5 ms·

Argh, more bait from refer.ly founders. The refer.ly modus operandi seems to be: a) write evergreen content that HN users are likely to upvote or read (HN cat

by codex 14y ago

Argh, more bait from refer.ly founders. The refer.ly modus operandi seems to be: a) write evergreen content that HN users are likely to upvote or read (HN catnip) based on current HN trends b) fill content with paid referral links c) post catnip to HN

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dmor 14y ago
you missed two crucial steps: d) figure out what readers want and extend to 1000s of online communities e) profit How would you suggest starting a massively distributed publishing business with no ads?
- azifali 14y ago
  I think YC is a wrong place to send in referral links unless of course data proves it otherwise. At least I am glad it isn't one of those "my mom started to work from home" ads :)
- codex 14y ago
  Will members of these thousands of online communities also write content merely as a vehicle to embed referral links? If so, I'm not sure that's socially redeeming. It feels like a content farm operation. At least with legitimate ad supported sites the content is written before the ads (Google figures out what ads to serve after the fact). The content is may still be bait, but it's not designed to shill something specific, as might happen in a system like this.
rdl 14y ago
I was actually really happy with this particular post. It had good content and well selected items. I really doubt referly is trying to make revenue by posting on hn. More likely, it is to get feedback on product and design. People post links about their own products all the time, and the community is pretty supportive, generally. After all, if you wrote a blog engine and blogger with it, and wanted to make a blog post to link to hn, it would probably be with your own blog engine, not Wordpress. (I do agree that some of their "top 20 lists of random products" were kind of borderline; I'd cut them slack as a startup, particularly since dmor has been super helpful in the startup community (she mentors at 500 Startups, etc.). I don't really like her or Kevin's taste in some products like food, though.)
- dmor 14y ago
  Note to self: get food editor. You are right, we are using HN as a place to test different kinds of content. I hear every negative comment, I also get a lot of emails on both sides, helpful and hateful, and use that to figure out what kind of content is good. What I'm fundamentally interested in is answering is "what is good for X" - where X are all these different categories.
  - rdl 14y ago
    Yeah, what I'd do is what Quora is doing (or should be doing); find awesome editors/curators per topic. Build referly in a way which lets them build up their own reputation. For food, I'd get Jonas or Makitoh from Quora; both are authors working on books, so they would love to self promote. It might be interesting to not go after big categories like "food" or "photography" but crossover like "food photography". I doubt even the world's number one food stylist or food photographer has too much publicity. There are what, 10 big categories? But then there are at least 100 crossovers, and more if they are more than pair wise (travel food photography)
  - codex 14y ago
    I can't shake the feeling that this "content," which is effectively a new form of infomercial, will not be taken seriously by the public. How can you guarantee the author's integrity when they're working on commission? With ad supported content, the ad is not chosen by the author.
    - rdl 14y ago
      I'd prefer transparent compensation (affiliate links) across every product someone writes about, vs. seeing articles where they may or may not be compensation behind the scenes on some products. The worst thing would be "these are the top 5 9mm handguns" where you include Sig, Beretta, S&W M&P, Glock, and Hi-Point, due to Hi-Point paying you for associating them with 4 quality manufacturers. I'd have no problem with "these are my favorite guns from my collection" where if you buy any of them, I get affiliate 0.$$, particularly if that part is transparent. It's even better when you declare that you're donating all the affiliate money to charity (which I did, on my refer.ly experiments, and I think dmor did too). The big problem with existing media is not hidden commercial bias but just straight incompetence. If giving people 5% sales commissions solves that, that's a net win over keeping them disinterested.

by codex 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dmor 14y ago

you missed two crucial steps: d) figure out what readers want and extend to 1000s of online communities e) profit How would you suggest starting a massively distributed publishing business with no ads?

azifali 14y ago
I think YC is a wrong place to send in referral links unless of course data proves it otherwise. At least I am glad it isn't one of those "my mom started to work from home" ads :)
codex 14y ago
Will members of these thousands of online communities also write content merely as a vehicle to embed referral links? If so, I'm not sure that's socially redeeming. It feels like a content farm operation. At least with legitimate ad supported sites the content is written before the ads (Google figures out what ads to serve after the fact). The content is may still be bait, but it's not designed to shill something specific, as might happen in a system like this.

rdl 14y ago

I was actually really happy with this particular post. It had good content and well selected items. I really doubt referly is trying to make revenue by posting on hn. More likely, it is to get feedback on product and design. People post links about their own products all the time, and the community is pretty supportive, generally. After all, if you wrote a blog engine and blogger with it, and wanted to make a blog post to link to hn, it would probably be with your own blog engine, not Wordpress. (I do agree that some of their "top 20 lists of random products" were kind of borderline; I'd cut them slack as a startup, particularly since dmor has been super helpful in the startup community (she mentors at 500 Startups, etc.). I don't really like her or Kevin's taste in some products like food, though.)

dmor 14y ago
Note to self: get food editor. You are right, we are using HN as a place to test different kinds of content. I hear every negative comment, I also get a lot of emails on both sides, helpful and hateful, and use that to figure out what kind of content is good. What I'm fundamentally interested in is answering is "what is good for X" - where X are all these different categories.
- rdl 14y ago
  Yeah, what I'd do is what Quora is doing (or should be doing); find awesome editors/curators per topic. Build referly in a way which lets them build up their own reputation. For food, I'd get Jonas or Makitoh from Quora; both are authors working on books, so they would love to self promote. It might be interesting to not go after big categories like "food" or "photography" but crossover like "food photography". I doubt even the world's number one food stylist or food photographer has too much publicity. There are what, 10 big categories? But then there are at least 100 crossovers, and more if they are more than pair wise (travel food photography)
- codex 14y ago
  I can't shake the feeling that this "content," which is effectively a new form of infomercial, will not be taken seriously by the public. How can you guarantee the author's integrity when they're working on commission? With ad supported content, the ad is not chosen by the author.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I'd prefer transparent compensation (affiliate links) across every product someone writes about, vs. seeing articles where they may or may not be compensation behind the scenes on some products. The worst thing would be "these are the top 5 9mm handguns" where you include Sig, Beretta, S&W M&P, Glock, and Hi-Point, due to Hi-Point paying you for associating them with 4 quality manufacturers. I'd have no problem with "these are my favorite guns from my collection" where if you buy any of them, I get affiliate 0.$$, particularly if that part is transparent. It's even better when you declare that you're donating all the affiliate money to charity (which I did, on my refer.ly experiments, and I think dmor did too). The big problem with existing media is not hidden commercial bias but just straight incompetence. If giving people 5% sales commissions solves that, that's a net win over keeping them disinterested.