
Show HN: A London-centric hackernews - BenC88
http://technews.london/
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jacquesm
HN is viable because it has a worldwide community of hackers, good moderation
and someone writing $120K checks. If the only thing technews.london does is
reduce the scope then I fear it won't live long, like so many HN clones before
it. I only recall two that were successful and they were successful by doing
something HN did not (general business news and designer focused news). London
is already on HN as it is.

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freshflowers
The first argument is also a limitation of HN and an opportunity for
alternatives. Actually maybe even the first two.

HN community, culture and politics (and also its moderation) are very Silicon
Valley / US centric. This comes through especially on non-technical (but
relevant) topics, like regulation. But also topics like company culture are
extremely US-centric.

Localized topics (both in terms of content and culture) is probably the only
reason why an HN-like site would be viable.

From my perspective it's definitely desirable, and just the current frontpage
of technews.london confirms that there is a lot of stuff that will never make
it to SV-centric HN.

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rmsaksida
Exactly. And if there is demand for a London-centric HN, there is an even
bigger demand for non-Anglo alternatives. There are huge markets outside of
the Anglosphere.

I'd love to have a local HN to see what's going on in my country's scene.

I think HN clones like this should always be encouraged.

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druml
An example -- HN clone in Chinese language:
[http://news.dbanotes.net/](http://news.dbanotes.net/)

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unwind
Cool!

Also didn't know there was a ".london" TLD, but I'm not following such things
very closely. It seems anything is a TLD these days.

Clicking on a story's link opens a new tab. This site doesn't work like that,
which is very confusing since it breaks the pattern and creates confusion.

Probably only matters if you think your users are going to be readers of both
sites, but that does seem rather likely to me, at least.

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vidarh
.london has been around for only about 6 months. Despite living in London,
this is actually the first time I've seen anyone use it.

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RoseO
I saw some posters (I think for West End tickets) on a Southern train a little
while back using a .london domain. Though it wasn't prefixed with a www so I
wonder how many people didn't recognise it as being a domain name.

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alimbada
As someone who's just moved out of London I'd rather like to see a "UK-
centric" news site.

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merrua
I'd rather smaller lines for each story. I can scroll in and out if I want it
bigger. I'd also like to see a different font used. I don't like the logo
placement as its distracting and in the way.

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TheOtherHobbes
I like HN's minimalism.

The London site isn't minimal. It looks distractingly busy and over-designed.

Unimpressed by the content too, but I think that's maybe more a function of
the infamous forgettability of the Shoreditch scene. (I find it hard to get
excited about startups that help you get your ironing done. But maybe that's
just me.)

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chickenboot
(Very) Minor niggle but imgur is blocked in my office, so I don't get a logo
at the top. Like the idea though!

