Saturn (the car company) is currently running an ad campaign that says, Nothing sells Saturns better than letting our customers test-drive a GM.
And this is why Saturn (and the rest of GM) is going down the tubes…Infighting.
Funnily enough, for the main project I’m working on (or planning to work on) my enemy IS Basecamp (and Highrise, since my app is a bit of both).
why do you think experts-exchange put a dash ’ - ’ between experts and exchange
because if they didn’t have that dash ( - )…it would be called
expertsexchange ( or: expert sex exchange)
haha – just thought it would be a laugh for some people.
Keep up the good writes, jeff!
I used to vilify Experts-Exchange because of the search engine cloaking, but ever since they started including the answers at the bottom of the page (just scroll down) I’ve become quite grateful for the site, as the answers are very often spot on. Not sure how their model works (if the contributors have really proven themselves experts or something), but the quality of result is extremely good.
And just wait until someone makes a competitor to StackOverflow, but allowing for the entire database to be open (similar to Wikipedia, which Stackoverflow often draws comparison to. I can download every single bit of data from Wikipedia, the entire history of changes, and so on. Given that it is user contributed content, it makes sense that it should be open). Suddenly StackOverflow will be the evil player, and someone else will play the good game.
you can also get to this much more simply with:
http://e-e.com
less typing. less confusing.
no sex in the name.
no change in the name.
Expert Sex Change LOL!
You’re half-way to evil Jeff!
48,500 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=stackoverflow+sucks
105,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?q=experts-exchange+sucks
Saturn (the car company) is currently running an ad campaign that says, Nothing sells Saturns better than letting our customers test-drive a GM.
And this is why Saturn (and the rest of GM) is going down the tubes…Infighting.
No they aren’t. They have competitor products on-site to compare, not other GM models.
It’s probably different when you’re running a site as a source of income, but I’ve found that the evil arch-nemesis site/product is satisfying on a short-term level, compared to the admittedly more delicate method of working directly with your competitors, and nullifying perceived competition to a degree.
That doesn’t mean you don’t have to be the best at what you do, but it does allow for someone else to handle stuff that might be out of your scope, or not quite aligned with how you’d do things. It helps foster positive community behavior, as opposed to grudges and smack talk. And really, if you’re doing your best, the competition will probably wither away at some point anyway 
Ha, I wasn’t very clear with that last post. I encourage the positive behavior as a better alternative to internet pissing matches 
The funny thing is, I always thought that ExpertsExchange hid the answers for me, forcing me to sign up. It took a long time to realize that if you scroll down tons of irrelevant crap, the answer is at the very bottom.
It still sucks though, and I like StackOverflow much better. One thing about SO though: you really should work on your front-end code more, it has serious divitis and can be performance-optimized a lot. I know you don’t care too much about these things, just saying.
@Matt Dunphy, I understand what you’re saying. That’s true, though it may be a bit Pollyanish. Nevertheless, whenever I see reference to this smackdown learning model, I just want to projectile vomit.
This post is already in the first page of the search results! 
a href=http://www.google.com/search?q=experts-exchange+suckshttp://www.google.com/search?q=experts-exchange+sucks/a
Experts Exchange. Ewww! They ought to remove it from google search results.
One of these things is not like the others:
We’re like experts-exchange, but without all the evil.
They are almost universally loathed.
We don’t just have a rival, we have a larger than life moustache-twirling, cape-wearing villain to contrast ourselves with.
I have absolutely nothing against Experts-Exchange.
Just a hint - it’s the last one, the one that isn’t slander and probablly headded straight for deformation proceedings.
It’s just good to know that there are people and organisations out there who won’t take the unethical tactic of calling their opposition evil (without examples nor explanation) and they calling their own company and products saviours.
It just warms my heart to see a good very balanced, informed and unbiased debate is taking place.
Well done.
At least both SA and EE better than having sex with a beautiful woman.
507,000 results
http://www.google.com/search?hl=enq=having+sex+with+a+beautiful+woman+sucks
Or maybe your method is just flawed.
expert-sexchange
Oh my God, do I have an enemy?!!
In fact I have several… Joomla!, Drupal and every other CMS that is rotten at the core. And why oh why are they always the darlings of project managers who don’t have to wrestle with un-secure, buggy, undocumented and just plain bad code?
In fact I got so annoyed I built my own CMS. One that is good!!
And now, thankfully I get to use it to build sites on.
The bonus…? I find out today if I’m to be made redundant. And if I am, I will take my CMS and bring it to the world.
Who knows, I may even start my own little tech startup.
(no-one has ever said I was sane)
So I agree with Jeff. Find your enemy, and don’t be them. Use their shortcomings and failures to point out just how much better you are. And with any luck people will like your product, and your enemy will improve theirs.
And the arms race will be on to build better software. And in that arms race, everybody wins.
The login mechanism at stackoverflow is anoying. I would rather pay for expert exchange then using it.
Most of the time people have to be careful when choosing their nemesis(arch-enemy is less comic compliant) and even more careful when they decide to drive all their marketing based on that. How many times have you heard Like Microsoft, but better, and when you get your hands on the product its like MS in all the bad sides but bad on every MS’s good sides (so it ends up being a half-true, but in the worst way).
To be honest, the first time I read the We’re like experts-exchange, but without all the evil. I was a little skeptic…
My thoughts were; What the heck is wrong with EE, I use it all the time and seams to work like a charm…, then along came SO, and then the phrase suddenly got a clear meaning.
I have to admit Jeff that SO is one of the rarest exception to this rule. The bad thing about it is that now I’ve became highly intolerant to the singup-frist-use-next internet services. =)