

Ask HN: Feedback needed on NewsQast - new local news aggregator - daneuman

NewsQast is a local news, weather, and traffic aggregation service providing a single view of news across multiple local sources.<p>I would like to ask the Hacker News community to provide me feedback on the concept and usefulness of the service. I'd like to know what you think would make a news site more valuable to you as a consumer.  I'd also like to know if anyone has any suggestions on making news sites like this more engaging.<p>URL: http://www.newsqast.net/<p>Thanks for the feedback.
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ameister14
Right now it's just all the news thrown up in a jumble. Adding some order to
it would be better. You arrange it by type a bit but it's still a kinda
scatter-shot feel.

Also, say I live in Boston but hate the Herald and love CBS. I would like to
be able to personalize my content aggregation so as to receive more from CBS
than the Boston Herald, or to cut out the Herald entirely.

You can't just aggregate all the sources through RSS and say you're providing
a service. I can do that myself. You should figure out where you add value; is
it by putting more than one city? Perhaps you can add metrics and comparisons
from city to city or allow users to select multiple municipalities.

Who is your audience?

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ilamont
I went to the site and was expecting something even more local. I am within
the "Boston Manchester" area -- is that the TV market designation or the
census bureau metro area?

Like the design. Headlines are nice and clear. Could use photos, though.

I think you could definitely work on your sources, too. All I see are the
major Boston dailies and TV news stations at the top. If you're using RSS, I
would see what you could come up with using blog, Twitter sources, or other
social media -- I find that with news, the discussion is often the big draw
after the headlines.

