undefined | Better HN

0 pointsjsavimbi14y ago0 comments

It's not about the buzz. It's about addressing the needs of the users, all of the users, and building an ecosystem that provides them with the necessary tools to discover, learn, participate and improve. That and building up brand loyalty through meatspace efforts.

One cannot make the case for a model that has converted 50,000 over an eleven year span in comparison with another who has surpassed 1,000,000 users in a relatively short span. Common sense.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

skeptical14y ago· 1 in thread

_It's not about the buzz. It's about addressing the needs of the users, all of the users, and building an ecosystem that provides them with the necessary tools to discover, learn, participate and improve. That and building up brand loyalty through meatspace efforts._ Not that this hasn't been discussed to death here at HN, but how do you explain the success of github comparing to bitbucket for example?

_One cannot make the case for a model that has converted 50,000 over an eleven year span in comparison with another who has surpassed 1,000,000 users in a relatively short span. Common sense._ I don't think a github user has the same role as a berlios user, at all. So those 50.000 vs 1 million are not comparable. Sure github is centered on distributed development, but among all the forks that spawn all over the place even on pastebins (gists) or wiki pages, which percentage ends up pushing code back to the parent?

Don't get me wrong, I like github as much as any other developer do. But I fail to understand why must we refrain from state that things such as hype do play a major role on github success. Is it just because github is a huge success and does provide a good service for a fact? When did both became exclusive? This is like assuming that a popular band is either good or a hype. Why can't it be both?

My point: berlios, sf, savanah, never really aimed towards being a social network. There's nothing wrong with that approach.

jsavimbiOP14y ago

I guess I should've qualified my statements first by alluding to the fact that unless you're a Ruby dev or come from that kind of background, Github may seem foreign and weird in a fuzzy way. Github is in many aspects a reflection of a particular community's philosophy which may not fit with others.

I guess one has to consider the lifespan of hype. I've been a paying customer for two years now and it doesn't get old. I don't follow the Githubbers around, I don't wear their schwag and I only go to a random drinkup if it's convenient but if there's anything I tell emerging developers it's "Get thee to Github". They're always innovating and sharing with not just their customers, paying or otherwise, but also with the developer community as a whole. Their efforts transcend just a couple of commits.

Also, they're making money as they're supposed, with hard work, innovation and a commitment to excellence. To me, it's exciting to be a part of their experience. It's empowering. And if I look at it from a financial perspective, I make money from using their service.

It all goes back to asking if using a particular service or product is going to get me laid. Github will. Unfuddle and Bitbucket not so much. Hype and buzz is something nice to have in a fast-paced world, but being indispensable is awesome.

Forks, pastebins and wikis? That's called opening the door to the reclusive developer communities of the past. Do you know how hard it was to get a dev to fix a bug in their code ten years ago? Nearly impossible. Patches unwelcome.

Sure, a service and technology will emerge in the coming years that will surpass Github, just like any other business, but I'm willing to bet right now that they'll be based on Github's model with a lot of lessons learned from that entire community.