The Hacker News Experiment

<i>What does it take to write the ultimate newsworthy article?</i><p>Stick the words "Hacker News" in the post title and you're well on your way.

I think the moral here is pretty simple, if you want points here just write about current hot button topics.<p>If you could make a tutorial for programming an iPhone app that searches for Tweets about Michael Jackson you'd get 100 points easy.

I guess you just found that the oddest of articles can prove popular. I submitted a couple of my own pieces that I found really interesting and they just, well, died instantly :) And a recent off-hand analysis of modern cyber security brought in 1500 views...<p>One thing I do think is obiovus: unlike reddit and slashdot et all HN doesnt care if it is a self-submission. I avoid self-submitting elsewhere but deliberately take time to do so here. If it's not a popular article it will die quietly but no one will bitch about the factyou submitted it :)

I think this post was a experiment in recursion -<p>"will an article work, that talks about what makes a article work"? hmmmm - now how about 3x an article about this article that is of course about his 2 other articles. Fun.

This might be more aptly titled "The Hacker News Linkbait Experiment".