Show HN: Feathers, blogless writing for everybody

by nickbalestra • 14 years ago

22 33 14 years ago

sandollars2• 14 years ago

Looks great!

This reminds me of the 'Show HN' posted here two or three days ago. Who inspired who?

It strikes me that such a service could be almost completely cacheable (static)... which raises the question of why you're restricting usage.

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Hi, We did post already few weeks ago, and while maybe it was inspirational (who knows) it differs from the other project as the other project was about making github gists as article, while our allow to write directly online, no need to write gist on github, people can share them, you have some reading stats of what you post, and you can keep saving drafts and just publish article. we are more focusing on the writing experience, think of it as an Iawriter for the web :) that's why is not static and we are testing during some private before opening up for everybody.

sandollars2• 14 years ago

Thanks, nick. Good luck to you :)

Killswitch• 14 years ago

Looks awesome, can't wait to see it. Will personally wait until after beta though.

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Thanks Killswitch, if you signup we can keep you in the loop for when this will happen :) The more good beta-testers we have the better it will get for the public release .

xSwag• 14 years ago

Good to see I'm not the only person who plans on using .rs domains! The application looks great!

ojr2• 14 years ago

I was planning on using .rs too, small world!

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

cool! We also have the short version of it: fth.rs :)

mkr-hn4• 14 years ago

Is this limited to Apple PCs and the iPhone? The image makes me think that's the case, but I don't see any mention of platform.

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Nope, it's a web app so as long as you have a browser you will be able to use it. And on mobile devices article are optimized to offer a nice reading experience on every one, not just ios. We didn't want to overcroud the page putting there images of anykinf of device, but as soon as we go out of the beta we will add more featurelist and explanation on it. Thanks for pointing it out, appreciated.

mkr-hn4• 14 years ago

The image implies that it only runs on Apple devices, and that will keep a lot of people from signing up to be notified. The page also doesn't say much about the product. Is this hosted, or do you still need your own web space? If it's hosted, is self-hosting an option? Can it export to something like WordPress' XML?

The copy uses a lot of words to say very little.

ojr2• 14 years ago

This app has its place for the web, it will fit nicely, give it some time

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Thanks ojr! At least we are building something we wanna use ourself to write with, and from the feedbacks look like others will most likely be happy to use it as well.

hopefully3• 14 years ago

It's just lovely to see something done because it's a good idea, because it's "something you want to see", and not because it's cool or might make you rich... I think that's cool, and I hope it makes you rich :P

RobMcCullough2• 14 years ago

Looks great! The design and typography are quite nice! I hate to be "that guy," but have you seen pen.io? Your site seems very similar. Also, what is the reasoning behind eventually removing articles. Is there an option to disable this feature?

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Hey rob, thanks. Yup I've seen pen.io but it doesn't offer drafting, the writing experience is not that nice and the posts are not optimized for reading nor on pc or mobile devices, and we will also suport markdown syntax for writing.). The removing of article is an idea we have in mind, as we thought unreaden and unshared articles are just dead articles so why not just remove them? But this idea is not implemented atm so articles wont be removed. What you think on this? Would love ot ehar your thoughts on this direction.

hasenj• 14 years ago

I would prefer if articles remain.

You don't want to burn a book just because it's old.

Something like ESR's how to become a hacker[0] is several years old, but it's still valuable and people still link to it.

[0] http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

RobMcCullough2• 14 years ago

Good to know. Thanks for answering my comment! I went ahead and signed up for the beta as you struck my curiosity with the writing environment teaser! As for my thoughts on removing old content, I get a kick out of going back through the websites I used to frequent and reading things I wrote. The pack-rat in me would prefer to always have access to my past work. But, I do understand the logic in wanting to keep all of the content fresh. Maybe you could remove it but provide an option to have an old piece salvaged for a small fee?

hopefully3• 14 years ago

Maybe you could still leave it up to the author? i.e. just list inactive blog entries, for how long they've been inactive, and a quick way to delete some/all of them.

hollerith• 14 years ago

This is a hot "sector": 4 days ago we had a service that described itself as "blogless writing for hackers" (gist.io):

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4263437

nickbalestra15• 14 years ago

Yup and we posted before that as well already on HN. pinged the gist guy on twitter but haven't yet received any answer. Look cook the gistio solution as well, although we are doing something less hackerish and more simple to use without any need of github, for the normal user :)

naner• 14 years ago

Don't forget Twitlonger ("Blogless writing for tweeters"?). I stumbled across an article written by Jason Alexander on there today.

Show HN: Feathers, blogless writing for everybody

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