You've struck a chord: there is a problem to be solved.
But your solution is imperfect.
This is the ideal situation! If your solution was perfect, someone could just copy it as is. But if you need to keep improving it, building it, it becomes harder to copy, and you gain a deeper understanding of the problem (and solution). This is valuable. Any copier-guy is playing catch up - and people usually aren't all that keen on that guy. The danger is if you perfect it! Because then you are standing still, with no where to go, and it's inevitable that others will catch up. The copier guy is now just as good as you (perhaps better on other factors that you don't care about, but some users do...).
The ideal problem is one that can't be solved, like some human need that technology can't actually perfectly address. You then have an endless runway to perfect it. With your headstart, deeper understanding of problem & solutions (and most importantly) all the market benefits of being The Guy (feedback on what works, complaints on what doesn't, statistics on same, more users finding more bugs, and let's not forget encouragement and admiration! Very motivating), you have the best chance of keeping that headstart forever.
Well, that's my analysis of competitive advantage, anyway. :-) But I wonder if you're better off just making something cool that "people want", and not sparing an moment's thought for the competition...
I'd still prefer to have a link to the site than to the TC story. I don't see the value in 2 posts on the Hacker news homepage of the same thing.
While I don't mind posts from TC being on the Hacker news homepage I'd rather they be posts with substance rather than announcement posts like this one.
I think it's good that JustHackIt made Techcrunch.
That's cool, I just don't see the value to Hacker news readers to have the TC story submitted when it has very little commentary and generally leads to having 2 stories on the same thing on the Hacker news frontpage. I know I've upmodded TC stories only to see the actual site link a minute later.
Reality Check: I asked for a Safari thing to block this out. It was very, very subjective. Read it again: I didn't ask for banning it on YC, but just for personal use.
Just curious: it seems JustHackIt was posted first here on HN and later on on TC? So how come they write about it, as I thought they were rather strict about only writing about "first hand news"?
My understanding is that both this site's community and the TechCrunch writers view HN as a geek ghetto. Thus, putting your site up here for feedback isn't really announcing or launching it. It's more akin to demoing to friends and family to get feedback.
This made me look at http://slinkset.com (which its "powered by"), for creating "social news sites" in the HN/reddit style. I think it's well-known here (but not to me).
It's amazing, and enables you to try out a cool idea (like JustHackIt) really quickly. I created a site in about 10-15mins (most of the time was because I had trouble uploading a photo as the "logo").
From what I can tell with recent times, if you make your site collapse repeatedly in a few months, TC will cover it again and you'll get more press coverage. Be sure to have the code working so you can fix the issue by releasing the existing fixes and blammo. You're back on top with lots of press!
Perhaps that's overly cynical.
You're already doing well. Follow your gut and blog the experience as much as you can. This worked well for balsamic.
Wait... you're suggesting a planned collapse of your own site just to get more press?? It's not cynical, it's non-sensical. This kind of thinking is poison IMO. Just focus on your product and make it perfect and scalable.
I would allow the original poster to put up a notice that they've found someone/are looking through applicants, etc. Some people will be deluges with messages, and just need some time to hit pause to get through all the responses.
This way, you don't have people posting and not getting a response from the original poster who's moved on. Maybe implement a button the OP could click that shows up red next to the title on the main page, to let people know. Those posts slowly lose importance over time, and if the original poster doesn't end up meeting anyone that fits, they can hit the button again and the post becomes active again.
*Edit: it would also have the advantage of removing irrelevant data. Once a site becomes popular, information overload is a problem. So if you knew someone was already chatting with someone, you wouldn't get frustrated looking through all the posts.
But your solution is imperfect.
This is the ideal situation! If your solution was perfect, someone could just copy it as is. But if you need to keep improving it, building it, it becomes harder to copy, and you gain a deeper understanding of the problem (and solution). This is valuable. Any copier-guy is playing catch up - and people usually aren't all that keen on that guy. The danger is if you perfect it! Because then you are standing still, with no where to go, and it's inevitable that others will catch up. The copier guy is now just as good as you (perhaps better on other factors that you don't care about, but some users do...).
The ideal problem is one that can't be solved, like some human need that technology can't actually perfectly address. You then have an endless runway to perfect it. With your headstart, deeper understanding of problem & solutions (and most importantly) all the market benefits of being The Guy (feedback on what works, complaints on what doesn't, statistics on same, more users finding more bugs, and let's not forget encouragement and admiration! Very motivating), you have the best chance of keeping that headstart forever.
Well, that's my analysis of competitive advantage, anyway. :-) But I wonder if you're better off just making something cool that "people want", and not sparing an moment's thought for the competition...