

Ask YC: If you could create the ultimate tech news site what would it look like? - bmaier

People bag on some of the News sites for being to fluffy, too gossip filled, etc...<p>I've just started a site to cover technology and startups in the Midwest: http://windywire.com and I'm looking for feedback to create the type of site we'd all like to see.<p>So I'm coming to you guys for feedback, what features, what style of writing, what mashups would you like to see in a tech news site?
======
neilk
I'd like to see a quality over quantity site.

Today, technology news has a problem: people who might know what they're
talking about don't write. Blogs are somewhat better but the blogger doesn't
have an incentive to collect opposing points of view or do boring fact-
checking or tedious testing.

I see a lot of people saying that the comments are the best part of the
article. This is wrong. You only feel this way because tech reporting is so
degraded.

What I would _like_ : a news site that figures out some way to make money off
rare information and insightful reporting. One half Consumer Reports, one half
the Marc Andressen blog. Even if this resulted in there being just a few posts
per day, I think I would read it. Plus, on the web, quality information can
rake in pageviews over a long period of time, so this strategy isn't economic
suicide. It does take a longer time to pay off.

Maybe there are a few sites like this today, such as Tom's Hardware or Ars
Technica, but I am not much of a hardware guy. I deal with web software, and
the writing around that topic seems to be decidedly fluffy.

------
marketer
One of the most important aspects of a news site is having a good community. A
lot of the value of sites like news.yc aren't the links themselves, it's the
comments provided by the technially adept community. That's not to say that
the links are unimporant, it's that they aren't unique - most of the links
come from a a small subset of tech news sites.

One thing I don't like is articles that are purely about business cycles.
Company A raised 10 million dollars, or is dead, or is running out of money,
or is being acquired. Somtimes that can be interesting, but I'm partial to
writers that have a sense of humor, and are good at putting things into
perspective. I like writing from guys like Zed Shaw, or Matt Maroon -- they're
enterntaining.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I'd go further and say that the links are only discussion fodder. they get
people started, the comments that arise from the ensuing discussion are the
reason i come to HN. I could easily (?) set up a feed that approximates the
kind articles I actually click on HN, that's obviously not why we come here.

------
DaniFong
News can be too much like popcorn: unsatisfying one by one, bad for you en
mass, and usually consumed while procrastinating.

If the articles instead brought difficult epiphanies, and challenging tasks,
one might find it in them to attend to one's work first, and tackle some of
the 'new articles' (say, a new fascicle from Knuth) later.

------
nazgulnarsil
I think niche'd social news sites are part of the future of the web. Reddit's
create your own reddit is a step in the right direction but it remains to be
seen if people prefer starting upa group on an existing network or trying to
start one from scratch (the difference between the programming reddit and HN).

AFAIK no one has done white label social news yet. startup?

~~~
bmaier
I guess my question would be more in line with: What would you like to see in
a location-centric tech news site that provides the content for the social
news sites we love.

------
unalone
Here's something that nobody talks about: people writing articles from
different points of view.

We don't get this often. We dont' have one person talking about a product's
design and another person about its performance and a third person about the
sort of community it's developed. We get one or another, and it's never
organized.

I love reading about design, less so about pure opinion on subjects. Having
multiple takes on tech would be a very cool feature that I've never seen on a
site before.

------
maxklein
I'd like the New Yorker of tech news. Not so much information, but articles
that really open my eyes to new stuff.

------
ericb
Apple has taught us that good taste is everything. I'd like to see a build-
your-own news site that allows individuals or small groups to maintain their
own mini-reddit in a more moderatorship-style. Make the front page showcase
the most popular feeds and feed-artists.

------
greyman
I see you are having big aspirations. ;-) Regarding the style of writing, I
personally like two styles: one is a temperate, sensible, normal writing
(something like Robert Scoble or kottke), another style I like is the
Gizmodo/Engadget type.

------
bmaier
<http://windywire.com>

------
xlnt
it'd look like yc. now upvote me plz.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
I'd say it would resemble HN to a higher degree than it would resemble any
other news site that currently exists.

~~~
xlnt
why do you think i'm here?

