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Comment by ujeezy | Hacker News Reader

How do they market these sites? I'm sure the idea is that SEO will kick in as their content gets deeper, but I don't see how they'll get any content at all without promotion by people as prominent in the Gaming/Foodie/etc. communities as Joel and Jeff are in the software engineering world.

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There was a comment by Spolsky a few days back (can't seem to find it now). Anyway, he said they basically start out with a secret beta for one week of a few hundred members who bootstrap the site by adding lots of useful content. After that, a public beta takes place for several weeks during which they evaluate how fast the site is growing and the general public's reactions to it are observed. At the end of the public beta, if they believe the site has gained enough traction to keep itself alive, they'll make it permanent. If not, they shut it down.

While I understand Stack Exchange's slightly locked-down approach from a business costs perspective, I sometimes wonder if it stifles the organic growth of their solution.

I think their belief is that the organic growth that will take place during the public beta will be much greater if the sites are first seeded with lots of content by a small group of dedicated users.

If it were my product, I would have made it possible for anyone to create a StackExchange site instantly. I am of the opinion that their current proposal/ vetting model is yet another misstep. The first misstep was the high pricing model of StackExchange before it went free.

I'm a big fan of StackOverflow and Joel, but the way they're going now, I'm not sure they can make lightning strike more than once.

I'm very sceptical whether the site will appeal to foodies.

SO is a great place, and a completely amazing resource - but people who code are generally quite unique in their ability to rise through the ranks of pedantry. The ability to see things logically, and keep things on topic is essential for software development .. but I don't think it's wise to translate these requirements to a food site.

I think debates over 'is this a question' and 'shouldn't this be closed' and 'move it to community wiki' are all ridiculous. I believe cookery is very much an art - not a science. There's aren't correct single answers for a lot of things - because different things work for different people.

I honestly think putting a bunch of coders in charge is a huge mistake.

Would love to ask you a few questions about that in private but there's no contact info on your profile. Mind a few questions? If not, please email me: david@thentic.com

Agreed. If SO can be satisfied with targeting the niche of "coders in any given category" rather than the entire "foodies" category, then they're on the right track.

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