A tiny suggestion: the field where you type the route should say "Or type it and click go", not just "Or type it and click." It's a little clearer. I see that you fully spell it out at the very top, but I skipped past that, and I suspect a lot of other people will, too, because it's so small.
I was thinking about trying to make a similar tool. I got the idea when I was trying to decide in which format I wanted to buy the complete series of The Wire. I found it too hard to compare prices between all the different sources, including DVD. Google's Shopping results are only for the DVD format. I would incorporate prices to make it more useful. Moki.tv was a good app that was pretty similar. http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/17/moki-tv-is-the-ultimate-per...
Bloc(http://www.bloc.io/) does exactly that. "This is perfect for someone who wants to enroll in something like Dev Bootcamp but can't because they don't live in San Francisco."
I'm part of their fall cohort that's about to start and so far it's been great.
We think we are more obsessed with apps than pretty much anyone, so others might want to see what we have to say.
What are the main hashtags for this purpose right now? That sounds like a good idea, too.
I don't have any UX training (Econ major, myself), but I recommend making bigger stories take up more space, like TechMeme does. I do like how you de-emphasized related stories, because they make TechMeme kind of noisy. I also miss the pictures TechMeme puts next to most stories. In general, it is a little bland, as you seem to realize. Then again, HN is bland and I don't have a problem with it.
The story ranking and discovery is good, though. Seems on par with TechMeme, which is impressive.
I found it with a Facebook ad. Are you advertising it a little just to see if it takes off, or what?
This is impressive, though -- good job.