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Actually, Veritasium posted a brilliant way for optimizing thumbnails and headlines to improve click-through rate on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xH

Actually, Veritasium posted a brilliant way for optimizing thumbnails and headlines to improve click-through rate on Youtube: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=S2xHZPH5Sng I plead guilty and say that I've repeatedly posted the same link on HN but with different query parameters to understand its performance. But I've come to understand that users will notice this behavior and start to generally downvote. As a creator with a small audience, the only success with tapping into a high throughput feedback loop has been by painstakingly write articles and submit them one by one to HN. I've gotten much better at it already and frankly I've also noticed that engagement and "likes" isn't everything either. I've realized too that if you truly do what you believe in consistently, I've found that I suddenly start having "impact", which I think is different from engagement. How I see it: - Engagement: clicks, views, comments - Impact: The world changes, there's consequences and substantial changes as a reaction But I think you can't have one without the other. High engagement means you're a popstar. High impact means you're a politician. Ideally, I want to be able to pick my position on the gradient.

specialist 5y ago
re Veritasium video. Thanks. Mea culpa: Rereading my initial reply, I see that I was more telling than asking, contrary to my stated intent. Engagement and impact. Absolutely. Where do you choose to put your focus? I've always preferred "finding my tribe". Building tools for other people like me. Others who have needs like my mine which aren't fulfilled by today's popular hammerspoon. Instead of persuading people to use my tools, I hope to be found by people who have framed their problem like I have and just haven't found a suitable solution. For instance, one niche tool I made was a UI layout manager rooted in graphic design's notions for a "design grid". Kids today would call my bespoke solution "opinionated". At the time I described it as "visually and logically correct". Alas. My strategy has not made me rich. I'm actually semi-blocked on releasing more of my tools, because I haven't figured out how to pay the mortgage. Happy hunting.

specialist 5y ago

re Veritasium video. Thanks. Mea culpa: Rereading my initial reply, I see that I was more telling than asking, contrary to my stated intent. Engagement and impact. Absolutely. Where do you choose to put your focus? I've always preferred "finding my tribe". Building tools for other people like me. Others who have needs like my mine which aren't fulfilled by today's popular hammerspoon. Instead of persuading people to use my tools, I hope to be found by people who have framed their problem like I have and just haven't found a suitable solution. For instance, one niche tool I made was a UI layout manager rooted in graphic design's notions for a "design grid". Kids today would call my bespoke solution "opinionated". At the time I described it as "visually and logically correct". Alas. My strategy has not made me rich. I'm actually semi-blocked on releasing more of my tools, because I haven't figured out how to pay the mortgage. Happy hunting.