Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've
funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to
understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people
along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to
misunderstand what Svbtle is.
One of the reasons Svbtle is
hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current
fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine
evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of
lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations. Beyond
that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and
traffic is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging
founders to figure out more details, in this case I've advised
Dustin to let this grow and see what it turns into.
I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what
this turns into. And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you
want to keep hating. Though this was not a deliberate strategy by
Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt by all the hate), being
controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.
I haven't followed the Dustin-drama. In fact I don't know anything about it, but that something happened one day and he changed his tag line from "hero" to "villain".
But I've followed more than a few links from Hacker News to articles on Svbtle over the past months and came away with the strong sense that they're of unusually low quality. Maybe I'm just not the target audience, but the articles I've seen have been vacuous without exception. I went to the home page just now and scrolled down and found more of the same. Having been the editor of a print magazine in a past life, I'm a fan of the curated approach, and I like much of the front-page content on Hacker News, so this surprised me.
It looks like saved stories aren't public here, so I can't use them as a constructive example of content I think is good. But I use reddit for similar purposes
If I had to describe the Svbtle content direction, I'd say it's like somebody is randomly scraping longer comments off of TechCrunch articles and putting them into a blogging system.
That sounds like a wonderful idea until you take a step back and realize it's not all that profound or even interesting. I get it but at the same time it doesn't make sense. What I see is a guy who is playing kingmaker by "giving people the tools" to blog and all writing under the same banner. There's nothing to this and it basically already exists in every other blog network ever. It seems we're somehow to believe the minimalist theme and the fact that it's SV-in-crowd Dustin Curtis orchestrating this thing with fellow SV-in-crowd pals makes this something other than an ordinary blog network.
On one level I get it. It's not about what it actually is, it's about the feeling, the aura, this attitude about it that makes it feel special. On the other hand, it's just another blog network. To me, I see it as the difference between Newsweek and the New Yorker. It's all about the public sentiment. Or maybe I missed the mark completely but when I hear things along the lines of "well people are haters and it's kinda hard to get but you'll see" they seem kind of like cop-outs to me.
There's nothing wrong with Suvbtle at all though. No one should have a problem with the basic idea. What I, and I think others, have a problem with is the sneaky feeling that this is just another blog network and we're being told it's somehow more and special. Like we're being served hamburger but someone's calling it filet mignon. I've eaten my share of beef and I've read the Svbtle network blogs and I know when I'm being fed ground beef.
I think most people separate Svbtle from Dustin, although I don't think Dustin necessary is advocating for this separation himself. You can see this in the comments. When people are being critical, it generally leans towards Dustin and not the product. When people are boasting Svtble, they rarely mention Dustin. There's a reason for that.
It was clear to most that Dustin was expecting adoration and when that didn't happen, the conversation changed.
I don't know how many tweets, posts and "thoughts" I read where Dustin was "abandoning HN" or laying claim to "the downfall of HN"[2], only to end up back here posting some other ego-laden[3] dribble.
"You're welcome", I believe is what used to be on the footer of Svtble. Really gets me thinking about how modest he is.
I think a lot of the initial dislike stems from the svbtle/obtvse thing, where Dustin went into all-out-rage because someone cloned what amounted to not-much-more than a Wordpress theme.
That and the air of superiority within the announcement: svbtle would only be used by people who are "intelligent and witty" implying that everyone who couldn't, wasn't.
I am curious as to what their business plan is, especially for a blog network that strives to minimalism, having an ad presence would seem anathema.
And to that end, I am curious why anyone would fund them -- what is it that they offer in terms of being able to generate income that makes them more viable than say, any old "webring" that uses the same CSS?
Or makes them different from various other focused blogging sites: science 2.0, freethoughtblogs, pjmedia, etc., none of which seem to be doing especially well as far as I know.
My problem with svbtle is that unlike Salon/The Atlantic/ArsTechnica/JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE/ since there is no masthead, or links from one svtble writer to another, so at this moment, I don't see a real difference between svbtle the company, and svtble the CSS design sheet. So I don't see how they build up brand, or how they build on top of network effects since they don't link from one author to another. (And should ads be added and mastheads and footers added well will social toolbars and unother unsubtle widgets be far behind?)
And while I read svbtle when I come across it, I find their content not much better, not much worse than anyone elses.
(I will say, I am much less put off by svtble writers once I had adblock plus block their 0-click kudos.)
I can appreciate an organic ecosystem, and the exclusivity of writing for Svbtle sure has an appeal, but monetization on something like this seems incredibly difficult. Do they take it a full WordPress direction with hosting, etc? Or does it fully flesh out into a reputable online magazine with ads and the like. Maybe I'm not creative enough to see another viable option, but either way, I still think it's a cool project.
How does Svbtle distinguish itself from any of the other blogging networks that emerged towards the end of the last decade?
Looking at the front page and at Ethan Kaplan's posts in an unscientific way it appears as though everyones posts on Svbtle make the front page (although I could be wrong and if so please say so - I didn't take a particularly large sample). I'm not sure where the curation is.
It seems that anyone can apply to join svbtle, but it's not clear why they'd choose to versus hosting their own blog or writing online for traditional print outlets.
Is there an editorial process for posts on Svbtle?
I ask this because I want to get my head around what makes it special compared to other blog networks. I don't really care who Dustin is (one of the benefits of not being in the valley I guess) or what he's done/not done.
> being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.
Very true. I am sure Dustin has a vision which obviously we don't fully see yet. Still, it seems a bit absurd for a blog to raise. But hey, let's all wait and see what comes. After all, the investment was probably in Dustin and team, and not necessary in Svbtle.
I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same; there's been discussion about this recently linked elsewhere in the thread that I won't rehash here. If he's genuinely confused by the hate, that'd be surprising to me. I'm willing to be corrected on my opinion and come around, for what it's worth.
That said, I couldn't care less about Svbtle, frankly, though I certainly understand what it is. Good luck with Y Combinator's investment is my sole commentary on this news: I'm smart enough to divide between Dustin Curtis and Svbtle and realize that my thoughts on and the trajectory of one don't necessarily impact the other.
After the discussion I had with jrockway in this thread[0], I've come to really dislike the Svbtle network and what it stands for. I can't speak for the rest of the community, but I would consider Svbtle branding to be a strike against a blog, and not something that is a sign of its quality.
I can't help but laugh at this. All Svbtle does is slap a pretty, unified design on the articles of people that have interesting stuff to say. It's very good at doing that and I appreciate it for doing that.
Like Curtis intended, when you see the Svbtle design you can expect something interesting. Most of the articles I've read on it were indeed interesting. However, these articles would also exist without Svbtle, they just wouldn't look the same.
Svbtle's got a good thing going, but future of journalism? Please.
I don't know much about Svbtle but there's something so un-exciting and unapproachable about the way they describe their objectives:
>Svbtle is a curated, invite-only collection of great people who have things to say.
...
>Our goal is to make it easier and more natural for interesting people to write down their thoughts.
...
>Think you should be a part of the network? Apply for membership below.
The most exciting thing about idea exchanges (whether in oral or written form) is the openness of it. You can go out into the world wide web and read as much or as little as you want. You can have favorite sources of information, least favorite sources and have some of your beliefs confirmed, while turning other ones on their head.
In Svbtle, it seems like everyone is a self-proclaimed "great" person with interesting things to say. Then the Svbtle network invites you, gives you a stark blog theme to share your brilliant thoughts with other people of equal greatness. I guess the quality of content will ultimately be deciding factor of whether this has merit, but for right now I can't get excited about it.
I don't understand - what possible business model could you have with such niche blogging? Can anybody explain how this is expected to work? Some kind of sponsored advertising on what the blog topic is about?
There is nothing wrong in running an invite-only network. But claiming to be a genuinely 'quality-oriented' network[1] when your are not is tricking your readers and is plain wrong.
For example, there are a lot of shitty blogs[2] on this network. Even shitty posts[3]. It's just like any other blog network with some extra-hype and a minimalistic design mixed and matched from theme sites (Trust me, I've seen a dozen themes like this before Dustin came up with this and dismissed anyone trying to create a similar design[4])
A really good quality-oriented network would be something like Quora, but for blogs. The readers, people, us should rate what is good and what is bad,what is ethical, what is unethical, what is right and what is wrong. Not at the mercy of some clown advocating minimalism to emphasize elitism and branding for himself.
[1] This was SVBTLE's pitch initially.
[2] massivegreatness.com [An arrogant, unethical Apple fanboy, writer at Techcrunch who supports anything Apple without proper logic]
When people suggest this is a stupid idea, I think there's a profound misunderstanding of how enticing exclusivity is.
Not everyone gets to send a piece in to the NYTimes, the WSJ, the National Review and get it published as an op-ed. But for someone in political science or macroeconomics it's definitely a status symbol. Note that anyone could just as easily put something on their own blog. In fact, many people who regularly send in pieces do publish on their own blogs. People who have much larger fan-bases, power, and immediate influence than almost anyone in tech still seem to find value in spending a few hours writing a piece for no profit, no ad revenues, no pictures next to their name. Larry Summers, who was the head of arguably the most gate-keeper-ish institution in the nation still wanted to get his views published in the WSJ.
Tech people may not view these venues as worthwhile for their field. What then, is the prestigious place to have your content featured? I think Svbtle could be that. If you own something every influential person wants to be featured in, that would be huge. You'd be a gatekeeper of ideas.
But the NYTimes et al. are exclusive because they've earned respect and have a genuine history of excellence, not the other way around. I'm sure "svbtle could be that" for something, as long as that something is inherently vapid and mediocre.
Reading this reminded me of 9rules[1], which used to be pretty popular some 8-10 years back but eventually withered away. As with most communities, scaling svbtle without comprising on the quality is going to be the greatest challenge.
This is why I'm really interested to see where things are headed (co-founder of 9rules here). It is easy to get great people together when the reason for joining is set behind an idea that everyone can share. In this case it was to bring great content back to the web. However, once money starts to enter the equation it changes the mindset of things a bit. Instead of writing because you are passionate to share your thoughts, you begin to start thinking about what you can write about that will get you the most views/money.
I hope this doesn't happen to svbtle because some good content is coming from it, but as you said it is a difficult balance that will need to be achieved moving forward.
How is this in any way a new approach to journalism? It is a network of editorial / expert writers. Online and offline publications have been doing this for over a century.
I think there is quite a bit of animosity and maybe even jealousy in the HN circle regarding Svbtle because of the apparently pretentious manner that Dustin Curtis launched and promoted it. However, it seems what he did is working out for him in the long run. Svbtle has also adjusted its message significantly since the launch to be more friendly.
Personally I would like to learn more about how Dustin used the situation to his advantage, even leading to funding.
I agree. I was really impressed with Dustin's blog where each post had a different design theme. I was hoping that svbtle would pull something more creative off. The network itself is fine but the quality doesn't seem to be better than my rss feeds. /me shrugs
Silicon Valley appears to think there is a fine line between "drawing inspiration" and "copying." There isn't and to be honest, your output is a good example of the latter, not the former.
"Svbtle now has more than 200 writers with expertise spanning at least eight disciplines, including entrepreneurship, business, finance, political science, and literature."
Is there a directory of all blogs in the Svbtle network? The only ones I've seen have been about technology/entrepreneurs, but I'd be interested in finance topics.
I don't think there is any profiting going on at the moment, but svbtle wouldn't exist without the great contributor in the network. Because of this it will be interesting to see where Dustin takes things and how he handles the situation. I'm sure a lot of the writers in svbtle wanted to be part of a great group that just wanted to bring great content to the forefront of the web. That changes slightly when money is involved because now some writers will be wondering how much they can make off a post and whether they should write about what is hot or just the random stuff they are used to.
In order to be a respected author and build a personality online, I think we'd all be much better off taking the time and care to build our own personal theme and identity.
Our blogs are our online identities. Using something like Svbtle take all the personality and brand recognition out of it.
For me, I designed my own blog around my personal tastes in minimalism, and the way I want to brand myself: http://kswizz.com.
Svbtle sounds eerily familiar to the old 9rules blog network. The only difference (from what I can tell) is that Svbtle provides the bloggging platform and site design as part of membership in the "network."
If Svbtle is to ever monetize as a "publication" aren't they going to pay the writers? Or maybe they'll take the HuffingtonPost route and not pay them?
Not a hater, just voicing some legitimate concerns.
I was a bit uncertain at first, but Svbtle has really grown into a great resource. The writing on there is phenomenal and it's great that the list of authors keeps growing. Excited to see how they use their new resources.
[+] [-] pg|13 years ago|reply
One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations. Beyond that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and traffic is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging founders to figure out more details, in this case I've advised Dustin to let this grow and see what it turns into.
I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what this turns into. And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you want to keep hating. Though this was not a deliberate strategy by Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt by all the hate), being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.
[+] [-] beefman|13 years ago|reply
But I've followed more than a few links from Hacker News to articles on Svbtle over the past months and came away with the strong sense that they're of unusually low quality. Maybe I'm just not the target audience, but the articles I've seen have been vacuous without exception. I went to the home page just now and scrolled down and found more of the same. Having been the editor of a print magazine in a past life, I'm a fan of the curated approach, and I like much of the front-page content on Hacker News, so this surprised me.
It looks like saved stories aren't public here, so I can't use them as a constructive example of content I think is good. But I use reddit for similar purposes
http://www.reddit.com/user/clumma/liked/
and here are my Google +1s (from Reader)
https://plus.google.com/115045287509032322837/plusones
If I had to describe the Svbtle content direction, I'd say it's like somebody is randomly scraping longer comments off of TechCrunch articles and putting them into a blogging system.
[+] [-] bpatrianakos|13 years ago|reply
On one level I get it. It's not about what it actually is, it's about the feeling, the aura, this attitude about it that makes it feel special. On the other hand, it's just another blog network. To me, I see it as the difference between Newsweek and the New Yorker. It's all about the public sentiment. Or maybe I missed the mark completely but when I hear things along the lines of "well people are haters and it's kinda hard to get but you'll see" they seem kind of like cop-outs to me.
There's nothing wrong with Suvbtle at all though. No one should have a problem with the basic idea. What I, and I think others, have a problem with is the sneaky feeling that this is just another blog network and we're being told it's somehow more and special. Like we're being served hamburger but someone's calling it filet mignon. I've eaten my share of beef and I've read the Svbtle network blogs and I know when I'm being fed ground beef.
[+] [-] tomkin|13 years ago|reply
It was clear to most that Dustin was expecting adoration and when that didn't happen, the conversation changed.
I don't know how many tweets, posts and "thoughts" I read where Dustin was "abandoning HN" or laying claim to "the downfall of HN"[2], only to end up back here posting some other ego-laden[3] dribble.
"You're welcome", I believe is what used to be on the footer of Svtble. Really gets me thinking about how modest he is.
[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3749035
[2] https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/182986897444966402
[3] https://twitter.com/dcurtis/status/183394426914217984
[+] [-] kami8845|13 years ago|reply
That and the air of superiority within the announcement: svbtle would only be used by people who are "intelligent and witty" implying that everyone who couldn't, wasn't.
[+] [-] oinksoft|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jerrya|13 years ago|reply
I am curious as to what their business plan is, especially for a blog network that strives to minimalism, having an ad presence would seem anathema.
And to that end, I am curious why anyone would fund them -- what is it that they offer in terms of being able to generate income that makes them more viable than say, any old "webring" that uses the same CSS?
Or makes them different from various other focused blogging sites: science 2.0, freethoughtblogs, pjmedia, etc., none of which seem to be doing especially well as far as I know.
My problem with svbtle is that unlike Salon/The Atlantic/ArsTechnica/JUST ABOUT EVERYONE ELSE/ since there is no masthead, or links from one svtble writer to another, so at this moment, I don't see a real difference between svbtle the company, and svtble the CSS design sheet. So I don't see how they build up brand, or how they build on top of network effects since they don't link from one author to another. (And should ads be added and mastheads and footers added well will social toolbars and unother unsubtle widgets be far behind?)
And while I read svbtle when I come across it, I find their content not much better, not much worse than anyone elses.
(I will say, I am much less put off by svtble writers once I had adblock plus block their 0-click kudos.)
[+] [-] sharkweek|13 years ago|reply
shrug
[+] [-] _b8r0|13 years ago|reply
Looking at the front page and at Ethan Kaplan's posts in an unscientific way it appears as though everyones posts on Svbtle make the front page (although I could be wrong and if so please say so - I didn't take a particularly large sample). I'm not sure where the curation is.
It seems that anyone can apply to join svbtle, but it's not clear why they'd choose to versus hosting their own blog or writing online for traditional print outlets.
Is there an editorial process for posts on Svbtle?
I ask this because I want to get my head around what makes it special compared to other blog networks. I don't really care who Dustin is (one of the benefits of not being in the valley I guess) or what he's done/not done.
[+] [-] huhtenberg|13 years ago|reply
I suspect that a good chunk of hate comes from that Kudos widget not having an Undo. It comes across as cocky, hence the backlash.
[+] [-] nodesocket|13 years ago|reply
Very true. I am sure Dustin has a vision which obviously we don't fully see yet. Still, it seems a bit absurd for a blog to raise. But hey, let's all wait and see what comes. After all, the investment was probably in Dustin and team, and not necessary in Svbtle.
[+] [-] oh_sigh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jspthrowaway2|13 years ago|reply
That said, I couldn't care less about Svbtle, frankly, though I certainly understand what it is. Good luck with Y Combinator's investment is my sole commentary on this news: I'm smart enough to divide between Dustin Curtis and Svbtle and realize that my thoughts on and the trajectory of one don't necessarily impact the other.
[+] [-] FredBrach|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w1ntermute|13 years ago|reply
0: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993094
[+] [-] waxjar|13 years ago|reply
I can't help but laugh at this. All Svbtle does is slap a pretty, unified design on the articles of people that have interesting stuff to say. It's very good at doing that and I appreciate it for doing that.
Like Curtis intended, when you see the Svbtle design you can expect something interesting. Most of the articles I've read on it were indeed interesting. However, these articles would also exist without Svbtle, they just wouldn't look the same.
Svbtle's got a good thing going, but future of journalism? Please.
[+] [-] mladenkovacevic|13 years ago|reply
>Svbtle is a curated, invite-only collection of great people who have things to say. ... >Our goal is to make it easier and more natural for interesting people to write down their thoughts. ... >Think you should be a part of the network? Apply for membership below.
The most exciting thing about idea exchanges (whether in oral or written form) is the openness of it. You can go out into the world wide web and read as much or as little as you want. You can have favorite sources of information, least favorite sources and have some of your beliefs confirmed, while turning other ones on their head.
In Svbtle, it seems like everyone is a self-proclaimed "great" person with interesting things to say. Then the Svbtle network invites you, gives you a stark blog theme to share your brilliant thoughts with other people of equal greatness. I guess the quality of content will ultimately be deciding factor of whether this has merit, but for right now I can't get excited about it.
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] loceng|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RyanZAG|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] neya|13 years ago|reply
For example, there are a lot of shitty blogs[2] on this network. Even shitty posts[3]. It's just like any other blog network with some extra-hype and a minimalistic design mixed and matched from theme sites (Trust me, I've seen a dozen themes like this before Dustin came up with this and dismissed anyone trying to create a similar design[4])
A really good quality-oriented network would be something like Quora, but for blogs. The readers, people, us should rate what is good and what is bad,what is ethical, what is unethical, what is right and what is wrong. Not at the mercy of some clown advocating minimalism to emphasize elitism and branding for himself.
[1] This was SVBTLE's pitch initially.
[2] massivegreatness.com [An arrogant, unethical Apple fanboy, writer at Techcrunch who supports anything Apple without proper logic]
[3]http://influencehacks.com/the-stunning-hypocrisy-of-ventureb...
[4]http://howells.ws/posts/view/93/svbtle-vs-obtvse-and-on-copy...
[+] [-] kevinalexbrown|13 years ago|reply
Not everyone gets to send a piece in to the NYTimes, the WSJ, the National Review and get it published as an op-ed. But for someone in political science or macroeconomics it's definitely a status symbol. Note that anyone could just as easily put something on their own blog. In fact, many people who regularly send in pieces do publish on their own blogs. People who have much larger fan-bases, power, and immediate influence than almost anyone in tech still seem to find value in spending a few hours writing a piece for no profit, no ad revenues, no pictures next to their name. Larry Summers, who was the head of arguably the most gate-keeper-ish institution in the nation still wanted to get his views published in the WSJ.
Tech people may not view these venues as worthwhile for their field. What then, is the prestigious place to have your content featured? I think Svbtle could be that. If you own something every influential person wants to be featured in, that would be huge. You'd be a gatekeeper of ideas.
[+] [-] jberryman|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heartbreak|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] karterk|13 years ago|reply
[1]: http://9rules.com
[+] [-] MrAlmostWrong|13 years ago|reply
I hope this doesn't happen to svbtle because some good content is coming from it, but as you said it is a difficult balance that will need to be achieved moving forward.
[+] [-] tnorthcutt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akoumjian|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] le_isms|13 years ago|reply
Personally I would like to learn more about how Dustin used the situation to his advantage, even leading to funding.
[+] [-] camworld|13 years ago|reply
It's trying to fix 200+ differently-shaped circles into the exact same square.
[+] [-] nickheer|13 years ago|reply
Dalton is the guy behind App.net. Svbtle is a Dustin Curtis thing, I believe.
[+] [-] NathanKP|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] webology|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xt|13 years ago|reply
Check it out: http://hveem.no/simple-blogging-with-lua-and-git
[+] [-] cjh_|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pclark|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pdog|13 years ago|reply
Is there a directory of all blogs in the Svbtle network? The only ones I've seen have been about technology/entrepreneurs, but I'd be interested in finance topics.
[+] [-] steveklabnik|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spxdcz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrew93101|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MrAlmostWrong|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cwe|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeoxyS|13 years ago|reply
Our blogs are our online identities. Using something like Svbtle take all the personality and brand recognition out of it.
For me, I designed my own blog around my personal tastes in minimalism, and the way I want to brand myself: http://kswizz.com.
[+] [-] citricsquid|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brackin|13 years ago|reply
Edit: Now says "(including, previously, Y Combinator)"
[+] [-] dcurtis|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kurtvarner|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdcravens|13 years ago|reply
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4993094
[+] [-] chrisgoodrich|13 years ago|reply
If Svbtle is to ever monetize as a "publication" aren't they going to pay the writers? Or maybe they'll take the HuffingtonPost route and not pay them?
Not a hater, just voicing some legitimate concerns.
[+] [-] rglover|13 years ago|reply