Hey, that’s me! I had the honor of giving a talk at the Hackaday SuperConference in November about our editorial direction over the past year and looking towards the next. At any given time we have about 20-25 people writing articles for Hackaday. We depend on their judgment, experience, and skill to keep Hackaday fresh. It would be wonderful if you would join me in thanking all of the writers and editors for a great year by leaving your well-wishes in the comments.
Take a look at the video of the talk, then join me below for a few more thoughts.
In my talk, I walk through some of the articles and trends that I think were important over the past year. But in summary, I think this statement has the most power: Hackaday is Worth Reading.
The level of click-bait, invasive advertising, and advertorials seen throughout the Internet feels like it has really exploded this year. Hackaday remains steadfast in publishing content of both quality and interest. This benchmark warrants you spending your time to read and talk about what you see on these pages. It’s somewhat sad that this needs to be said, but important to recognize that people should be able to trust what they read, and that we see our community as far more important than a collection of clicks.
We publish articles that matter to anyone interested in engineering. It is our goal to look under the hood and discuss how an underlying technology is used. But it doesn’t end with the article. The people who make these discoveries, who built the first prototypes and have proven design in industry, show up in our comments section on a regular basis. This is a cool thing and I’m proud to be part of it.
We are facing a few challenges. One that we encountered over the past year is how to discuss topics of technology without getting bogged down in politics. This is a difficult dance and we’re still learning the steps. Another issue we’ve dealt with this year is how to love something and not be decried as publishing advertisements. Hackaday does not publish paid content — when you read an article here it is not an advertisement. Despite that, we are flush with accusatory comments that say otherwise. We’ve looked at this and have renewed our focus to ensure we are always thinking critically when covering new hardware and in writing reviews. On both of these topics please feel free to email [editor at Hackaday dot com] with your thoughts.
Thank you to all who spend their free time as part of Hackaday. I know many of you read from work, stay up way too late, and even check Hackaday as the first website of the day (I can check all those boxes for myself). You send us tips when discovering awesome hacks, and evangelize Hackaday to the chagrin of your friends and family.
We need your help to become even better. When you read an article that you love, please share it. Believe it or not, there are still a lot of people who haven’t yet discovered Hackaday, and your help in sharing the best of our content on social media and content aggregators will reach those who don’t yet know about us. In addition, send us your tips and convince your companies to tip us off early about new hardware (we respect press embargoes).
Hackaday is a huge family composed of everyone who spends time here to make it great. Thank you for creating a bright spot in my life in 2016. I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in the coming year.
Filed under: cons, Hackaday Columns
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