Maybe PG would agree to put some text to the effect that "by posting this comment you give permission for it also to appear in Hacker Monthly unless you opt-out" on the comments page. I can't imagine many people having a problem with that but tracking down people after the fact is always going to be difficult.
I do think it's going to need comments to be worth while. I have just bought a copy of the first issue anyway though :)
A. Of course. Similar to the articles, I will email the original commenters for permission. Oh, if you are a regular commenter in Hacker News, pretty please, put your contact information in your profile (a lot of the members just leave it empty), that would save me a lot of fuss trying to look for your email around the web. [ed: that means you ThomPete]
This is just brilliant. Media companies are putting up paywalls while their print volume is decreasing. Hacker News goes the other way around. I like it!
I will have to admit, I was skeptical about the idea when it was discussed here first and now I can see real value in it. Its true that discussion on these topics adds value to the contents and that is what makes a community unique. The discussions.
But sometimes I just want to read the content, not get distracted by anything else.
Two suggestions for future releases.
1) Can you reprint at least the top 3-5 comments on those topics on hackers News? (not sure how you are going to do that without making a lot of people mad). Also on the PDF version, can you have a clickable link to the discussion on the hacker news?
2) One of the biggest reasons I am turned off from reading magazines is the annoying ads all over the place including in-between the content. Since you are going to rely on ad, may I suggest that you try to avoid ads on the same page, where there is content? I stopped reading Wired Magazine, just because of this reason.
I have to second the parent on the comment comment. :) I've seen this done superbly in Snob magazine (www.snob.ru), which is a relatively recent Russian-language project also featuring both an online community (subscribers only) and traditional printed issues. I think it's a very interesting model for the new media, and Snob executes it very well.
In any case, what they do is they have a few pages in the printed edition where they just reprint interesting comments from the online discussion. The comments are shown as thought bubbles next to user icons from the online community, and they are selected such that they make sense standalone without the original article text. These pages are surprisingly fun to browse, and they also work as an ad for the online portion of the magazine and the discussions taking place there.
I think the reason he did not include comments is the lack of a way of contacting people on HN. Very few people include an email address in their profile.
HN could help him a lot by adding a "email me" link on the profile page - not an email address, but a forwarder, HN will send the email.
I don't think spam would be much of a problem since you would need to be a registered user to send an email, and you could require 3 karma or something.
Oh I agree, the current ads are fine, I just hope they stay that way and don't infiltrate the contents in the future. Think of it as a pre-emptive suggestion. :)
I would definitely support an email me link, or perhaps a way to include an email field which is only visible to other registered users of HN. I don't want to give my email to just anyone, but I don't mind listing it for HN users.
Perhaps instead HN could adopt a Creative Commons license for comment text; that way no permission would be needed, and it seems like the Right Thing anyway.
Indeed, I missed a couple of these articles along the way and it was great to not have missed them completely. I wonder if this format has even more potential for communities who don't spend as much time on the internet, where even more of the content would be fresh to them. A future for publishing?
I was on the same boat - I didn't see any added value nor did I think people would give him permission to reprint. After reading the PDF though I stand corrected on both. Great job putting the material in a very readable format. I was actually fun reading through each article again, even though I think I had read most of them online.
It makes me think that the limitations of printed material, both the delay and content limits (# of pages) is really not a big deal when it comes to the stuff we enjoy here on HN. In fact, it really was nice to only have a small number of articles in front of me so I didn't get distracted with all the noise.
Lastly, I thought not having comments would be huge... but I didn't think about that once as I was reading the PDF. I guess the context of how you consume something defines what you expect.
It's weird but I remember reading some of these articles on the web but, reading them again in magazine form, they somehow seem much more authoritative and objective.
Although I think it might be hindered a little bit by the titles of some of the articles. Something about "5 Actions that Made Me Happier", "The Scariest Pricing Idea Ever", "Best Writing Advice for Engineers" etc. in a print magazine seems unbecoming. Perhaps it speaks of the desperation to grab attention that is necessary on the web but not in print. I'm not really sure but, for me, those titles seem to cheapen what is otherwise beautiful.
My jaw dropped a little bit when I opened the PDF; it looks very professional, and it's gorgeous, too! I skimmed through it and I'm definitely looking forward to read it. I totally would buy a hard copy, but unfortunately MagCloud doesn't ship to Europe (Pity!!). Are there any plans to ship HM to Europe? I could imagine that it would cost too much, but there's always hope:)
Shipping costs shouldn't be an issue - it costs basically nothing to ship the bits. You just need to find a printer in Europe who can distribute it there.
Maybe instead of putting the threads on the magazine, you could have a link to the discussion thread at the end of every article. That would probably save a bunch of trees in the print copy.
Lim, at times your grammar is off and your constructions are jarring. If you'd like a proofreader for future issues you can contact me on: jg457 [@] st-andrews [.] ac [.] uk.
Agreed, curator's note needs editing, and jwz's last name is also misspelled on the TOC (p3 - "JAWINSKI" instead of 'Z[...]'), though he's credited correctly on the inside jacket (p2). You could update the pdf, I suppose.
I'm happy to share the proofreading/editing burden with ekpyrotic or do a pass before or after ekpyrotic does, if that would be helpful (http://rdela.com has an email link at the bottom).
181 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] threadNot sure if there's a better way to do it.
<a href="URL_TO_PDF" onclick="registerConversion()">Download</a>
You can put a minor 500 ms pause so that event gets registered.
I had hoped it would include the discussion threads from that too.
That will come in #2, hopefully.
In case I didnt say before: you're welcome to use any of mine with attribution (if you want to edit long ones a quick email would be appreciated).
I do think it's going to need comments to be worth while. I have just bought a copy of the first issue anyway though :)
Q. Will you include the comments of Hacker News?
A. Of course. Similar to the articles, I will email the original commenters for permission. Oh, if you are a regular commenter in Hacker News, pretty please, put your contact information in your profile (a lot of the members just leave it empty), that would save me a lot of fuss trying to look for your email around the web. [ed: that means you ThomPete]
Hence, I'm using SHIPITO (http://shipito.com). They seemed to be the cheapest and quite reliable (has a support forum).
I think you've messed up the title's formatting a bit in the jwz iPhone article tho.
But sometimes I just want to read the content, not get distracted by anything else.
Two suggestions for future releases.
1) Can you reprint at least the top 3-5 comments on those topics on hackers News? (not sure how you are going to do that without making a lot of people mad). Also on the PDF version, can you have a clickable link to the discussion on the hacker news?
2) One of the biggest reasons I am turned off from reading magazines is the annoying ads all over the place including in-between the content. Since you are going to rely on ad, may I suggest that you try to avoid ads on the same page, where there is content? I stopped reading Wired Magazine, just because of this reason.
Good luck. Looks good.
In any case, what they do is they have a few pages in the printed edition where they just reprint interesting comments from the online discussion. The comments are shown as thought bubbles next to user icons from the online community, and they are selected such that they make sense standalone without the original article text. These pages are surprisingly fun to browse, and they also work as an ad for the online portion of the magazine and the discussions taking place there.
I think the reason he did not include comments is the lack of a way of contacting people on HN. Very few people include an email address in their profile.
HN could help him a lot by adding a "email me" link on the profile page - not an email address, but a forwarder, HN will send the email.
I don't think spam would be much of a problem since you would need to be a registered user to send an email, and you could require 3 karma or something.
Maybe only show emails to users with 25 karma or more?
It makes me think that the limitations of printed material, both the delay and content limits (# of pages) is really not a big deal when it comes to the stuff we enjoy here on HN. In fact, it really was nice to only have a small number of articles in front of me so I didn't get distracted with all the noise.
Lastly, I thought not having comments would be huge... but I didn't think about that once as I was reading the PDF. I guess the context of how you consume something defines what you expect.
Ah, the perils of framing!
I am tired of all these people raining on link-baiting.
So what if he wants to phrase his titles like that? It makes much sense, because that's how attention is grabbed.
Without those titles, I know I would have missed many wonderful articles.
Either way, keep up the good work!
I hope somebody finds a publisher in Europe. I did a fast search, and it looks like there aren't a lot (or any) services like MagCloud here in Europe.
At least I got some hopeful bits from the MagCloud FAQ:
The MagCloud team is working hard on expanding to other European and Asia Pacific countries
Let's hope that working hard means they'll start to ship to other European countries in the next few weeks ;)
I'd love to see the magazine perfect bound rather than saddle stitch, too.
MagCloud state that they plan to expand, but we don't know how long it will take.
Otherwise, well done on Issue 1. Looks great.
I'm happy to share the proofreading/editing burden with ekpyrotic or do a pass before or after ekpyrotic does, if that would be helpful (http://rdela.com has an email link at the bottom).