Ask HN: How can I make Hacker Newsletter better?

Clickable: http://hackernewsletter.com/

You can also check out the last 131 issues from the bottom of that page.

it seems that you yourself read articles that are in the email. so i think writing just a few lines that describes every link is a good idea. Dave Pell is doing a good job about this in NextDraft.

also points and number of comments are important things to be included in email, but they may clutter it. personally i prefer them to be there.

and the classics part is really good ;)

I just signed for it, so I guess that asking how you can improve it actually improves it (in a user growth way).

What is it written in/how does it work code-wise? Also, would you run another version/flavor for a subtopic like visualization?

Kale - this has had fantastic value for me and saves me a lot of time.

I agree with sazary that a line or two editorial about each link (similar to how Peter Cooper does it) would add even more value. Perhaps not necessary for all links - that could get overwhelming - but maybe for a few of your top recommended links.

I just signed up, and I gotta give it to you that the look and layout of your site is very very nice :) Everything is very clear and from my five minutes of browsing the archives I cant personally find a single thing to criticize.

I read in other comments here that it´d be great to have a summary for each link. But I imagine that would be tedious and time consuming. Personally I think the titles of the links do just fine :)

Do you monetize this in any way, or are you planning to?

You can clear the subscribe box on focus rather than just on click.

Be sure to keep hilarious endorsements like

"Hacker Newsletter is great. It's reduced the time I spend on Hacker News from several times per hour to several times per hour plus the weekly newsletter." -Jason Seifer, Founder of Scheduling, Host of The Ruby Show

That's what just convinced me to sign up.

AFTER EDIT: And now that I have signed up, the usability suggestion I have for the archived issues is to make sure that each issue in the archive links to the previous issue, and all but the most recent issue in the archive links to the next issue. That's the expected browsing capability on most permalinks.

VERY IMPORTANT: Style the archives links to distinguish visited from unvisited links.

http://www.nngroup.com/articles/top-10-mistakes-web-design/

For what it's worth I think it serves my purposes very well. I would suggest being mindful of trying to add features that could ultimately clutter it.

I love the categories you put submissions into; one way to both provide a helpful feature to subscribers as well as prevent them receiving too much information that they're not interested in (clutter) would be to select specific categories you wish to receive a newsletter for when you sign up your email. Modularization is good.

Did you build the readership organically entirely from HN? Were there other sources from which folks signed up?

Also have you considered some kind of daily edition? Or might that be considered overkill?

* ability to delete account

* ability to delete comments

* ability to edit comments after a month

Havent thought either of these to implementation: 1. If you could somehow add a humorous one line caption to each post. 2. ranking? ..linux article with 100 votes trumps web article with 400 votes. Adaptive ranking based on my click through would be boss too.

kale, you seem pretty awesome by the way. and i'd say hacker newsletter is as well. feels exceptionally well put together and i appreciate you not cluttering it with ads (though i do enjoy the often cleverly delivered one that is there); hope the effort’s been paying-off for you.

and i’m hard pressed to come-up with feedback for the content or structure of the newsletter itself, but (and this, understandably, may be taking things in a direction your wholly uninterested in) i’ve always thought it’d be nice to have this content delivered as an app.. in addition to offering an alternative way to monetize (i’d gladly pay for it), i think it could really enhance the user experience, particularly on mobile devices. some user-specific benefits i could see from such an approach:

- open story links within the app (rather than switching between email and browser)

- better comment viewing experience (viewing hn on mobile generally sucks)

- direct access to all archived issues (would be nice)

thinking about it, and considering all the work that would have to be put in, it could make for a great mobile hn reader (integrated newsletter for highlights + mobile-optimized hn access for staying current).

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also just want to add, that your wayback letter [1] is beyond awesome! it’s really cool being able to step back at various intervals in time and see what was going on. i find it pretty funny seeing what was in-focus as recent as a month ago, and actually quite insightful reaching back a few years. as i said, beyond awesome and very well put together, encourage people to check it out.

[1] http://www.waybackletter.com/

Can you ad one article of original content (as in original to the newsletter)? Something like an email interview from a founder, hacker, or person of interest. It would be very nice. Also, on my newsletters, I've found that adding something not related to the subject at hand keeps it fresh. I sometimes link a funny youtube video, and have even included a lolcat. Makes people want to see what I'm doing next. If you want to chat about newsletters and stuff, feel free to email me (on profile). Note: I have been publishing newsletters since the dawn of time. In fact, dinosaurs knew they were going to be extinct because my newsletter "News-O-Saurus" told them about the meteor impact. Too bad those dumb lizards didn't know how to read. :)

Kale - I'm a subscriber and I think it's great in its current format. Outside of postings on Hacker News, how are you advertising its existence?

Since your asking for feedback, I was wondering if I may have my own feedback being I am a start up as well. You have tons of reviews on your site. Did you ask for all those reviews or did they just come organically?

Thank you!

There's a newsletter?

Seriously, that is my response. Never knew one existed before this post. Perhaps marketing should be a goal.

How many new sign ups did this post get you? :)

Mine the comments. I typically get more information there, and you'd save everyone from engaging in "OMG! Someone is WRONG on the Internet!"

Hell, you could have a full newsletter: "Best of patio11 Weekly" :-)

An interview with popular HN users will be awesome. I often find myself looking up profiles of people who've left interesting comments/submissions to see the stuff they're working on.

Info on upcoming regional HN meetups might be cool

Is there a preview available somewhere? I am looking for a way to read HN on my Kindle.

Nevermind, found the archive at the very bottom of the page. I guess it won't work for Kindle, though.

Kale - your newsletter really save me time. Personally, I would love to see a selection of stories that _aren't_ so popular. I commonly comb through the list of new articles that are a bit outside the box. They usually talk about human nature, knowledge crossing domains etc.

Keep up the good work!

I actually prefer the Wayback Letter (most things I see in HNL I've already seen on HN proper), but it frequently goes through spurts of not happening. I realize that you're a busy man and that, for example, having a new child is more important than sending out the day's Wayback Letter. But it'd be nice to have some sort of status indicator--if you anticipate an "outage", let us know ahead of time, or if you don't it'd be great to have an email or website that just said, "There's stuff going on in my life, expect the next few days to be canceled."