Hi HN, We got a great response to our initial post about Hacker Daily last week, and we're back with our first episodes.
Everything is a work-in-progress... we're calling it the "minimum viable podcast." We hope to make it better every day, with your help. We'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks!
My only feedback at this point is that the less editorial you add the better IMHO and you seem to be adding more as the days go on. :)
It's fine when prefixed with "personally" or "I wonder if..." etc. Indeed, those bits are quite interesting, but without that it comes across as a little lecturing or even patronising. I usually agree with your politics, but I like to make my own mind up. It's very easy to get people's opinions on the news, etc. on that whole Twitter thing.
Stick a play button or mp3 link for the latest podcast on the landing page; it might help your bounce rate. (instead of me having to subscribe via something or navigate the RSS)
This site is for growth-hacking and lead gen, so it's disrespectful link to the content directly where leads can be missed.
You should remove this link and wait for them to add in the embed in the site itself, that way they are "paid" for their efforts with leads towards their services.
A couple of years ago I wanted to start a "summary" service for Hacker News submissions (and comments!), but I never found enough time to build something meaningful.
At least, the podcast is some (better?) version of what I wanted to build. I'm so happy someone is doing it.
Great work guys! I listened to the Friday episode and have some feedback for you.
It's great that you guys treat it like a real news segment and have a neutral stance on each post. But don't be afraid to give your own opinion on the subject. Steve Gibson from the Security Now podcast is an outgoing character that is not afraid to speak up on new topics.
To me, what the community writes in the discussion is generally more interesting than the article itself, this probably deserves more time. Tangents and arguments are always fun.
Hope you guys keep making these, it's a monumental task to do a podcast everyday, but well worth it in the end!
It's great that you guys treat it like a real news segment and have a neutral stance on each post. But don't be afraid to give your own opinion on the subject.
+1
I'm not saying throw away the current format, I like the digest, it'd just be more interesting if I could hear your input.
Here's an idea: how about you have an extra, slightly longer, weekly review and discuss between you the most important topics of the week?
Anyway good effort, I'll be sure checking you daily
If it takes off, you could do a free 5 minute intro feed + a paid 1 hr detailed feed (which might be enough to satisfy the HN craving while commuting/doing chores/etc.).
I'd recommend trying out assigning numbers to the stories (eg. 1 of 10) as they are introduced to give more separation between stories / comments. Or maybe one voice does the story summary and the other the comments. Without paying close attention it seems to all blend together.
For those who don't have time for a 10 minute podcast every day, "Hacker News Daily" lists top 10 ranked stories from HN every day: http://www.daemonology.net/hn-daily/ Obviously, it will not be as curated or opinionated as the podcast.
This is great! It'll really help to catch up and get a summary.
I like that there's a sound in between two items. That's thoughtful.
I'd appreciate if the description links back to articles/discussions on HN or elsewhere.
Thanks for the feedback— the setup we have is less than ideal. We’re both using a Blue Snowball mic, and I’m recording in the supply closet of my shared office (finding quiet space in NYC is hard, especially with kids at home!)
Going to try switching to a dynamic mic with a tighter pickup pattern, but the one I tried on Amazon from CAD was faulty (crazy buzzing around 1khz), so waiting for the next delivery...
For what you're doing, a dynamic is a good call--they'll eat the bounce off the walls. Don't worry about a tight pickup pattern so long as it is generally cardioid; with dynamic mics' general falloff, a wide cardioid pattern is not going to hurt you much. Consider the AT2005USB or ATR2100USB; both microphones are USB/XLR so later on you don't have to dump them if you want to get fancier and they sound very good for the price.
Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to chat about this; I do a little bit of audio wizardry on the side (and I'm building an open-source podcast serving platform at the moment, as it happens, so I've spent time in the weeds--maybe it'd be a good option for your hosting).
Thanks for the detailed comment! I just ordered the ATR2100USB and will give it a shot. I'll follow up with you re: hosting... it's something we're interested in and don't know that much about. Thanks again!
I suggest, if you are having echo problems and are recording in a closet with a bunch of reflective surfaces to take a bed sheet in with you and drape it over your head and mic (like a ghost!). Back before I had a better recording space it greatly reduced the amount of echo I got in my recordings.
Looks interesting, but how do I subscribe?
I'm used to just adding the feed URL to my podcast app (Pocket Casts).
Clicking the Google Play button opens Play Music with a message saying that the podcast isn't available.
Reddit world news has a bot that does like a 5-7 sentence summary of articles. Would be cool if you could run that on the articles and read it. Nice to hear a human voice.
Host it on Netlify if you're capable of working with a static website system - it's free to host, free to bring a custom domain, and they do the Let's Encrypt integration for you... for free :-)
If you need help, let me know. I'll gladly offer some time to help with a project like this: mc [at] sent.com
No worries, Let's Encrypt makes it really easy if you haven't used them before. Since you have input forms and links to app stores it might be a good idea.
Everything is a work-in-progress... we're calling it the "minimum viable podcast." We hope to make it better every day, with your help. We'd love to hear your feedback. Thanks!