I've been using the CSS-Tricks site since 2008. It's one of the best sites on internet and has great community of developers. Congrats to Chris Coyier and the team!
I’ll be the first to say: congrats to Chris! Just an excellent guy - and he’s been contributing so much good writing to the web development community for so long, he deserves a pay day.
Does seem a bit of a strange fit for DigitalOcean. That said, they seem like a solid company and they really do have some really good tutorials/knowledgebase.
Sounds like a good time to sell it off though and hope they have the same success with future projects.
Not that strange. DigitalOcean has (or had?) a great forum for asking tech questions on setting up droplets and other DO services. It was very community driven. I relied on it often when I first made my VPS back in 2013.
DO has really been expanding their SEO in terms of the generic "How to install X on Ubuntu" search term (albeit, this is particular for CSS-tricks). I often see them ranked near the top for many of these searches. I think it's a great addition if that's what DO is going for.
That is to say, syndicated content is already a part of their SEO strategy. The question now is how they’ll fit CSS Tricks into that mosaic. Maybe just simple ads and links? Maybe moving it under the DO domain with 301s? We shall see.
I imagine they'll put links into their strongest pages and then eventually 301 the domain. In a comment above they mentioned DO has also acquired Scotch. io and that 301s to DO now.
I've spent some time with Digital Ocean team members, and they're dead-set on having the best technical content on the internet. It's been a core to their growth strategy so far:
- Target long-tail searches -- queries where there may not be a lot of volume but also not a lot of competition
- Stand out with very good content (not just SEO filler)
- Build trust with the dev community
This is a time-consuming and expensive strategy. So acquiring large tranches like this makes sense.
I've personally learned insane amounts from their tutorials even though never trying their services.
I believe they are a paragon of quality information.
Based entirely on their guides I would recommend their other services above aws, simply because I can see that they understand the underlying principles required to effectively handle what they are selling.
I've used some of the tutorials for help with dev server setup (self signed cert and some other things). They're well written and they work.
It helps keep me using their services, though the tutorials are generic enough to work everywhere ( I used the instructions on a vagrant/virtual box instance too..)
In some ways, CSS-Tricks is a competitor to Digital Ocean's technical article marketing strategy. They are pretty high up in the search results for plenty of different technical answers, even beating out StackOverflow pretty often.
I think @XCSme stated it best with their comment: "...Web developers are a big slice of DO's target market...". I don't know about you but I firmyl believe that both CSS Tricks and Digital Ocean produce some great content for an audience that is undertaking their own web projects - like web devs. I use DO for my personal projects, and also dive into CSS tricks when i need to look stuff up. But i have to imagine that maybe DO is also seeking to get the business of folks who might not be web devs...maybe folks who would traditiuonally want to learn new stuff on the legacy shared web hosts, but who heard from their techie friends that they should move to a provider like DO (or linode, etc.) in order to grow. Maybe a bit of a long-tail audience, but who knows, maybe there are tons of them out there? These not-yet/not-really web dev folks often need a little helping hand - hence the need for more and better guides (not just tech guides, but hand-holding content)...so when i see things in that light, then this kind of acquisition makes sense...in fact, i would guess everyone wins; the consumers; CSS Tricks team; and DO...at least i hope.
I immediately had the same question. My current theory is that this will be used to attract front-enders to their App Platform (which they've been investing in and pushing hard for a little while now).
Margins are pretty great for app platform so that's an area I would expect investment in.
I (and I'm sure many others here) owe my career to Chris. HTML never "clicked" for me, until I watched one of his screencasts breaking down a design and building a page from scratch. The rest is history.
Whether it be setting up a LAMP stack on a server, securing nginx with Lets Encrypt, deploying a python ML model as a web service, you name it, DigitalOcean's tutorials just work. Thanks Digital Ocean!
PS: I love the Idea of calling a single server a "Droplet" in the "Digital Ocean". Nice one DO.
I've been a DO customer since 2013 and never in that time have I hosted any of my sites or apps on other platforms. They're super good in every department; support, pricing, tools, and of course, tutorials.
Only a shame they rolled out all the affiliate credits. In the first year I generated like $1,500 in affiliate revenue from a single review post I did.
At the rate of $5 per droplet, that's 25 years worth of hosting. I didn't get the full 25 but still happy to pay for their services.
I have a Droplet I haven't accessed in 7 years. I'm pretty sure if I look at it the wrong way it will break, but it's been running the same app with no downtime like a champ.
I agree DO is good in pricing, tools, and tutorials. But support? I've had terrible experiences with DO support, enough so that I fled to a different provider. Maybe they're improving, but DO tends to drop the account lock hammer quickly on first sign of any anomaly that the algorithm doesn't like, rendering the victim helpless and relegated to groveling and begging for compassion.
One can hope that a tweet gets picked up by HN or other media to get their attention, but alas, such is not typical.
Yeah, DO is great for personal projects but once business is involved I would migrate very quickly. I've had LBs run by them touched by mild DDOS activity and in response DO would simply turn off the LB in question - doing the attacker's job better than they ever could! And then good luck getting hold of support to, you know, turn it back on please.
I couldn't recommend them for any real business. Great to start with maybe, but make sure you have an exit plan.
Without their tutorials, I would never have tried to do any of the things I'm doing for myself. Been a customer for many years after learning about it on HN. My employer has been a customer for almost as long since I use it to run a server for my teaching (thereby eliminating the need for me to do tech support for my students, which I hate). Their tutorials have brought in quite a few thousands in revenue just from me.
wtf? i came across some tutorials there for work (aka the place where we dont do things properly because we arent pad to do so) and it was all script kiddie crap targeting some specific ubuntu distro that wont work next month (or worse, all i remember was that this was particularly egregious and even worse than all the other tutorial crap ive seen in that period of time). these blogs have been common since the 2000s as a simple place to make ad revenue with little effort. they were never good and only come on the radar because they easily drown out actual real content on search engines.
also, the "popular this month" thing on the top front of css-tricks.com is buggy as hell (buttons go flying left and right depending on where you move the mouse, and other things, not sure how its even meant to be displayed)
i have another rant now: why do devs lack basic awareness which would be required to be aware of the fact that lazy loading content is bad for the user experience? is it because they are paid $100K-$200K (for now, this trend wont last forever) starting salaries in their bubble with fast connections? literally every single country outside the west has slow computers and internet, and every single piece of modern software are unusable on them. in the US meanwhile, you cant get fast internet either and 50% of users are on mobile which also once again brings you back to square one.
like wtf imagine being SOOO unaware of how your product is used that you think its only used on Reference hardware. seriously what have webdevs done in the last 14 years while i wasnt looking? i dont see one single thing that was improved. im pretty sure what happens is in their world they are hyper focused on some little head scratcher like "making this UI element be able to be hooked up in a declarative document cleanly in this specific way and having a declarative model of how it interacts with these other declarative components" and dont realize everything still sucks overall and is getting worse. none of that should be surprising though, because the web already obviously a bad idea 30 years ago when people decided that website owners should be able to make users do shit before being able to read/view the content
> because the web already obviously a bad idea 30 years ago when people decided that website owners should be able to make users do shit before being able to read/view the content
the _immiedate_ consequence of a document format having scripts in it is this. there is no far thinking required to realize this. it was obvious at the time.
Interestingly, DigitalOcean has a knack for acquiring these technical dev sites, in 2019 it acquired Scotch.io[0] which was one of the better technical web development sites out there.
Fun fact about Scotch, the founder (Chris Sev[1]) sold the site to DO, joined their team, and later managed to broker a deal to 301 redirect a lot of the pages to his new project Better.dev[2].
I'm guessing that is what happened. Maybe it was a clause in the contract? If Chris reads this comment maybe he can chime in to clarify. I should have made that clear in my original comment, though.
I found out about it by doing keyword research for a piece I was doing. Better.dev was one of the sites that ranked extremely well for it and I hadn't heard of the name before. Upon closer inspection, I learned that the post is an old Scotch.io article which is being redirected to his new project.
Scotch.io redirects to Digital Ocean Community site when I checked just now. I imagine a big reason it was acquired for the sweet domain authority for SEO.
You can see that Scotch.io was dying off in traffic [1] - I would assume it wasn't getting new content regularly enough. The domain is pretty powerful, so even pushing some traffic to Better.dev [2] via 301's would have helped both sites out.
I imagine better.dev would have agreed to promote DO and put some links on their top pages to give the DigitalOcean domain even more SEO power.
"here are my courses" is definitely more grammatically correct for written English but "here is my courses" sounds like something you'd say informally in conversation when you're not overthinking grammar. Maybe the goal is to sound more personable/folksy?
There's no way "there's a lot" is a contraction of "there is a list of a lot" which is what you're implying based on the way this particular thread has evolved.
Also, your example is ambiguous because "lot" is a singular noun (you wouldn't use "are" if the object is a parking lot, for example) but if you're truncating a longer phrase like "a lot of widgets" then "a lot" is modifying a plural noun (you'd definitely use "are" for that, or the informal apostrophe+s we're discussing).
From a prescriptive grammar standpoint, you're correct. From a descriptive standpoint, I'm not sure how common that contraction is, but I've heard it before and offhand it seems like it gets used in some regions.
Phonologically, it makes sense that it would gain traction as it's a means of avoiding the effort of the 'ere are' vowel combination. It's an addition rather than an elision, but the underlying motivation of saving effort is the same.
They are using the phrase "literally kill me" as a hyperbole. It is a form of exaggeration. They are not in fact being killed, they are just annoyed. It is a rhetorical device used for emphasis.
The word "literally" has been commonly used for hyperbole in English for hundreds of years. There is nothing grammatically wrong here.
The hyperbolic use of "literally" to mean "figuratively" goes back hundreds of years.
> : in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible
will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice
— Norman Cousins
> The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not a new sense. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce, and many others.
edit: HN was loading really weird for me, I didn't see the sibling comment make this point already!
Grammer conversations are the very pineapple of useless discourse, and I don't see why we don't nip them in the butt. Weather you say "literally" or "figuratively", both are equally understandable for all intensive purposes. So as far as I'm concerned these arguments serve no porpoise and we'd be better off if they faded into Bolivian.
I certainly do. More so, I was referencing the fact that the definition of the word "literally" now also includes "figuratively" in several English dictionaries as an example of a similar language development.
To be fair, I think "do you have them?" would be more common for a lot of English speakers ("have you got" sounds British to me as an American, but it's possible that this is just a regional American thing). I'm not sure I would either think fast enough to care enough to tailor my automated response to a question like that based on the exact phrasing of the query.
Americans still use it as a response though, e.g. "You got this!" - "I do!". it's the "I do got" which really bugs me. "I do have" and "I have got" are fine and make sense
"Have", obviously. That's the only one that goes with "do", being in the present tense. Otherwise it would be "I did (get them)".
Not that it matters anyway, since "have got" is a weird double-barrelled construct: It means exactly the same as just "have" or "got" on their own, so take your pick.
> "do you have them" and "have you got them" are completely different questions. so no, that answer is wrong (and not obvious)
If you've got something, you have it. Sure, you could, logically, have got rid of it in the meantime -- but that's ridiculous pedantry; in the GP's context, it's the same question. All that was, though, a side note.
> so no, that answer is wrong (and not obvious)
The actual question, OTOH, was which of the (implied) original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?" the reply "I do" was in answer to. And as an unambiguous matter of grammar, "I do" is correct in reply to the latter and nonsensical in rey to the former; there, the reply would have been "I did".
So my answer was correct. And that should have been obvious to anyone who knows even the rudiments of English (wich may not include you).
Here, BTW, have some capitals and a full stop: D, S, .
>If you've got something, you have it. Sure, you could, logically, have got rid of it in the meantime -- but that's ridiculous pedantry; in the GP's context, it's the same question. All that was, though, a side note.
unsure how this little solipsism bolsters your argument or who you're trying to convince. I still contest that it is not the same question. "I do" can follow "do you have?", but not "have you got?". it's not being asked if you have, rather if you have got. of course you could have something without getting it, and other playground grammar, but that just detracts
>The actual question, OTOH, was which of the (implied) original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?" the reply "I do" was in answer to. And as an unambiguous matter of grammar, "I do" is correct in reply to the latter and nonsensical in rey to the former; there, the reply would have been "I did".
why bother mixing tenses and rephrasing? you're trying to complicate something simple so you can cleverly unravel it, which is just pointless. the point being: "I do" is an unacceptable response to "have you got them?", and if anything is implied it's "do have got" in the first answer, which again is the point of being nonsense
>So my answer was correct. And that should have been obvious to anyone who knows even the rudiments of English (wich may not include you).
of course it was, for you. obviously
>Here, BTW, have some capitals and a full stop: D, S, .
I made the decision to use those more sparingly when I became a scholar of latin - so that little dig came back to bite you and I relish in your embarrassment. since you muddied the waters, you can help yourself to some spelling corrections for 'rey' and 'wich', plus some extra acronyms and commas as you seem, amongst other things, full of them LMAO GTFO ,,,,,,,,
> "I do" can follow "do you have?", but not "have you got?". it's not being asked if you have, rather if you have got.
Let me direct your attention to:
>>> that's almost as annoying as "have you got them?" - "I do" - "do what.. do have? do got??"
Where you yourself originally acknowledged that the question had been apparently interpreted as "do you have?". So...
> "Have", obviously. That's the only one that goes with "do", being in the present tense.
...still stands.
> why bother mixing tenses and rephrasing?
To illustrate what was actually being answered; do try to keep up. And, hey... Who introduced the mixed tenses?
> you're trying to complicate something simple so you can cleverly unravel it, which is just pointless.
Sure, if one is determined not to get the point. Actually what I said was pretty simple: Of the two alternatives "do what.. do have? do got??", "do have" is obviously the intended one, because it has the same tense throughout; "do got" is ungrammatical and never used. What's "complicated" about that?
> the point being: "I do" is an unacceptable response to "have you got them?", and if anything is implied it's "do have got" in the first answer, which again is the point of being nonsense
If anything is nonsense, I would have thought it's "which again is the point of being nonsense".
> I made the decision to use those more sparingly when I became a scholar of latin
Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
> - so that little dig came back to bite you and I relish in your embarrassment.
Not at all. Swim in your own in stead.
> you can help yourself to some spelling corrections for 'rey'
Fucking backspace next to 'l' on the phone KB... Ate the 'p' and of course never entered the 'l' in 'reply'. When will I learn not to post to HN on that fucking contraption?
> and 'wich',
My bad.
> plus some extra acronyms and commas as you seem, amongst other things, full of them LMAO GTFO ,,,,,,,,
Why would I need those if I'm so full of them already?!? Get off your high horse, "latin" boi. The Romans valued clear logic, and you're embarrassing them.
>you yourself originally acknowledged that the question had been apparently interpreted as "do you have?
>>>>it's not being asked if you have, rather if you have got
apparently? no, but from where you falsely quote the 'original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?"'
again, having and getting are not the same thing
>...still stands
having tripped up so many times you'll be lucky if anything stands again
>To illustrate what was actually being answered
so, to provide a false foundation for your phoney answer. got it
>Who introduced the mixed tenses?
you did with "Did you get them?". keep up laddy!
>Sure, if one is determined not to get the point. Actually what I said was pretty simple: Of the two alternatives "do what.. do have? do got??", "do have" is obviously the intended one, because it has the same tense throughout; "do got" is ungrammatical and never used. What's "complicated" about that?
if anything it's a contraction of "do have got", if it was interpreted as just "do have", then we come back to the point of having not being the same as getting. you're complicating it by changing the verb, which in turn invalidates your answer. throwing the oneage around to try and sound sophisticated doesn't change this fact
>If anything is nonsense, I would have thought it's "which again is the point of being nonsense".
I can't account for your inability to process simple information. swerve noted
>Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
sarcasm from a dimwit, how befitting. punctuation and capitalisation are independent from or at best optional in language. you didn't lose any context and were able (albeit limitedly) to read it, so..
that's also a misuse of sic, but never mind, it's expected at this point
>Not at all. Swim in your own in stead.
remind us one more time
>Fucking backspace next to 'l' on the phone KB... ..
yeeeah, you sure are something special
>Why would I need those if I'm so full of them already?!?
to satisfy your own gluttony? funny how you've refrained though
>Get off your high horse, "latin" boi. The Romans valued clear logic, and you're embarrassing them.
whoosh
get off your inferior plodding ass and have a nice day
> you did with "Did you get them?". keep up laddy!
Again, for the umpteenth time:
>>> that's almost as annoying as "have you got them?" - "I do" - "do what.. do have? do got??"
"Have got": past participle or whatever; "do have": present tense. That's yours, the original introduction of mixed tenses.
> >Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
> that's also a misuse of sic, but never mind, it's expected at this point
No, it's a perfectly valid use of "sic" in the sense of "this is exactly how that word is supposed to be written". (Given how it's a proper name, and all.) What, you were only familiar with the other sense, that of "this is exactly how you wrote it, you numbskull "? Better piss off back to middle school and get some Bildung then.
> you're meant to leave the supposed error in situ, not replace it with your supposed correction YAWN
This:
>>>> Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
Was my own usage of it in the correct form, hence the second sense of sic, "this is how it's supposed to be written" -- not the first sense, pointing out an error. Sheesh, your reading comprehension really is below-third-grade, isn't it? Or is it just that you have the attention span of a gnat on crack? Probably both.
> your life is boring.
Only to the extent that you persist in crashing into it. Please stop that.
As a non-native English speaker myself, I still find native using contraction on "there's two cats" counter intuitive. Sometimes I use the correct grammar "there are two cats" but then it sounds too formal for the native to heard it. Then I have to adjust with the "wrong" way of saying it.
There’s nothing grammatically incorrect about “there’s”. The oversight is in confusing a contraction with an abbreviation. “There’s” is a contraction for either “there is” or “there are” and the precise one is given by context. It is not a mere abbreviation for “there is”.
Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural.
The way I've explained the correctness of the plural use to a non-native speaker, is that (to use the cats example) there is one group of cats, the group is singular even though its content is plural, so “there is” is correct, therefore so is the contraction. Not explicitly mentioning the group is just another abbreviation, because it is implicitly understood. This avoids the discussion of whether “there are → there's” is valid in written form (which tends to be more strict than verbal use).
> “There’s” is a contraction for either “there is” or “there are”
But doesn't con-traction mean "pulling together"? You pull the last letter over towards the first ones, squishing out the ones between. Only there is no 's' at the end of "there are" to pull over next to "there".
So "there's" can't really be a contraction of "there are", AFAICS.
> Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural.
Sure, it may be a perfectly valid usage, so it's something... But as matter of terminology, whatever that something is, I don't think it's a contraction.
I think out loud you'd be more likely to hear "here're your donuts" rather than "here's your donuts"), but when written, here're looks way worse. Language (written, spoken, and otherwise) is interesting and resistant to fitting into nice, neat, tidy boxes.
From the headline on better.dev it says "Hey I'm Chris Sev. Here's My Courses", shouldn't it be "Here are my courses"?
It's the difference between written English and spoken English.
In conversation, it's not unusual for someone to use "here's" in this context. To be correct, especially for display in print or on a screen, the correct words are "here are."
I think that people use "here's" instead of "here are" because "here are" can be difficult to say quickly in conversation, and can sound like "herere," which is indistinct and unpleasant-sounding.
The internet has popularized the use of spoken English online because most English speakers speak English well enough, but fewer English speakers write English well.
The real answer is that its copywriting, which means grammar is nearly irrelevant.
He starts with "Hey I'm Chris Sev" because it's a better headline, which is defined as something that is more likely to make people read the rest of the page. (Defined specifically because I see lots of complaints here that headlines should be descriptive of the actual content, which isn't really what matters, functionally. (I get the impulse though, really.))
My internal compiler rejects that syntax. It's not uncommon but reading a headline like that does tend to make me less confident that whatever is in the page is worthwhile.
If he doesn't even proofread his headline, how sloppy will the rest of the site be?
I'm pretty sure the content stopped in mid 2020, so a year or so after the sale.
And then eventually was redirected to DigitalOcean.
Also, just to add my own thought to this - CSS-Tricks is of course very loved by people who learned things there, and people who respect Chris Coyer as a designer. But, these acquisitions do have an effect on how people perceive a project, and skepticism is very high on that list.
They seem to be keeping the "Write for Us" option open, with 300$+ a pop per guest post + promotion to your project. If anything, it will become a haven for those kind of posts. If not, they might by some miracle find a really good person (dev or designer) who is willing to take on the reigns for a while. Unlikely, though.
I bet it is in the millions. I help manage some sites which have CSS tutorials on them, and even if the article is about something like "How to use the CSS counter() property" - if you have the words "center" and "div" mentioned in the article, Google Search Console will report impressions for that article with keywords like "how to center a div". Funny!
Their guides are indispensable for my occasional dabbling.
Just saved flexbox and grid guides using the SingleFile extension, something I discovered a couple of weeks ago here on HN. HN warns and provides solutions.
No!!!! Please don't!! My muscle memory would go totally out of whack if this happened. You can continue to use reader view and enjoy your muscle memory workflow, but don't go changing mine. Parent info on the left, child info on the right.
Also, requesting your non-flexbox layout for your documents on how to do flexbox seems rather ironic.
Their flexbox article kind of ended my (hobbyist) interest in front end styling. I just turn everything into flexboxes and everything behaves just like I want it to. And yes I do visit it every time I do front end styling.
Their Flexbox and Grid guides are the best. I've been using both since pretty much the start and I still look up syntax from them at least once a week.
As others have said in other threads, I don't think you have much to worry about.
DO seems to value quality over quantity for documentation. Documentation appears to be their 'doing well by doing good' strategy. What BackBlaze is to hard drive reviews, DO is to a subset of platform agnostic cloud technologies. I don't know what they do now, but at one point a couple years ago they were soliciting 'paid' articles, but rather than paying you directly they would make a donation to an organization on their list on your behalf.
If I were telling an intern where to look for technical knowledge on the internet, my advice would be something like this: start at their website (mostly for due diligence, since 4/5 times you won't find what you want there), Stack Overflow, Google, Digital Ocean, and then look for either books by the authors (if you're a bookish sort), or find conversations with the authors on the internet.
Though now Google is falling fast. I'm on the cusp of demoting it below DO. I feel that camel straining under the weight on its back. SEO is turning into Search Engine Sabotage lately.
If DO starts buying up knowledge bases that could flip for positive reasons instead of negative ones.
This is one of the few instances where I can say I trust the acquiring company. I've been a fan of DigitalOcean since I started using them. They haven't given me a reason to dislike them. And like the post says, they do write some handy tutorials. One that's helped me a few times is how to spin up a quick FTP server on Debian, because for some reason I can never configure it right.
Congrats to the original owner on getting acquired, and by a company that will most likely do well with it.
I've also recently heard of larger VC firms quietly (secretly) buying tech publications lately. There's a lot of value in the eyeballs -- perhaps also the narrative.
This is part of a broader trend. Last year, Balaji Srinivasan tweeted about the idea of SaaS companies buying media companies – https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1374363031417753609 – and as an observer/operator in this space, I've heard about a lot of conversations going on behind the scenes with larger companies expressing an interest in smaller media companies (including my own - I value autonomy too much but for the right multiple.. :-D).
Consider Hubspot buying The Hustle, Robinhood buying MarketSnacks, Stripe's various acquisitions (like IndieHackers), Insight Partners bought The New Stack.. and this is all happening in the developer space too. Subscription based companies with high cashflow but high customer acquisition costs will continue to buy attention-based companies with relatively low acquisition costs because, frankly, the owners of the latter are generally quite happy with "modest" (<$40m, say) exits that the former can easily cover.
To your (& Balaji's) point - one of tried and true methods of customer acquisition for SaaS is content marketing, but it's a very long game and you need to have quality content. Acquiring a blog or a media company that already has that has clear ROI.
DO already has a solid knowledge base of articles ("How to ... on Ubuntu Server" almost always leads to DO) but mostly for the back-end part of the stack. From that perspective, buying CSS-Tricks is not too surprising.
Haha, thanks! I've had a few serious acquisition conversations over the years, but it's never made sense because I enjoy what I do already and don't really want to move on to something else :-) Like many people, I would take "retire forever" money (and probably end up still working anyway) but that hasn't been on offer.
If you're comfortable sharing what amount "retire forever money" is for you, I'd be interested in what that number is. See profile for DM options if you don't want to post it publicly!
It wobbles around depending on my mood. At the most basic level, though, enough to pay off the mortgage, do a few fun things, and create a fund to draw down at 3.5% per year covering two good incomes – so somewhere in the $6-8m zone. If I were sick or had to stop working for some critical reason though, obviously that would drop pretty quick given lack of options.
> but high customer acquisition costs will continue to buy attention-based companies with relatively low acquisition costs because,
I don't disagree with the thesis, but is the ROI actually there? Why not just pay the media company to be an exclusive partner? Maybe it's just putting the acquisition cost on the balance sheet instead of the income statement?
You lack control on what you want to do with the publication. Any of your competitors can bid higher, for instance. Or if you decide to do a campaign announcing a new feature, they might say No because they're busy/doing something else. This is probably pennies for DigitalOcean, btw, in the whole scheme of things.
DO is smarter than most and has really nailed it with their content development program. When I say "trend" I'm not being negative, I'm speaking about broad industry movements which this deal can still be lumped in with, regardless of how smart or specific any individual deal or buyer is.
DigitalOcean’s strategy with evergreen technical content was to duplicate Linode’s strategy with evergreen technical content wholesale, down to individual articles. Linode Library, including a complete custom CMS and community engagement strategy to pay Linode users to help generate evergreen, was in place and driving conversions long before DigitalOcean was founded. They cribbed just about everything substantive from Linode documentation including the editorial structure that allows churning out content (install X on Y, basically, and enumerate administration verbs, Xs, Ys every time you deploy a new OS for users).
I distinctly remember multiple Library articles getting rewritten about a week later and appearing on DO’s site with just enough distance to be unique, but it was clear that our work was on the screen while they wrote it based on document structure and technical approach (this was in the early “catch up” phase, roughly 2011-2012; it’s probably established enough now that this is no longer the case). More than once they not-so-subtly rewrote the technical approach to distinguish it and ended up breaking the instructions. They took verb ideas, they took X ideas, they took whole documents and shoved them in a blender with their systems. This is likely provable with Internet Archive but I’ve never bothered to look - I left Linode a decade ago.
I wouldn’t have left this seemingly negative for no reason comment had you not identified DO’s documentation strategy as an early insight. It was an early insight, but absolutely, definitively not theirs. They raised the VC to get exposed to this audience and successfully presented nearly all of Linode’s business insights as their own, and it’s understandable that it seems that way if you didn’t follow Linode before DO.
The first several years of DigitalOcean’s existence made it very clear they looked at Linode and said that, but with funding rounds. And that’s fine. They’ve done well. But let’s not attribute insights to their copies of things; their primary corporate insight all along was realizing Linode was handicapped with bootstrapped capital alone. And to give them credit, it was undeniably savvy to apply Linode’s successes to scaling DigitalOcean. It just means it’s not their ingenuity in any sense of the word.
You're right that the Linode library existed prior to DigitalOcean's founding but DigitalOcean did innovate: they understood the value of technical writing as a conversion tool, and paid for it. Linode did not pay for articles until more recently, and so the Linode library was comparatively weak for a long, long time. The Linode library was helpful for customers, certainly, but it was never comparable to what DigitalOcean achieved with their content. You can argue that DO were able to achieve what they did because of raising money, but to suggest they copied Linode wholesale is revisionism.
I won't get into the weeds of Linode vs. DigitalOcean but there were very important differences in approach, and eventually Linode was copying DO's ideas (for example, the introduction of low-resource low-cost servers, the design...). Linode was a trailblazer in the industry, for sure, but DigitalOcean wasn't just "Linode plus capital".
edit: Linode started paying in 2014[1] after DigitalOcean[2]
I gave lengthy examples of copying that I observed firsthand. You don’t believe me, ask Sam K, whose work was diligently and routinely copied. Linode Library also credited customers for contributions publicly and financially since its launch in 2009. They expanded the program later to anyone interested to scale it beyond one-offs. The whole point of Linode Library was conversions so your distinguishing of DO’s “innovation” is baffling; what, you think we hired three people to write about nginx because it was fun?
Of course Linode eventually copied DO back. That was the terms of the relationship established by DO. We were too busy dreaming of copying AWS at the time to see the threat. We ruled out $10 and lower Linodes again before DO was founded due to our support resources. DO forced that hand later (I assume, that was after I left).
I am obviously biased having worked there (worth noting I left on awful terms), and I am aware of that, but some of what I’m saying is purely objective and, again, probably provable with study of IA. If you’re going to refute my first hand, lived experience and call it revisionism, you’ve proven my point of making this comment at all.
Linode included affiliate program links for authors, that's not comparable to paying cash. I can't speak to whether DO did copy article contents (though I remember the rumours at the time and don't doubt it) but there is a meaningful gap between asking people to contribute vs. paying for the content, and that's why DigitalOcean achieved so much with their library despite launching later: people actually wanted to write for DigitalOcean.
I was a Linode customer at the time the library launched, I was a Linode customer when DigitalOcean launched, and I was a Linode customer years after DigitalOcean launched: Linode was the best VPS provider of the time, undoubtably, and influential for those that followed (including DigitalOcean) but DigitalOcean was much more than a VPS provider and they pushed the industry forward in ways that Linode never even tried. Diminishing what they achieved as being "Linode but with money" is nonsense.
What you remember and what is true aren't one and the same, as is evidenced by the Linode blog showing payments began for articles in 2014.
You’re talking past me, particularly harping on the blog you found from 2014 despite me directly addressing it in my reply to you (and using it to question my recollection), so it’s clear we’re not going to agree. I’m also not a fan of being told events and discussions I was a part of, firsthand, and pissed off about, firsthand, is me failing to remember the truth accurately; that’s really insulting, fundamentally, and is not an approach you should take with someone sharing their lived reality, especially when you were on the paying end and not the employed end. The rumors you heard corroborate. It happened. Notice the usually-HN-active DO folks haven’t jumped on me yet? They know it happened, too.
Again, I left on horrible terms. That’s really important to remember as you think about my motivations. I’m not here to score points for a side, which you seem to have inferred.
"I wouldn’t have left this seemingly negative for no reason comment had you not identified DO’s documentation strategy as an early insight. It was an early insight, but absolutely, definitively not theirs. They raised the VC to get exposed to this audience and successfully presented nearly all of Linode’s business insights as their own, and it’s understandable that it seems that way if you didn’t follow Linode before DO.
The first several years of DigitalOcean’s existence made it very clear they looked at Linode and said that, but with funding rounds. And that’s fine. They’ve done well. But let’s not attribute insights to their copies of things; their primary corporate insight all along was realizing Linode was handicapped with bootstrapped capital alone. And to give them credit, it was undeniably savvy to apply Linode’s successes to scaling DigitalOcean. It just means it’s not their ingenuity in any sense of the word."
I did follow Linode before DigitalOcean. I did espouse the wonders of Linode, day in, day out. I did resist switching from Linode to DigitalOcean for years because of brand loyalty. I do consider Linode very important in shaping the industry, but I categorically disagree with the assertion that DigitalOcean's core insight was that Linode were cash-poor and all someone needed to do was "Linode but with VC". Your time at Linode and your damaged relationship with Linode are not evidence that DigitalOcean is Linode-but-with-money.
We aren't discussing your lived reality, we're discussing your dismissal of the achievements of DigitalOcean.
I’m not debating anything you’ve argued (I don’t know enough to know one way or another, except I will say that as an end-user, I remember liking DO’s documentation more in 2011 than Linode’s, but that doesnr mean the content is wasn’t still largely copied), but didn’t Slicehost (RIP) innovate the whole docs/tutorials as a sales funnel thing?
I’m sure DO took a lot of inspiration from Linode, but it always seemed like the heir apparent to Slicehost, which was the best designed/marketed/documented VPS host until it was sold off/shutdown.
100%. Good memory, too. Slicehost probably deserves credit as well. I’m not arguing for who deserves it. Arguing for who doesn’t. Slicehost’s approach to a number of things was better in a lot of ways and they did documentation a little differently, but you’re right, the funnel concept is the same (between all three).
I miss them too. They were respectful competitors and I know they were generally liked by competitors. There’s just a fine line between getting the idea for a funnel and copying its entire execution down to subscribing to RSS. I think there was mutual respect between both companies on that. With DO, not so much.
To be clear, it’s not Apple vs Google here, it’s the idea of DO coming out of the gate with that execution being a stroke of genius. They had (thanks for the reminder) multiple precedences and actively copied from at least one.
Why are you posting from multiple accounts? snorgle, snorgle2, both of which are recently-registered accounts? You might have an innocuous reason, but it seem a suspicious workaround to site rules or voting.
I have worked tracking web hosts for over a decade now and have always followed Linode and Digital Ocean being that both were/are major players.
I'm curious when you think Linode lost the ball (I am assuming you accept that premise at this point in time given their size differences) and why?
Digital Ocean seemed to execute better and scale further, you put forth it was simply fueled by VC money. I know Linode had some major security incidents over the years which have harmed its reputation.
Curious if you're willing to share your thoughts on how it all played out for an industry observer?
I think Balaji is more interested in having SaaS create their own Ministry of Information to do their PR instead of needing to rely on journalists who seem to be generally unfriendly to him.
He made a very early call on Covid being a serious threat and promoted masking. Recode then wrote a piece about "Tech bros too afraid to shake hands" and since then his relationship with US media has deteriorated:
Given that the Boing Boing post linked above references doxing journalists (and stuff "contravening the Geneva Convention"!) from 2012-13-14, I don't think that Covid tweet is what started it.
Hope they keep the site as it is, css-tricks.com has been consistently one of the best, if not the best CSS site around, to the point that I search there for a particular topic before going to general purpose search engines, and you'll frequently find Chris' original articles copypasta'd by "content marketers" anyway. I guess the big time push for CSS3 with ever-changing responsive requirements and new UI idioms of the 2000's and 2010's is behind us, as witnessed by css-tricks's forum with contributions from other world-class experts having closed down last year or so. Could be worse than DO for sure.
When looking up how to do something on my EC2 instance, I often find a DO writeup that is better written than the AWS docs. Obviously, this is for generic Linux sysadmin type stuff, and nothing specific to cloud vendor stuff.
If a DO link is returned in my search, I tend to click on it.
Are there any similar websites but for web development in general (not just CSS)? Because this one is amazing!
The insane amount of SEO spam articles you get whenever you look for guides/examples on Google makes it almost impossible to rely on just searching on Google when you need it. So I'm finding myself having to go back to looking for curated lists of quality websites...
There used to be many blog posts by web designers showing up for inspiration - a weird mix of nerds, oriental ladies, and self-taught experts pushing the limit and genuinely in search of the one proper visual representation of some piece of content. I think people underestimate how much of what we take for granted on the web today was pioneered by these folks. sitepoint, alistapart used to be good as well (w3fools, not so much).
I took a react class and the intro was a lot of html/css/design stuff. The CSShints site isn't just CSS, so its worth exploring.
There is a lot of good stuff published that's hard to find. I wish I had a better catch all resource page.
Codepen.io is a good playground to play around with html/css/javascript and it has some javascript frameworkstuff too.
A lot of people put together good content. It seems to surface though blogs and twitter.
Some links/papers we used (without the CSShints pages). A lot of them have more content if you explore.
I'm kind of hoping the reverse happens, and the front end devs at Digital Ocean get some lessons in responsive design and browser compatibility. I love the Digital Ocean product, but their dashboard is just full of quirks that give me the impression that the devs there just test things out in Chrome at one window size and then peace-out for happy hour.
Conspiracy theory - digital ocean bought css tricks in order to shut it down in the hopes of decreasing css knowledge so that people don’t realize that their CSS is bad so that they don’t have to pay for a redesign.
I'm actually pretty optimistic about this - DigitalOcean does great work around docs and tutorial type sites. Half of the time when I search for things like, "how to install nvm on Ubuntu 20.04" a digital ocean article comes up, and it's really well done.
You made me breathe a sigh of relief. These 'x has been acquired by Y' alerts usually don't seem to end so well, so I'm hoping that's not the case here. Regardless, I'm happy for Chris, he deserves it.
as other comments have pointed out, DO have a strategy of writing great documentation, for stuff that isn't immediately there's (e.g. iptables/ufw, terrafrom, docker etc), these benefit people both using their platform already, and draw others in (find docs, hey these are useful, what else do they do?).
I could see them using this for both subtle (the header/footer links etc) and more "sponsered" content (i.e. links to DO AppPlatform in an article/tutorial about next.js etc)
It's already been mentioned in a few comments, but I imagine a big part of this purchase was influenced by the SEO power of the domain. CSS-Trick is a crazy powerful domain [1]
Google loves old domains with authority, and still, to this day, it's a lot easier to rank a site built on an aged/expired domain than it is on a fresh domain.
Congratulations to them. I’ve always respected css-tricks for their sensible approach to online advertising: no malware distributing ad networks, just selling ad spots to companies that the audience of a css and web dev focused website might be interested in.
For your start up, a good blog could be a serious lead vehicle.
To generate a ton of traffic or be worth something, I find you need to balance three things (personal opinion):
- Normal longer Blog type articles / announcements
- Quick blog / library / resource / how-tos
- Engagement / community
Each are unique for everyone.
For example, Cloudflare I would argue leans heavy to the longer blog rolls and is a lead gen for enterprise reads, investors, and also new hire folks.
For SEO though, Digital Ocean cares more about the library of resources style (I would wager). It’s why they are buying CSS-Tricks to get all that “smooth scroll css” traffic. This is very much a traffic is traffic mentality to boost their own blog traffic metrics. There are probably other factors here like community / clout. Why build all this when you can just buy it?
Then finally the last one is engagement. This is what converts and is having an active community. This is why influencers can make serious buck. This is the hardest to build and I would argue the most important. A “real following”.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this too and how you use your blog for your start up or business.
Last week I started poking around in some serious CSS again for the first time in ten years. I was a little rusty. CSS-Tricks definitely stood out for the quality. Truly helpful. I'm back in the swing of things now.
Congrats! I've referenced the site for my entire programing life and really like it a lot, but other than that I don't have much background on how it came to be. Does anyone know if Chris ever wrote about his motivations for or history of the site?
224 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 290 ms ] threadSounds like a good time to sell it off though and hope they have the same success with future projects.
Is it some kind of purchase of real estate for future permanent advertisement of DO?
That is to say, syndicated content is already a part of their SEO strategy. The question now is how they’ll fit CSS Tricks into that mosaic. Maybe just simple ads and links? Maybe moving it under the DO domain with 301s? We shall see.
I think they shouldn't touch it and let CSS-Tricks continue to do their own thing.
- Target long-tail searches -- queries where there may not be a lot of volume but also not a lot of competition
- Stand out with very good content (not just SEO filler)
- Build trust with the dev community
This is a time-consuming and expensive strategy. So acquiring large tranches like this makes sense.
Margins are pretty great for app platform so that's an area I would expect investment in.
PS: I love the Idea of calling a single server a "Droplet" in the "Digital Ocean". Nice one DO.
Only a shame they rolled out all the affiliate credits. In the first year I generated like $1,500 in affiliate revenue from a single review post I did.
At the rate of $5 per droplet, that's 25 years worth of hosting. I didn't get the full 25 but still happy to pay for their services.
I have a Droplet I haven't accessed in 7 years. I'm pretty sure if I look at it the wrong way it will break, but it's been running the same app with no downtime like a champ.
One can hope that a tweet gets picked up by HN or other media to get their attention, but alas, such is not typical.
I couldn't recommend them for any real business. Great to start with maybe, but make sure you have an exit plan.
also, the "popular this month" thing on the top front of css-tricks.com is buggy as hell (buttons go flying left and right depending on where you move the mouse, and other things, not sure how its even meant to be displayed)
i have another rant now: why do devs lack basic awareness which would be required to be aware of the fact that lazy loading content is bad for the user experience? is it because they are paid $100K-$200K (for now, this trend wont last forever) starting salaries in their bubble with fast connections? literally every single country outside the west has slow computers and internet, and every single piece of modern software are unusable on them. in the US meanwhile, you cant get fast internet either and 50% of users are on mobile which also once again brings you back to square one.
like wtf imagine being SOOO unaware of how your product is used that you think its only used on Reference hardware. seriously what have webdevs done in the last 14 years while i wasnt looking? i dont see one single thing that was improved. im pretty sure what happens is in their world they are hyper focused on some little head scratcher like "making this UI element be able to be hooked up in a declarative document cleanly in this specific way and having a declarative model of how it interacts with these other declarative components" and dont realize everything still sucks overall and is getting worse. none of that should be surprising though, because the web already obviously a bad idea 30 years ago when people decided that website owners should be able to make users do shit before being able to read/view the content
Are you sure that was in the original spec?
Interestingly, DigitalOcean has a knack for acquiring these technical dev sites, in 2019 it acquired Scotch.io[0] which was one of the better technical web development sites out there.
Fun fact about Scotch, the founder (Chris Sev[1]) sold the site to DO, joined their team, and later managed to broker a deal to 301 redirect a lot of the pages to his new project Better.dev[2].
Absolute genius.
[0]: https://www.digitalocean.com/blog/scotch-io-is-joining-digit...
[1]: https://twitter.com/chris__sev
[2]: https://www.better.dev/
I found out about it by doing keyword research for a piece I was doing. Better.dev was one of the sites that ranked extremely well for it and I hadn't heard of the name before. Upon closer inspection, I learned that the post is an old Scotch.io article which is being redirected to his new project.
You can see that Scotch.io was dying off in traffic [1] - I would assume it wasn't getting new content regularly enough. The domain is pretty powerful, so even pushing some traffic to Better.dev [2] via 301's would have helped both sites out.
I imagine better.dev would have agreed to promote DO and put some links on their top pages to give the DigitalOcean domain even more SEO power.
[1] - https://imgur.com/a/ashZPDa [2] - https://imgur.com/a/Wd9kzJt
there are a lot
Also, your example is ambiguous because "lot" is a singular noun (you wouldn't use "are" if the object is a parking lot, for example) but if you're truncating a longer phrase like "a lot of widgets" then "a lot" is modifying a plural noun (you'd definitely use "are" for that, or the informal apostrophe+s we're discussing).
Phonologically, it makes sense that it would gain traction as it's a means of avoiding the effort of the 'ere are' vowel combination. It's an addition rather than an elision, but the underlying motivation of saving effort is the same.
The word "literally" has been commonly used for hyperbole in English for hundreds of years. There is nothing grammatically wrong here.
> : in effect : VIRTUALLY —used in an exaggerated way to emphasize a statement or description that is not literally true or possible will literally turn the world upside down to combat cruelty or injustice — Norman Cousins
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literally
They justify this in a few places, including
> The "in effect; virtually" meaning of literally is not a new sense. It has been in regular use since the 18th century and may be found in the writings of Mark Twain, Charlotte Brontë, James Joyce, and many others.
edit: HN was loading really weird for me, I didn't see the sibling comment make this point already!
Kelsey?
>1. Contraction of here is.
>2. (nonstandard) Contraction of here are.
Note this has been listed since at least 2006, based on the history.
"She's raining" - "Who is?" - "Mother Nature"
Not that it matters anyway, since "have got" is a weird double-barrelled construct: It means exactly the same as just "have" or "got" on their own, so take your pick.
If you've got something, you have it. Sure, you could, logically, have got rid of it in the meantime -- but that's ridiculous pedantry; in the GP's context, it's the same question. All that was, though, a side note.
> so no, that answer is wrong (and not obvious)
The actual question, OTOH, was which of the (implied) original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?" the reply "I do" was in answer to. And as an unambiguous matter of grammar, "I do" is correct in reply to the latter and nonsensical in rey to the former; there, the reply would have been "I did".
So my answer was correct. And that should have been obvious to anyone who knows even the rudiments of English (wich may not include you).
Here, BTW, have some capitals and a full stop: D, S, .
unsure how this little solipsism bolsters your argument or who you're trying to convince. I still contest that it is not the same question. "I do" can follow "do you have?", but not "have you got?". it's not being asked if you have, rather if you have got. of course you could have something without getting it, and other playground grammar, but that just detracts
>The actual question, OTOH, was which of the (implied) original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?" the reply "I do" was in answer to. And as an unambiguous matter of grammar, "I do" is correct in reply to the latter and nonsensical in rey to the former; there, the reply would have been "I did".
why bother mixing tenses and rephrasing? you're trying to complicate something simple so you can cleverly unravel it, which is just pointless. the point being: "I do" is an unacceptable response to "have you got them?", and if anything is implied it's "do have got" in the first answer, which again is the point of being nonsense
>So my answer was correct. And that should have been obvious to anyone who knows even the rudiments of English (wich may not include you).
of course it was, for you. obviously
>Here, BTW, have some capitals and a full stop: D, S, .
I made the decision to use those more sparingly when I became a scholar of latin - so that little dig came back to bite you and I relish in your embarrassment. since you muddied the waters, you can help yourself to some spelling corrections for 'rey' and 'wich', plus some extra acronyms and commas as you seem, amongst other things, full of them LMAO GTFO ,,,,,,,,
Let me direct your attention to:
>>> that's almost as annoying as "have you got them?" - "I do" - "do what.. do have? do got??"
Where you yourself originally acknowledged that the question had been apparently interpreted as "do you have?". So...
> "Have", obviously. That's the only one that goes with "do", being in the present tense.
...still stands.
> why bother mixing tenses and rephrasing?
To illustrate what was actually being answered; do try to keep up. And, hey... Who introduced the mixed tenses?
> you're trying to complicate something simple so you can cleverly unravel it, which is just pointless.
Sure, if one is determined not to get the point. Actually what I said was pretty simple: Of the two alternatives "do what.. do have? do got??", "do have" is obviously the intended one, because it has the same tense throughout; "do got" is ungrammatical and never used. What's "complicated" about that?
> the point being: "I do" is an unacceptable response to "have you got them?", and if anything is implied it's "do have got" in the first answer, which again is the point of being nonsense
If anything is nonsense, I would have thought it's "which again is the point of being nonsense".
> I made the decision to use those more sparingly when I became a scholar of latin
Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
> - so that little dig came back to bite you and I relish in your embarrassment.
Not at all. Swim in your own in stead.
> you can help yourself to some spelling corrections for 'rey'
Fucking backspace next to 'l' on the phone KB... Ate the 'p' and of course never entered the 'l' in 'reply'. When will I learn not to post to HN on that fucking contraption?
> and 'wich',
My bad.
> plus some extra acronyms and commas as you seem, amongst other things, full of them LMAO GTFO ,,,,,,,,
Why would I need those if I'm so full of them already?!? Get off your high horse, "latin" boi. The Romans valued clear logic, and you're embarrassing them.
>>>>it's not being asked if you have, rather if you have got
apparently? no, but from where you falsely quote the 'original questions "Did you get them?" or "Do you have them?"'
again, having and getting are not the same thing
>...still stands
having tripped up so many times you'll be lucky if anything stands again
>To illustrate what was actually being answered
so, to provide a false foundation for your phoney answer. got it
>Who introduced the mixed tenses?
you did with "Did you get them?". keep up laddy!
>Sure, if one is determined not to get the point. Actually what I said was pretty simple: Of the two alternatives "do what.. do have? do got??", "do have" is obviously the intended one, because it has the same tense throughout; "do got" is ungrammatical and never used. What's "complicated" about that?
if anything it's a contraction of "do have got", if it was interpreted as just "do have", then we come back to the point of having not being the same as getting. you're complicating it by changing the verb, which in turn invalidates your answer. throwing the oneage around to try and sound sophisticated doesn't change this fact
>If anything is nonsense, I would have thought it's "which again is the point of being nonsense".
I can't account for your inability to process simple information. swerve noted
>Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
sarcasm from a dimwit, how befitting. punctuation and capitalisation are independent from or at best optional in language. you didn't lose any context and were able (albeit limitedly) to read it, so..
that's also a misuse of sic, but never mind, it's expected at this point
>Not at all. Swim in your own in stead.
remind us one more time
>Fucking backspace next to 'l' on the phone KB... ..
yeeeah, you sure are something special
>Why would I need those if I'm so full of them already?!?
to satisfy your own gluttony? funny how you've refrained though
>Get off your high horse, "latin" boi. The Romans valued clear logic, and you're embarrassing them.
whoosh get off your inferior plodding ass and have a nice day
> you did with "Did you get them?". keep up laddy!
Again, for the umpteenth time:
>>> that's almost as annoying as "have you got them?" - "I do" - "do what.. do have? do got??"
"Have got": past participle or whatever; "do have": present tense. That's yours, the original introduction of mixed tenses.
> >Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
> that's also a misuse of sic, but never mind, it's expected at this point
No, it's a perfectly valid use of "sic" in the sense of "this is exactly how that word is supposed to be written". (Given how it's a proper name, and all.) What, you were only familiar with the other sense, that of "this is exactly how you wrote it, you numbskull "? Better piss off back to middle school and get some Bildung then.
You're boring me. See ya when you've grown up.
"have got" is present tense, "had got" is the past tense
>it's a perfectly valid use
also expected
>"this is exactly how that word is supposed to be written"
you're meant to leave the supposed error in situ, not replace it with your supposed correction YAWN
>"this is exactly how you wrote it, you numbskull "
I don't understand this, but couldn't care less now
>Better piss off back to middle school
it's been like teaching a backwards child - you belong there more than I
>You're boring me. See ya when you've grown up.
your life is boring. I accept your concession
This:
>>>> Oh? I thought your previous posts were in English. Damn, I must be better at Latin [sic] than I thought.
Was my own usage of it in the correct form, hence the second sense of sic, "this is how it's supposed to be written" -- not the first sense, pointing out an error. Sheesh, your reading comprehension really is below-third-grade, isn't it? Or is it just that you have the attention span of a gnat on crack? Probably both.
> your life is boring.
Only to the extent that you persist in crashing into it. Please stop that.
> I accept your concession
So, no, you lost again. Now grow up PDQ, or POAD.
>your reading comprehension really is below-third-grade, isn't it?
wow, your desperation has no limits it seems
thank goodness I never suffered an American "education"
>Only to the extent that you persist in crashing into it
so I'm to blame for you biting off more than you can chew
>So, no, you lost again. Now grow up PDQ, or POAD
stubborn little madam aren't we? no thank you
> wow, your desperation has no limits it seems
My exasperation has no limits.
> thank goodness I never suffered an American "education"
So you think I did?
GOTO https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30789267 , the bit about reading comprehension.
There, let's hope the bot stays stuck in that loop.
clearly the former
>So you think I did?
that's quite philosophical - do simpletons suffer..?
>There, let's hope the bot stays stuck in that loop
o-kay..
Nor did I have one I was indifferent to.
Maybe that's why I'm better at English than you.
I'm sure you think you're good at a lot of things and are better than everybody else, but the facts will tell a different story
back to your hovel, Diplodocus Rex
Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural.
But doesn't con-traction mean "pulling together"? You pull the last letter over towards the first ones, squishing out the ones between. Only there is no 's' at the end of "there are" to pull over next to "there".
So "there's" can't really be a contraction of "there are", AFAICS.
> Written contractions are meant to faithfully represent spoken English, in which people indeed say “there’s” for both the singular and the plural.
Sure, it may be a perfectly valid usage, so it's something... But as matter of terminology, whatever that something is, I don't think it's a contraction.
It's the difference between written English and spoken English.
In conversation, it's not unusual for someone to use "here's" in this context. To be correct, especially for display in print or on a screen, the correct words are "here are."
I think that people use "here's" instead of "here are" because "here are" can be difficult to say quickly in conversation, and can sound like "herere," which is indistinct and unpleasant-sounding.
The internet has popularized the use of spoken English online because most English speakers speak English well enough, but fewer English speakers write English well.
He starts with "Hey I'm Chris Sev" because it's a better headline, which is defined as something that is more likely to make people read the rest of the page. (Defined specifically because I see lots of complaints here that headlines should be descriptive of the actual content, which isn't really what matters, functionally. (I get the impulse though, really.))
Since it is informal, it can be read as "Hey I'm Chris Sev. Here's My [Collection/Set/List of] Courses", which is grammatically correct.
If he doesn't even proofread his headline, how sloppy will the rest of the site be?
i'm not really sure what they bought to be honest
And then eventually was redirected to DigitalOcean.
Also, just to add my own thought to this - CSS-Tricks is of course very loved by people who learned things there, and people who respect Chris Coyer as a designer. But, these acquisitions do have an effect on how people perceive a project, and skepticism is very high on that list.
They seem to be keeping the "Write for Us" option open, with 300$+ a pop per guest post + promotion to your project. If anything, it will become a haven for those kind of posts. If not, they might by some miracle find a really good person (dev or designer) who is willing to take on the reigns for a while. Unlikely, though.
Words are hard
this number is public: https://css-tricks.com/thank-you-2021-edition/
total traffic 88m, flexbox is 6.7m of that. speaks to their deep bench tbh.
Just saved flexbox and grid guides using the SingleFile extension, something I discovered a couple of weeks ago here on HN. HN warns and provides solutions.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/single-file/
flexbox https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/
grid https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/complete-guide-grid/
Also, requesting your non-flexbox layout for your documents on how to do flexbox seems rather ironic.
https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/a-guide-to-flexbox/ https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/complete-guide-grid/
DO seems to value quality over quantity for documentation. Documentation appears to be their 'doing well by doing good' strategy. What BackBlaze is to hard drive reviews, DO is to a subset of platform agnostic cloud technologies. I don't know what they do now, but at one point a couple years ago they were soliciting 'paid' articles, but rather than paying you directly they would make a donation to an organization on their list on your behalf.
If I were telling an intern where to look for technical knowledge on the internet, my advice would be something like this: start at their website (mostly for due diligence, since 4/5 times you won't find what you want there), Stack Overflow, Google, Digital Ocean, and then look for either books by the authors (if you're a bookish sort), or find conversations with the authors on the internet.
Though now Google is falling fast. I'm on the cusp of demoting it below DO. I feel that camel straining under the weight on its back. SEO is turning into Search Engine Sabotage lately.
If DO starts buying up knowledge bases that could flip for positive reasons instead of negative ones.
I was almost expecting that text to be a link to zombo.com
Congratulations Chris. Me and others owe our careers in webdev and our CSS sourcery magic to your great articles.
Congrats to the original owner on getting acquired, and by a company that will most likely do well with it.
Consider Hubspot buying The Hustle, Robinhood buying MarketSnacks, Stripe's various acquisitions (like IndieHackers), Insight Partners bought The New Stack.. and this is all happening in the developer space too. Subscription based companies with high cashflow but high customer acquisition costs will continue to buy attention-based companies with relatively low acquisition costs because, frankly, the owners of the latter are generally quite happy with "modest" (<$40m, say) exits that the former can easily cover.
For those who are not familiar (if that's possible), check out https://cooperpress.com/publications/
To your (& Balaji's) point - one of tried and true methods of customer acquisition for SaaS is content marketing, but it's a very long game and you need to have quality content. Acquiring a blog or a media company that already has that has clear ROI.
DO already has a solid knowledge base of articles ("How to ... on Ubuntu Server" almost always leads to DO) but mostly for the back-end part of the stack. From that perspective, buying CSS-Tricks is not too surprising.
I don't disagree with the thesis, but is the ROI actually there? Why not just pay the media company to be an exclusive partner? Maybe it's just putting the acquisition cost on the balance sheet instead of the income statement?
It diminishes their early insights to cast this acquisition as merely part of a trend.
I distinctly remember multiple Library articles getting rewritten about a week later and appearing on DO’s site with just enough distance to be unique, but it was clear that our work was on the screen while they wrote it based on document structure and technical approach (this was in the early “catch up” phase, roughly 2011-2012; it’s probably established enough now that this is no longer the case). More than once they not-so-subtly rewrote the technical approach to distinguish it and ended up breaking the instructions. They took verb ideas, they took X ideas, they took whole documents and shoved them in a blender with their systems. This is likely provable with Internet Archive but I’ve never bothered to look - I left Linode a decade ago.
I wouldn’t have left this seemingly negative for no reason comment had you not identified DO’s documentation strategy as an early insight. It was an early insight, but absolutely, definitively not theirs. They raised the VC to get exposed to this audience and successfully presented nearly all of Linode’s business insights as their own, and it’s understandable that it seems that way if you didn’t follow Linode before DO.
The first several years of DigitalOcean’s existence made it very clear they looked at Linode and said that, but with funding rounds. And that’s fine. They’ve done well. But let’s not attribute insights to their copies of things; their primary corporate insight all along was realizing Linode was handicapped with bootstrapped capital alone. And to give them credit, it was undeniably savvy to apply Linode’s successes to scaling DigitalOcean. It just means it’s not their ingenuity in any sense of the word.
I won't get into the weeds of Linode vs. DigitalOcean but there were very important differences in approach, and eventually Linode was copying DO's ideas (for example, the introduction of low-resource low-cost servers, the design...). Linode was a trailblazer in the industry, for sure, but DigitalOcean wasn't just "Linode plus capital".
edit: Linode started paying in 2014[1] after DigitalOcean[2]
[1] https://www.linode.com/blog/linode/write-for-linode-get-paid... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20131111064358/https://www.digit...
Of course Linode eventually copied DO back. That was the terms of the relationship established by DO. We were too busy dreaming of copying AWS at the time to see the threat. We ruled out $10 and lower Linodes again before DO was founded due to our support resources. DO forced that hand later (I assume, that was after I left).
I am obviously biased having worked there (worth noting I left on awful terms), and I am aware of that, but some of what I’m saying is purely objective and, again, probably provable with study of IA. If you’re going to refute my first hand, lived experience and call it revisionism, you’ve proven my point of making this comment at all.
I was a Linode customer at the time the library launched, I was a Linode customer when DigitalOcean launched, and I was a Linode customer years after DigitalOcean launched: Linode was the best VPS provider of the time, undoubtably, and influential for those that followed (including DigitalOcean) but DigitalOcean was much more than a VPS provider and they pushed the industry forward in ways that Linode never even tried. Diminishing what they achieved as being "Linode but with money" is nonsense.
What you remember and what is true aren't one and the same, as is evidenced by the Linode blog showing payments began for articles in 2014.
Again, I left on horrible terms. That’s really important to remember as you think about my motivations. I’m not here to score points for a side, which you seem to have inferred.
"I wouldn’t have left this seemingly negative for no reason comment had you not identified DO’s documentation strategy as an early insight. It was an early insight, but absolutely, definitively not theirs. They raised the VC to get exposed to this audience and successfully presented nearly all of Linode’s business insights as their own, and it’s understandable that it seems that way if you didn’t follow Linode before DO.
The first several years of DigitalOcean’s existence made it very clear they looked at Linode and said that, but with funding rounds. And that’s fine. They’ve done well. But let’s not attribute insights to their copies of things; their primary corporate insight all along was realizing Linode was handicapped with bootstrapped capital alone. And to give them credit, it was undeniably savvy to apply Linode’s successes to scaling DigitalOcean. It just means it’s not their ingenuity in any sense of the word."
I did follow Linode before DigitalOcean. I did espouse the wonders of Linode, day in, day out. I did resist switching from Linode to DigitalOcean for years because of brand loyalty. I do consider Linode very important in shaping the industry, but I categorically disagree with the assertion that DigitalOcean's core insight was that Linode were cash-poor and all someone needed to do was "Linode but with VC". Your time at Linode and your damaged relationship with Linode are not evidence that DigitalOcean is Linode-but-with-money.
We aren't discussing your lived reality, we're discussing your dismissal of the achievements of DigitalOcean.
I’m sure DO took a lot of inspiration from Linode, but it always seemed like the heir apparent to Slicehost, which was the best designed/marketed/documented VPS host until it was sold off/shutdown.
I miss them too. They were respectful competitors and I know they were generally liked by competitors. There’s just a fine line between getting the idea for a funnel and copying its entire execution down to subscribing to RSS. I think there was mutual respect between both companies on that. With DO, not so much.
To be clear, it’s not Apple vs Google here, it’s the idea of DO coming out of the gate with that execution being a stroke of genius. They had (thanks for the reminder) multiple precedences and actively copied from at least one.
I'm curious when you think Linode lost the ball (I am assuming you accept that premise at this point in time given their size differences) and why?
Digital Ocean seemed to execute better and scale further, you put forth it was simply fueled by VC money. I know Linode had some major security incidents over the years which have harmed its reputation.
Curious if you're willing to share your thoughts on how it all played out for an industry observer?
https://boingboing.net/2021/02/15/silicon-valley-investor-ca...
https://twitter.com/balajis/status/1228447944287932416
This was VC's way to invest in a media company.
DO has some really great documentation for their services so I am hopeful they will only enhance/make-better css-tricks.
If a DO link is returned in my search, I tend to click on it.
The insane amount of SEO spam articles you get whenever you look for guides/examples on Google makes it almost impossible to rely on just searching on Google when you need it. So I'm finding myself having to go back to looking for curated lists of quality websites...
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/
There is a lot of good stuff published that's hard to find. I wish I had a better catch all resource page.
Codepen.io is a good playground to play around with html/css/javascript and it has some javascript frameworkstuff too.
A lot of people put together good content. It seems to surface though blogs and twitter. Some links/papers we used (without the CSShints pages). A lot of them have more content if you explore.
https://cssclass.es/materials/#elements-and-tags
https://chenhuijing.com/blog/how-i-design-with-css-grid/#%F0...
https://www.wpkube.com/html5-cheat-sheet/
https://programmingdesignsystems.com/what-is-a-design-system...
https://atomicdesign.bradfrost.com/chapter-1/
http://alistapart.com/article/the-king-vs-pawn-game-of-ui-de...
https://brucelawson.co.uk/2018/the-practical-value-of-semant...
https://alistapart.com/article/my-accessibility-journey-what...
Articles are discussed here often: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=joshwcomeau.com
I could see them using this for both subtle (the header/footer links etc) and more "sponsered" content (i.e. links to DO AppPlatform in an article/tutorial about next.js etc)
Google loves old domains with authority, and still, to this day, it's a lot easier to rank a site built on an aged/expired domain than it is on a fresh domain.
Buying powerful domains on auction sites has shot through the roof in the last couple of years. Here's a couple of example on Godaddy (Godaddy auctions tend to have the most powerful domains SEO-wise) https://www.godaddy.com/domain-auctions/gutenberg-net-414405... https://uk.godaddy.com/domain-auctions/freewebtemplates-com-...
I imagine they will eventually 301 the domain to the main DigitalOcean domain.
[1] - https://imgur.com/a/8XHWry9
To generate a ton of traffic or be worth something, I find you need to balance three things (personal opinion):
- Normal longer Blog type articles / announcements
- Quick blog / library / resource / how-tos
- Engagement / community
Each are unique for everyone.
For example, Cloudflare I would argue leans heavy to the longer blog rolls and is a lead gen for enterprise reads, investors, and also new hire folks.
For SEO though, Digital Ocean cares more about the library of resources style (I would wager). It’s why they are buying CSS-Tricks to get all that “smooth scroll css” traffic. This is very much a traffic is traffic mentality to boost their own blog traffic metrics. There are probably other factors here like community / clout. Why build all this when you can just buy it?
Then finally the last one is engagement. This is what converts and is having an active community. This is why influencers can make serious buck. This is the hardest to build and I would argue the most important. A “real following”.
Would love to hear your thoughts on this too and how you use your blog for your start up or business.