It'll be interesting to watch them as a (very loose) hubski competitor.
There's some interesting discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027342
From that discussion, Paul Graham: That makes me agree that we could be headed towards a similar space. I keep stumbling across Svbtle, and am usually pleased with the content.Svbtle is probably one of the most misunderstood companies we've funded. Partly because what they're doing is hard to understand, and partly because Dustin has alienated a few people along the way, who now in the usual way with haters want to misunderstand what Svbtle is.
One of the reasons Svbtle is hard to understand is that it's a work in progress. At its current fairly fuzzy resolution, it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations. Beyond that few of the details are figured out. But costs are low and traffic is growing steeply, so although in most cases I'd be nagging founders to figure out more details, in this case I've advised Dustin to let this grow and see what it turns into.
I encourage neutral observers to do the same: let's see what this turns into. And as for the haters, it's fine with me if you want to keep hating. Though this was not a deliberate strategy by Dustin (he is actually confused and hurt by all the hate), being controversial is actually a good thing for a publication.
Ah, thanks. That comment also led me to this discussion on the word 'hater': https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027831
Thanks for posting this, I just applied to write for them. Fingers crossed.
I remember svbtle's rocky "launch" on HN. People were upset with the exclusivity, the fact that "kudos" couldn't be taken away, and someone actually made a clone of svbtle, called obtvse. The creator of svbtle definitely came across as a jerk. I think the representation of svbtle as a blogging platform hurt it overall, since when most people think blogging nowadays, they think of open platform, not something that takes pride in being closed and implicitly insults anyone not invited. I have yet to be sold on the concept.