What you're seeing is pride that one of us is doing well. yegg, the founder, has been on HN from the beginning.
We've watching him single-handedly go up against Google. He's helped a bunch of us in private. We're rooting for him and we're glad to see him get recognized.
That is awesome, and now I know that (I honestly did not before). But it's weird to get downvoted for merely asking why DuckDuckGo was special in this story.
And what's more, a site which for the most part remained a one-man show taking on one of the most difficult to penetrate markets and actually suceeding in surviving, getting noticed and loved. If that's not an achievement, I don't know what is.
Firstly it requires a decent amount of initial work and investment. While DDG does use the BOSS API, its still a lot of work to get it working right especially since DDG integrates not just that but other engines too.
A search engine starting from scratch is a huge task, which is not made easier with the brand recognition the big guys get. Since search is such a fundamental concept to the use of the web, many people think of it as a start point to the internet. This is where its hard to get early adopters because only people specially interested in new SE's would try the new kid, everyone else uses the comforting familiarity of Google.
And lastly, the leaders in the search space are some really big names. Names which have gone onto become verbs. To go head on against such competition is commendable if you're not in the vertical market. What is even tougher when the media calls you a *-killer and in the initial days you can't live upto the false hype that is created (see Cuil).
You're obviously getting downvoted, so I probably will too, but I have to somewhat agree. But more specifically, why duckduckgo? Are they better than the other 49? Why is this submission rated number 1 on hn? I really don't get it.... One of 50 on a list?
I work at one of the other 49, and didn't feel the need to submit when the list came out many many hours ago....
So, I guess I agree with the sentiment you express. Why duckduckgo in this situation? Maybe I'm honestly missing something
I can see from your comment that you honestly don't understand why DDG is the #1 post on HN right now, so I'll answer it honestly.
You don't say which company you work for in this comment.
You don't use your real name in your HN profile.
You're not giving us a way to connect and root for you.
If you were more open. If you openly talked about your company and taught us what you learned, you'd give us a way to feel connected to you and your company. Then we'd probably all root for you too.
Give us a chance to get to know you and relate to you.
Yeah, why duckduckgo was what I meant to ask. Now, other commenters have pointed out that the founder has been with HN since the beginning, and they want to recognize his achievement. Great! Not sure why I'm getting downvoted for pointing this out though. I just thought a title like "Top 50 websites of 2011 on Time (includes DuckDuckGo!)", and a link to the top of the story might have been more relevant.
