>Some newsletters are pretty great. I would reconsider them given much improved curation. Not sure where others are at, but for me at least, it's an opportunity for somebody.
I'm actually trying to solve the problem of curation and discovery at Letterlist.com. It's amazing that there isn't really a great way to find the best newsletters yet.
I'm curious - what is the biggest barrier stopping you from subscribing to newsletters? Is it solely the curation issue?
And as for podcasts, it's a great question - I started a new thread (Ask HN: What must-listen podcasts do you subscribe to?)
Saw that one. Lots of good shows to follow up on. Thanks, and I should have done that long ago.
The biggest barriers for me are:
1. Time / relevance and the investment to figure that out. It helps to know the intent of the newsletter too. Some people are adding value to products and services with relevant commentary. That's a good thing, but only when I'm into the product or service. Others are sharing insights and perspective, sort of blogging via newsletter. Like those too.
And I'm search driven, so I'll land on one, and read the relevant bits, and sometimes subscribe. On that note, full content delivered to gmail sometimes is worth it. I've searched my mail, and found very relevant things in there, often long after they were published. Maybe there is something exploitable there.
2. Use of time. I can listen and do lots of things.
3. Interestingly, I would absolutely love a newsletter of news letters, where snippets that are relevant to me are presented in a dead simple mobile friendly read it quick format, or are presented as audio reviews of some sort.
The barrier here is good content that I don't know is good. Selling it to me in an easy to consume form would be kind of like a mentor who presses us to do or read something. Once in a while, I find one, and realize I should have been following it, and then binge on it to get caught up.
I would pay for this one. Having some service, or even persons or person who knows me enough to push and select high relevance things is worth a lot.
4. Speaking more specifically to #1, size matters. Popular ones seem to balloon up, and I'll tune out. To me, a short, but very potent newsletter can be just one item, but it's really worth it. I prefer this to a big one where a few gems are hidden among a lot of other things.
Might want to reach out to MailChimp about sponsoring Letterlist.com (Newsletters + startups is right up their street) or perhaps an integration once you've solved the curation and discovery problem (which I agree is a problem in need a solution).
My guess is that a lot of us here on HN probably use a feed reader (I use Feedly). But that's because we're outliers with a technical persuassion. Most people don't have the first idea about rss, but _everyone_ uses email.
I'd suggest there are 2 advantages to starting a newsletter:
1. You can plug your rss feed into the newsletter and broadcast your new articles via email for those who don't use rss.
2. You can email other updates, news, surveys etc that you don't publish on-site.
Email also opens up the discussion because your subscribers can respond any time. It's like the original social network.
Disclosure - I created and own this site. But it's worth listing here because I know that it performs extremely well (conversions typically above 50%).
I'm obsessed with simplicity the design is really the natural conclusion of minimalism, i.e. virtually no design, nothing superfluous and a simple CTA.
Simple? I'm no Puritan, but I'm hesitant about clicking a button that starts with the word "sex". I'm not used to professional high-quality services resorting to ... well, it's not vulgarity, but sex is sort of a traditionally taboo topic. So in spite of how good your product my be, here I am thinking it's more likely to suck because you broke this unspoken rule. But maybe that's just me.
The words are simple, but the choice to include the risky language is not 'simple', in that it's risky/innovative/uncomfortable/attention-grabbing (depending on viewer's perception). I guess a good word is 'unusual'.
Great perspective and a fair point. Thanks for the feedback.
I recall that just before I published the site, I decided to change the CTA from the boring placeholder I had to something more playful and human. It was the first thing that came to mind It just seemed like a fun idea. It worked so I kept it.
Reading your comment, I'm tempted to try something more conventional but it's too easy to be skewed by responding to a single data point. It's edgy so it's bound to be polarising (I've also received positive feedback on the very same text).
Yeah, I didn't want to give negative feedback per se, but I wanted to share my gut reaction with you because those are just as valuable as thought-out opinions w/r/t conversions.
I admire the boldness and as a Linguistics major I can confirm the craziness of the word, re: standing out, is way more valuable than any imagined revulsion that I may be assuming.
> those are just as valuable as thought-out opinions
Totally agree. And early data says you might be right.
I set up a split test on Optimizely with 2 more variations and both beat the control:
Control
SEX UP MY INBOX
35% CTR
Variation 1
DISCOVER NEWSLETTERS
61% CTR
Variation 2
GET STARTED
58% CTR
Variation 1 is winning so far (74% lift, 79% significance). I'll keep it running because right now it's skewed toward HN traffic, and we're a weird bunch here - we seem to behave differently to everybody else
Anyway, thanks again for the feedback. Looks like you're onto something.
Some of the best content never appears online but in the secret world of our inbox. So I made this little site to share some amazing newsletters. Enjoy :)
Definitely a sweet idea and I can see some great use cases for onboarding new users to a site by demoing functionality. Really like how it just gets to work and outputs the vid without making me make any decisions. I'd love to see a gif output (maybe that could be one of your premium features :)
Interesting that Joel's post only had 1 comment back then - nobody really cared about it. I wonder which of the posts from this thread will end up following Buffer's trajectory.
I'm actually trying to solve the problem of curation and discovery at Letterlist.com. It's amazing that there isn't really a great way to find the best newsletters yet.
I'm curious - what is the biggest barrier stopping you from subscribing to newsletters? Is it solely the curation issue?
And as for podcasts, it's a great question - I started a new thread (Ask HN: What must-listen podcasts do you subscribe to?)
- OP