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...

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.

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 → marketer]

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 → nazgulnarsil]

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 → xlnt]

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

[xlnt → nazgulnarsil]

why do you think i'm here?