Digg Founder Kevin Rose Launches Private Newsletter Called Foundation

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/03/digg-founder-kevin-rose-launches-private-newsletter-called-foundation/

by davidedicillo • 16 years ago

54 29 16 years ago

I know there's not a lot of love for Kevin on HN, but I think this is a great fit for him. For better or worse, Kevin is pretty well-connected in the tech scene and thanks to Diggnation, has a pretty strong personal brand. Doing something like this allows him to leverage both his connections and his personal brand in a way that doesn't require him to also have a great product sense, which I think is where Digg went off the rails a little.

ojbyrne2• 16 years ago

Despite being someone who's probably central to that "not a lot of love", I have to agree.

Also the "private newsletter" bit is a little misleading, since it seems like all the podcasts will be available for free, you just have to wait a week.

tptacek• 16 years ago

So you guys are dancing around really the only question in my mind after reading this story, which is: "what is the deal with Kevin Rose?" I don't pay any attention to Digg whatsoever. What's HN's take on him? Is he worth paying attention to?

ConceptDog• 16 years ago

Feels like an attempt to remain relevant after Digg became a case study about how to destroy a community.

eatupmartha• 16 years ago

I might pay $3.99 to hear him talk about that

zacharyz• 16 years ago

If watching his Random show has taught me anything it is that he isn't very remarkable especially compared to his cohost on that show (Tim Ferriss). His strength is really how connected he is and his ability to produce content that highlights the insights of others which hopefully foundation will provide.

RBr• 16 years ago

I'm not a huge Rose fan. However, I think that this is a really good idea.

I would much rather pay $4 per month for exclusive content, so I'll likely wait until it's free.

However, this resurgence of e-mail newsletters (of sorts) is timely and valuable.

Someone should build a mailchimp clone that makes it easy to distribute and charge for audio and video in addition to text.

DanLivesHere• 16 years ago

I have an email newsletter (http://dlewis.net/nik) and I don't think it's Mailchimp's (my ESP) fault that there's no audio/video support. (They allow for a pseudo-embed of YouTube videos.)

The fact is that most email clients wouldn't support it, and the user experience for the recipients would, therefore, suck.

kmfrk• 16 years ago

You really think you've seen all the stupid names and URLs, and then Rose drops something like http://foundat.io/n in your lap.

Aside from that, it sounds like a very interesting project that, as compelling and simple as it sounds, I don't see a lot of people pulling off but Rose.

AdamTReineke• 16 years ago

It looks like a domain that http://domai.nr would spit out.

harold• 16 years ago

I enjoyed listening to Jack Dorsey. Kudos to Kevin for letting Dorsey tell his story, mostly uninterrupted.

Kevin though... so many of his questions have the word 'like' in them.

"Like, what was that like?" or "Like, a working prototype?, like you and a buddy or something like that?"

igorgue• 16 years ago

Similar to the "you know" of new yorkers or the "so..." (or ...so) of pretty much all of you guys (sfbay area) ;-)

nickcharlton• 16 years ago

That's also something that's come up in the UK, too. Especially with teenagers. I assume that is because of television shows.

cantbecool• 16 years ago

This reminds me of Diggnation's paywall a few years back.

sayemm• 16 years ago

Good for Kevin Rose, seems like it's a good way for him to do what he really loves doing and that's connecting the tech community, like everyone else here mentions.

Whenever founders evolve into tech-scenesters though, I think it's a good time to be bearish on their startups (I'm thinking of a lot of other names here too).

As Picasso said, "Without great solitude no serious work is possible."

jdx• 16 years ago

I wonder how the investors in Digg feel about this and other diversions Rose has taken?

stipes• 16 years ago

He isn't CEO anymore...

fido• 16 years ago

Was I the only one a little disappointed to see Dorsey/Twitter? Since I heard about the project many months ago, I was really hoping that the content would be more geared towards smaller upstarts. Small SAAS companies, bootstrapped companies, single-founder hackers, etc...

I'm tired of hearing from all the "stars". I want to listen to interviews with normal hackers like myself who are either struggling to find themselves online or starting to experience a bit of success.

I want to hear from people who are building small online businesses - charging money. I'm so burnt out on social/advertising/big exit plays.

geekfactor2• 16 years ago

If you haven't already checked out Andrew Warner's Mixergy (http://mixergy.com) you should.

He interviews these kinds of people all the time and while the (usually Skype-based) interviews aren't fancy, the content is fantastic. Andrew is a great interviewer and he digs deep into the core of whatever the issue at hand is.

elvirs2• 16 years ago

Unfortunately his best interviews are premium access only.

dotBen• 16 years ago

In the TC article Mike Arrington references Dave Morin's use of Letter.ly (a 'premium content' subscription service) as the inspiration for Rose to set up Foundation.

What's interesting is that 3 months in and only 5 posts later (remember, at $3.99/month) Dave has most recently published a post simply titled "Apology" (http://letter.ly/davemorin). No idea exactly what it contains because of course you have to subscribe but one can speculate and it does seem telling.

BTW this isn't a slight at Dave M - he took a chance on this (I think Letter.ly founder Sam Lessin and him are good pals) and it didn't work out - esp with the launch of Path. No biggie.

However, I fail to see how this is a good inspiration on Roses part to set up Foundation.

Finally, producing video is expensive (he probably has a camera man, there's editing time, hosting, etc) - I can't really see how this pays off either. You are in that weird position where $3.99 is going to create a chasm for many folks yet you'd have to sell quite a lot of subs to make it work financially.

PStamatiou• 16 years ago

> I can't really see how this pays off either.

It all ends up on Revision 3 (after the first week) anyhow so it's just more content for them to monetize like they do their other videos. His cameraman is also his regular Rev3 guy Graham. http://twitter.com/#!/grahamhancock/status/22008135078125568

frankdenbow• 16 years ago

The 'Apology' note was about using the platform for promoting a non-profit instead of regular content.

I do wonder, also, if these paywalls can work. My initial thought was that the money would incentivise the content creators in a way that blogging doesnt, but a similar abandonment of regular writing is apparent in the letterly newsletters I have looked at.

jarin• 16 years ago

I was more of a Diggnation fan than I am of this style of show (it reminds me of Carson Daly's new interview format), but I will say that there were some good takeaways from this episode. Especially the one about getting a sketch or prototype made as soon as you have the idea, and then showing it to someone. I have a "brilliant" (and I use the term very loosely) idea that could be prototyped in a day probably about once a month, and I usually buy up the domain name. I usually get started on the code, but I never end up finishing the prototype because the initial excitement wears off after a few days. In the few cases where I was able to actually finish a prototype and show it to someone, I was motivated enough after that to keep improving it.

srehnborg• 16 years ago

For those that don't like the choice of the first guest, Kevin has investments in at least Square, but Crunchbase also says Twitter.

http://www.crunchbase.com/person/kevin-rose

Digg Founder Kevin Rose Launches Private Newsletter Called Foundation

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