HaD Community,
We’ve heard the feedback, death threats and *sigh*s regarding the more accessible “top X” posts we’ve published recently. we’re going to pause on these while we internally discuss the mission and goals of Hackaday.
For background, I came up with the name Hackaday while brainstorming a site for hacks with [Phillip Torrone], who was then working on a hack every two or three weeks for a new blog called Engadget which [Peter Rojas] and I had founded. When we sold Weblogs Inc, the parent company of Engadget, Hackaday and 100 other blogs to AOL I pulled Hackaday out of the deal at the last-minute.
Why? Well, let’s just say that this dark overlord realized the dark overlords at the bigger Death Star (known as Time Warner) would not take kindly to having their set-top boxes and DVD players hacked. The head of legal department at said Death Star almost exploded when she read Hackaday.
Hackaday then existed in a shell company before I bought it from my former partners at weblogs inc. I did this, as opposed to selling it or shutting it down, because I know Hackaday is a unique place for a unique group of folks to share what they are working on.
My thinking has been “as long as I don’t lose too much money on this I’m fine with HaD just chugging along.” I’m happy to say that while I’ve lost a little money it’s not a lot (well, not happy, but not devastated. :-)
All that being said, I’d like to see Hackaday grow and expand its mission beyond “one hardware hack a day.” That’s why I asked the Hackaday crew to set up answers.hackaday.com and try out a Q&A forum for folks… which you guys seem to have embraced and used. It’s seems to be getting some traffic and is providing some utility.
What I’d like to see is for “classic hackaday” to expand into a place where a wider audience can learn and be inspired to hack *anything*.
So, if a casual internet users wants to rip their DVR apart and try upgrading the hard drive we should be the place they can learn how to do that. If they have a problem, they can ask a question here too.
If someone wants to jailbreak their iPhone or rip their iPad apart and embed it in the dashboard of their car they should be able to do that here.
… or if they want to learn some life hacks related to their Gmail account, we have a long article with the top 25 lifehacks for that.
So, my proposal to the community is to:
- a) Keep doing exactly what we’ve done an RSS feed called “classic”
- b) Expand the mission statement to something along the lines of “hack everything” (or maybe “hack anything” sounds more ambitious/fun?). Perhaps best said is: “hack everything, and inspire and help others to do that same.”
Thoughts? Feedback?
-Jason Calacanis
thanks for not selling out to Time Warner. They would ruin the site and the H.A.D. Community would disperse into the intertubes…
Being that HaD is one of the principal sites I visit daily, the concept of change is shocking. However, from a business-viability standpoint, change is understandably inevitable.
Although I would like to continue to enjoy the ease of connecting to the content I have enjoyed from HaD for years, I will abide by any unfortunate intermediary changes until the bugs have been ironed out.
I would like to make the following suggestion, though. If the “Featured How-tos”, “Tool Reviews”, and “Part Gudies” were browsable menus vs. listed items, I would be more likely to use them.
Thanks for saving Hack a Day from the goons, Jason, and good luck!
I love the idea to expand.
Hack everything is an excellent motto! I do believe that keeping community a bit focused is necessary – there already exists lifehacker for some “life hacking” tips and there are tons of blogs, sites on how to optimize this or that.
I do think that a bit of instructables-like content wouldn’t hurt – something that a novice can pick up. Actually this is it – have a more permanent section for people picking up their hardware hacking skills. The posts about tools and how to do these basic tasks where very insightful!
I do believe that having a section on hack-yourself would be interesting and within the spirit of this forum; do these and these exercises or do take this diet to sustain a 72h no sleep hack-a-thon, just steer clear of new age stuff.
For years my favorite column in ‘Scientific American’ was ‘The Amateur Scientist.’ I almost stopped reading the magazine when they stopped the column. For some reason Hackaday has always reminded me of those old columns and that is why I keep reading here. I don’t mind expanded coverage, but I hope you keep the articles accesible enough for newbies without ‘dumbing them down’ for more knowledgeable readers
The fact of the matter is that HaD has _already_ been wrecked by non-stop apple/arduino/how-to-install-software posts.
The fact that you mention offering a “classic RSS” gives me a lot of hope here. Some kind of decent filtered RSS system could be exactly the thing. That way HaD readers can get the content they want, and you are free to churn out as many pointless posts as it takes to pay the bills.
I appreciate that bills need to be paid, and it sounds like you understand the need to not alienate people, and have some solid ideas on how not to do this, so here’s to a better HaD for everyone!
Hackaday inspires! Hackaday teaches! Hackaday challenges! Hackaday changes the way we think! Hackaday is actually making the world a better place! Hackaday turns all the knobs up to 11 and rocks!
I make technical scientific equipment for a living and I am always getting new inspiration and ideas from the site.
I look at HAD every day and am amazed by the eclectic mix of ‘way out there’ stuff, the creativity and the imagination. I see stuff and want to learn how they did it. I love proper documentation when it is there. I absolutely love the way the commenters help each other to find other links to helpful and informative websites, its a real mixing pot, hackers helping hackers, really cool. Even the most hardcore of ‘hackers’ can’t be expert in ALL areas! We are all beginners in many areas! So any new way that HAD helps people to improve their knowledge is all for the good (o.k., you might want to categorise ‘beginner’, ‘hardcore’, ‘classic’). More good stuff, but for tutorials I want to see ‘novice to hardcore’ or even ‘beginner to hardcore’, I don’t really want any ‘absolute beginner to beginner’, I can find that elsewhere. If you do a ‘beginner’ tutorial, follow it up with ‘hardcore’.
HAD is THE starting point for me for learning new stuff. You might end up looking at other sites afterwards, to fill in the gaps, but HAD is the start because of the QUALITY, and your PHILOSOPHY. Keep the Quality, keep the philosophy. These are your most important assets.
As many commenters have said time and time again: SIGNAL to NOISE!!!!!!!!!
I like hackaday because of its HOW-TO’s and the collection of amateur electronics, stuff other blogs dont bother with, but actually is pretty interesting.
A hub for the worlds projects.
I think that hackaday is one the best sites that I have ever seen about hacks, electronics and etc.
I think that option B is the best, and we should expand our vision to hacks.
We could do it better, we should be the best.
Well, yeah, so long as the hacks are interesting and not just the technology version of Sandra Lee.
please be careful. I read HaD because I know that anytime I go here there will be something interesting to read. I can go through 5 good articles a day, but if there’s 50 – of which only 5 good, that’d be too much to ask.
I just want to say, Bravo. I check in here daily to see all the newest things, and to keep up with the latest. I don’t know what I would do without it. can’t wait to s33 where it goes from here. –shaun–
Jason,
Thank you for protecting the idea of HaD from the Death Star. Much respect.
;)
Pardon my lack of originality, but this user said took the words out of my mind:
“Hack the planet!
I, as a long-time reader, have absolutely no problem with the direction the site has been taking lately. I don’t expect every single post to be right up my alley, so I don’t mind if you have a few posts every week catering to a crowd that’s either more or less advanced than me or covering a topic I’m not interested in. You can’t please everyone, so it’s not even worth it to try. Just stick to your guns and what you feel is the right direction for Hackaday.”
dido! Keep on it! Long live Hack a day!
Answer: b)EXPAND (final answer!)
Let’s start HACKING!! Sounds like you got another winner Jason!
May I suggest that rather than comments, a community forum would be good too. Like per article it will be a topic in the forum where everyone can pitch in. and maybe expand the topic to other things (e.g. if the article is about hardware hacking, then a forum will be made for the article and subthreads, like where to get the stuff, what can be done to improve it etc)
I think it would be a good Idea to expand and have HaD a resource for hacking things. As long as its not programing or software review. Programing is easy and there is allot of documentation. Maybe if it would be some thing not documented very well. But the adroid 101 ? there is obviously lots of documentation and been done lots of places or else there wouldn’t be any apps. I like the answers.hackaday.com. That’s my opinion. Either way, whatever happens I will still read HaD
people has made death threats?!?!
@JMLB
Lol, I was wondering the same thing. People actually care enough about blogs to make legitimate threats? Or was the death threat statement just used to “make a point”?
Didn’t read all the comments, but my .02 is….
Go for a new site to do the “layman” hacks (gmail thing you mentioned and showing somebody how to crack open their DVR and installing a bigger hard drive) fairly simple stuff to hack, or just showing someone how some options (especially the hidden/undocumented ones) work .
but please, please keep this site (hack a day) the way it is (haven’t visited engadet). sure have links that can take the laymen to a forum where they can get their questions (no matter how lame someone might think the questions are) to get an answer or more to. That is of course how we learn, reading, understanding, ask questions to understand better.
thanks to you (HaD and your contributors) for what you have brought to my attention. 8 )
… THANK GOD and YOU: — Hack a day seems to be “BACK”
I will be forever thankful. Maybe I will even start sending in my hacks, I’ve got a handful that are public worthy.
thanks for listing to reason, all 250+ of them.
Keep up the great work – maybe even put up a buy/sell forum or something
Personally, I would like to see the site broken up into sections. The feature article of the day would be the hack a day traditional. If possible it would be linked to current events. – New iPhone release would trigger posting old or new articles on hacking iPhones. Hoot sales could also trigger certain posts.
An other section would be hacking older equipment. Like re purposing or recycling old equipment. A sections that you can search for your device and see all the hacks that apply to it or similar devices.
An other section would be for the hard core. These are people not afraid of building their own motherboards and devices.
A PC section would feature all the PC related hacks.
I would also like to see classic hacks like Mother Earth news or very old Popular mechanics articles. (Hacking doesn’t necessarily mean only electronics.)
Hacks of course link to other sites but for a small fee, the user could purchase parts list, downloads and other pre-packaged how-tos.
Why would I (or anyone) ask advice here when so many of the posts are grossly techno-ignorant, or even *malicious*, mis-information? Reading here is a real case of “reader beware”. Lacking anything like information/editorial quality control HaD is just a sideshow with delusions of grandeur. The /b/tards rule, and you’re welcome to them.
Do it. Hack anything! I think what you’ve been doing lately is awesome, and it’s made me read hackaday more.
A cool category would be All-Time Best Hacks
and maybe also the All-Time Best-Document Hacks, just to give people an example of what a good write-up looks like :)
Jason,
I’ve been following HAD for over three years and I’m all for expanding the scope as long as it is a true hack. Jailbreaking an iphone is borderline, but still fits.
Do more TWiT, also.
I’d just like to see less flash videos. Pictures would be best.
Jason, this is a great site and certainly a lot of fun to peruse daily….keep up the good work guy’s and gals, your efforts are surely appreciated by the hardware hacking community at large.
Dave Vancouver BC Canada