Free "Startup Wisdom" ebook from the MicroConf speakers | Hacker News Reader

Free "Startup Wisdom" ebook from the MicroConf speakers

microconf.com

33 pointsrubeng16 comments

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It frustrates me when something is labeled "free" but I have to tweet to my friends to get it.

Social capital isn't free.

http://www.microconf.com/microconf-reader.pdf

The power of the internet...always finding a way to really get stuff free. Thanks.

Yes. I'd much rather pay $N than spam my network.

I'm in the same camp on this one.

Actually, the way I see it, if the book is interesting for me to read, then it'll probably be interesting for my friends to read as well. I don't love the tactic, but I don't think it's that bad (assuming I know the book is interesting, and not a completely speculative thing).

That's the only reason I keep my facebook account... it's a dumping ground for competition entries and free content

This is a collection of blog posts that most of us have in our bookmarks someplace.

There are 7 essays; 3 are new, 4 have been published previously.

Rob, which 3 are new? I felt I had read all of them before.

Understanding this attitude towards both blog posts and previously published content is very, very, very important for people publishing on the Internet, which should be substantially every business on HN. It came up in discussions with two clients and two prospects just in the last month alone: whatever you make, don't call it a blog post, or it will a) autocommoditize the perceived quality of the piece and b) cause it to start losing value immediately upon publication, which is the exact opposite of what you want.

So Patrick wahts a good way to guard against this?

Make the blog have a separate category called "Essays" ? Have it downloadable as a pdf ?

There are a lot of things you can do.

Unique visual design. Appearance of exclusivity. Induce the user to pay something of value for it. Expunge "smells like a blog post" signifiers like a prominent date, comments enabled, etc.

Use forms of content which haven't been played out yet -- those obnoxious infographics, for example, work partially because they were fresher than blog posts. (Thankfully they're on the way out, but they really pushed the buttons of some people whose buttons are valuable to push.) One can imagine doing this in a value-creating way, e.g. by using purpose-built software as content.

Attach signals of social proof and/or authority to the content. People's perceptions of value are not dominated by content quality. Let me say that again since engineers need to hear it: people's perceptions of value are not dominated by content quality. For example, if your CEO is writing something and he has previously been published in the New York Times, you probably want to mention that. If the things you are saying are the hard-won experiences you got from 10 years at selling your software to thousands of happy customers, you probably want to mention that. etc, etc.

Awesome thanks.

Anyone here have plans to attend? I am considering...

I'm going.

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