3 ms·

Interesting post. Not everyone can get away with repackaging though. You better be damn sure you're content is amazing before trying to serve it up over and ove

• jgrahamc 18y ago
  Repackaging can in itself by useful. I wrote a column about GNU Make for a long time and finally turned it into a PDF and Book via Lulu and it's very convenient for people to have all the columns (which I reedited) all in one place.
• mixmax 18y ago
  I would actually say that the content isn't spectacular. It isn't bad by any means - but not in a league of it's own either. Getting real can probably best be described as a cooked down version of common sense and business 101. What is amazing though is the marketing - which is what this post is all about. I'm sure that at least one third of the people on this site could create the same content if they put their mind to it. What almost nobody can do though is market it like 37signals.
  • pchristensen 18y ago
    "at least one third of the people on this site could create the same content if they put their mind to it" I'll give you that your one third could produce the ideas, but how many could also produce the straightforward, simple, clear writing? It's harder than it looks.
    • ckinnan 18y ago
      If I've learned anything on Hacker News, its not the idea that matters, its the execution.
  • cmos 18y ago
    The content is niche. And they advertise well, since this is a 'customer base' for them. If I were selling car parts, I'd have articles about cars, and post on message boards that are car focused. They are a good example of what you could do in your niche industry.
    • netcan 18y ago
      An excellent example. It's interesting that for years 'industry magazines' have produced glossy dungheaps to sell ads on. They can do this because advertisers want to believe that there is a publication that reaches 70% of all HR people in the tech industry or 45% of all OH&S people in the mining industry. In some cases there is such a paper. In many there just isn't. In the latter, the ads are carried by these idiot mags. Now there's a way. Create your own. If you can.
• iigs 18y ago
  The point behind repackaging, as mentioned in the article, is that you point it at different people. Perhaps an individual contributor reads something on the web, sees that their boss might enjoy or learn from it, and buys the PDF for the boss in order to give them something to read while on the plane. The conferences are probably second exposures for most people, but that's probably ok because the medium is so different -- people will get different things out of an interactive forum than a (relatively) static set of blog posts.
• skmurphy 18y ago
  Our experience has been that different audiences like to consume the same content in different ways: blog, print, workshop presentation, and workbook. Many complex software application development teams face the same challenge: they need to produce documentation (print & on-line), training materials (print, wiki, presentations) on-line help, application notes (print, web, presentations).
• known 18y ago
  Japanese, Koreans and Chinese economies and Microsoft are the successful examples of repackaging.