I don't want to discourage this type of retrospective, but we (science-type humans) love to look for causal explanations, and can do a great job of reverse-engineering rationale. Even though I think you did do a bunch of things to encourage engagement, it seems like it's more boosted your luck of getting traction from a very small fractional percent to a slightly larger but still very small fractional percent.
I think we should. This sort of hustling is exactly why most of the internet is now completely unreadable. I didn't see the original post but if I had, I'd have probably flagged it for the clickbait content-less title.
The fact that this article (which follows none of its own advice) is steadily making its way to the top of hacker news sort of invalidates all the actual recommendations in the article itself.
I find it kinda odd some people seem to be against this article.
Sure an off the cuff thought could be an unease with an “guide to going viral on HN” but OP isn’t disclosing any secret hacks or anything from what I’ve read, he just wrote down his creative process and reflected a bit on the virality.
I’m sure a bad actor wanting to go viral on HN could think of this themselves within a days work as well, it’s just a fun article.
Reminds me of guides for selling something online with say, craigslist. There is probably a specific day of the week, or time of day you should post. There is a way to describe your product. There is a title you should use. Maybe you should give a phone number, maybe not. Maybe you should use the craiglist email redirection.
But in some way, I hope people don't do that with hn. I sometimes read helpful product reviews on an amazon product. "I tried the XIWSHDX salad spinner, and I found it to be very useful. blah blah."
I think I'm afraid of "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", or possibly will just hide good organic content.
Being viral, for content, is not always bad: it can make an otherwise boring or tedious subject engaging and enjoyable (and on the other side, a fun subject might appear boring if badly written), which I think is what this article is about :-).
Nice analysis. The point about titles is interesting: given how content spreads on the Internet, it's really an invitation to potential readers. If you take that too far, it can devolve into tacky link-bait, but it's worth thinking about how to summarize your post into a handful of compelling words.
As mentioned in another comment, I think it's sad if one writes an amazing article but it stays unrecognized or gets little traction simply because the title was a bad choice.
But at the same time, we have lived long enough with clickbait to know it works (unfortunately), and this shouldn't become a place where people are lured into low-quality posts.
I think there's a lot to be said for knowing your audience. I don't submit often, and most of my submissions only get a handful of points -- very rarely have I had one get onto the front page. (To be clear, I'm talking about submissions of article I found interesting, not things I've written myself, so this is a bit different than TFA's focus).
But, there was one submission I made I knew instantly would be very popular -- The elusive future of San Francisco’s fog -- 152 points, the most by far. Given that many on this forum live, work, or visit SF, and that people everywhere love to talk about the weather, and that SF's fog is an iconic aspect of SF weather, I knew there'd be interest.
Interestingly (or possibly not), I made this [0] comment here (on HN) some time ago and was quickly informed that my technique was used in the 1960s to identify moving celestial objects in successive astronomical photographs. [2] I kind of assumed is was a fairly well-known technique, but didn't realize it also had practical use!
My highest rated HN link was a sarcastic troll post about the MacBook Touch Bar in 2016. Nothing I have written since has even gotten close to the same level of attention. Someone reposted a more recent article from my blog over the weekend that gathered 4 upvotes and a few hundred views. It's nice to be noticed but I don't live for attention.
I think that unless you want to form a cabal to get something on the front page, there is a great deal of luck in what takes off on HN (and other similar sites). Unless a post quickly gets those all-important few dozen upvotes it will languish on the second or third page wastelands.
Looks like the best way to accumulate kudos is to have a bot that watches for new announcements from Apple, OpenAI, etc and then immediately submits the links to HN.
It makes me think: we may be living in a golden age when human analysis and thought still produce the most interesting content. Soon AI-assisted content generation processes will take the next evolutionary step: doing proactive analysis and concept development with the human being more like the back seat driver and director.
AI powered writing assistants, music generators, life coaches, etc, will get so good that authentic solo human creation may become a rarity.
(Tangentially, if you ask Perplexity for tips on writing blog posts that are likely to go viral on HN you'll get the above post, only 6 hours old, as a reference)
Don‘t you think there could be a world where the link to something human might triumph what an AI can generate.
For example: Music is not only about how good it sounds. But also a lot about who the singer is. Their history. What they stand for and what story is behind a album or song.
With AI, I don’t see that we will ever reach that dimension. Expect maybe when AI becomes sentient?
something not mentioned is the importance of timing. for example a link posted on saturday 11:00PM pacific will not receive nearly as much attention as the same link posted on a friday at 7:00AM pacific.
I’ve seen several blog posts trying to analyze HN data on the best time to post. However, the results are all over the place. For example, the below ones have different recommendations (weekend vs weekday).
Love it, having an "aha-moment" is always a great indicator that it's something worth sharing! I encourage others to share their ahas so we can all learn together.
As somebody who has had stuff from my blog hit #1... if you write interesting technical content and have a straightforward path then it usually gets rewarded.
Hell, even the example article would have probably gotten as much (if not more!) traffic by being titled "you can cross your eyes to solve find-the-difference puzzles".
Stop trying to trick people into reading your content. Write something mildly interesting, and post it.
The "try-it-yourself element" was what got me. Very close to the top of the article was a simple exercise that the reader could perform themselves, and when it "clicked," it was magical. I upvoted it for this reason.
This blog post is the proof that HN will become enshittified just like any other platform.
Not because of ads, not because of bots, but because of HN's ever growing userbase.
People publishing content too niche for Reddit, will start tailoring it for the HN crowd, socially engineering it to be posted here and garner more upvotes. HN's home will mostly become crowded with "artificially" upvoted stuff aimed at funneling the HN crowd into an ad-supported website
dowager_dan99|1 year ago
elevatedastalt|1 year ago
vunderba|1 year ago
yapyap|1 year ago
Sure an off the cuff thought could be an unease with an “guide to going viral on HN” but OP isn’t disclosing any secret hacks or anything from what I’ve read, he just wrote down his creative process and reflected a bit on the virality.
I’m sure a bad actor wanting to go viral on HN could think of this themselves within a days work as well, it’s just a fun article.
stevage|1 year ago
m463|1 year ago
But in some way, I hope people don't do that with hn. I sometimes read helpful product reviews on an amazon product. "I tried the XIWSHDX salad spinner, and I found it to be very useful. blah blah."
I think I'm afraid of "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", or possibly will just hide good organic content.
wirtzdan|1 year ago
I tried to reflect on some lessons from this, because I learned from the experience that small things (e.g. the title) can make large differences.
Which means that often good ideas or nice articles might get unrecognized, because they lack a good "packaging".
Making sure those things are on point helps.
But that should be it.
cafeinux|1 year ago
rscho|1 year ago
dang|1 year ago
tokioyoyo|1 year ago
And by the way, absolutely no hate to the author, I totally get it, and fairly ambivalent to it. It is what it is.
uhoh-itsmaciek|1 year ago
wirtzdan|1 year ago
As mentioned in another comment, I think it's sad if one writes an amazing article but it stays unrecognized or gets little traction simply because the title was a bad choice.
But at the same time, we have lived long enough with clickbait to know it works (unfortunately), and this shouldn't become a place where people are lured into low-quality posts.
anyonecancode|1 year ago
But, there was one submission I made I knew instantly would be very popular -- The elusive future of San Francisco’s fog -- 152 points, the most by far. Given that many on this forum live, work, or visit SF, and that people everywhere love to talk about the weather, and that SF's fog is an iconic aspect of SF weather, I knew there'd be interest.
mountain_peak|1 year ago
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37981314 [1] https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/microscope-ast...
AndrewStephens|1 year ago
I think that unless you want to form a cabal to get something on the front page, there is a great deal of luck in what takes off on HN (and other similar sites). Unless a post quickly gets those all-important few dozen upvotes it will languish on the second or third page wastelands.
fallinditch|1 year ago
fallinditch|1 year ago
It makes me think: we may be living in a golden age when human analysis and thought still produce the most interesting content. Soon AI-assisted content generation processes will take the next evolutionary step: doing proactive analysis and concept development with the human being more like the back seat driver and director.
AI powered writing assistants, music generators, life coaches, etc, will get so good that authentic solo human creation may become a rarity.
(Tangentially, if you ask Perplexity for tips on writing blog posts that are likely to go viral on HN you'll get the above post, only 6 hours old, as a reference)
wirtzdan|1 year ago
For example: Music is not only about how good it sounds. But also a lot about who the singer is. Their history. What they stand for and what story is behind a album or song.
With AI, I don’t see that we will ever reach that dimension. Expect maybe when AI becomes sentient?
Liquix|1 year ago
qianli_cs|1 year ago
- https://blog.rmotr.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-hacker-news-...
- https://medium.com/@mi.schaefer/what-is-the-best-time-to-pos...
But the precondition is that you’re submitting high quality content.
wirtzdan|1 year ago
At least for this post, I made sure to post it in the afternoon. To have an overall between Eurpean and US time. (I'm based in near Amsterdam)
SethMLarson|1 year ago
wirtzdan|1 year ago
rtpg|1 year ago
Hell, even the example article would have probably gotten as much (if not more!) traffic by being titled "you can cross your eyes to solve find-the-difference puzzles".
Stop trying to trick people into reading your content. Write something mildly interesting, and post it.
debo_|1 year ago
The post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35906604
block_dagger|1 year ago
EDIT: Typo
biscuits1|1 year ago
Dilettante_|1 year ago
jarenmf|1 year ago
valtlfelipe|1 year ago
wirtzdan|1 year ago
Otherwise I push it into the future and it never happens.
Happy that I found some time this week.
dowager_dan99|1 year ago
Almondsetat|1 year ago
Not because of ads, not because of bots, but because of HN's ever growing userbase.
People publishing content too niche for Reddit, will start tailoring it for the HN crowd, socially engineering it to be posted here and garner more upvotes. HN's home will mostly become crowded with "artificially" upvoted stuff aimed at funneling the HN crowd into an ad-supported website
MrSkelter|1 year ago