My take on this “secret”, in fewer words: claim personal expertise and experience and make some emphatic claim (esp. w/ an emphatic title) about a topic where people will either agree with your point from their own experience, or have some existing opinion (who doesn't have an opinion about facebook?), then make sure you get it in front of a bunch of Hacker News readers (perhaps via some other mechanism, like twitter).
The facebook gripe post wasn’t completely linkbait-y, since it provided a nice basis for a solid discussion, but by itself it was pretty light on substance. I’d personally much prefer to see gripes with more meat on them; “show, don’t tell”.
I actually agree on the post being light on substance; I was completely blown away at the level of response it got. I wouldn't have been at all surprised if it hadn't made the frontpage at all.
The facebook gripe post wasn’t completely linkbait-y, since it provided a nice basis for a solid discussion, but by itself it was pretty light on substance. I’d personally much prefer to see gripes with more meat on them; “show, don’t tell”.