more about dependency management of my plugins while I'm trying to write and publish something. Medium is worse though, its very annoying.

wikibob 5y ago
This is exactly what I want. A modern Wordpress. But with strict guide rails and simplicity. Does such a thing exist? I’ve seen ghost but it’s quite expensive for personal use.
- collinmanderson 5y ago
  I’ve ended up using something like the “headless WordPress” technique mentioned in the article on one of my websites, though I use a simple Django front end to pull directly from WordPress db. It’s super fast. I really like WordPress’s out-of-the box classic editing experience and revision history. It’s probably missing some of the “strict guide rails” you probably want, but I can at least disable user-uploaded plugins which helps a lot.
ssb1 5y ago
Well there is https://www.netlifycms.org/ https://www.netlifycms.org/
seg_lol 5y ago
https://hackmd.io/ https://hackmd.io/ is pretty nice for editing markdown, I haven't used the site in a long time. It looks like they are offering something commercial which is nice. Anyway hackmd+zero click integration to posting to a serving system, anything.

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago

Check out http://getpublii.com http://getpublii.com, it is quite similar to the app you're describing. (it's not Hugo-based, but similarly outputs a static site with easy upload options, including to GitHub Pages or Netlify, and is free and open-source)