Review my startup: Social news reader Twingly.com open for business

Some criticism:

You should have a language tag for your channels or feeds and make sure you only put english ones on the front page. Right now 2 of them are non-english.

You should put up a demo video or slides or something. Your front page is not compelling enough right now for me to register.

The news items in your channels don't have preview pics. With the space-liberal layout of your site, this is very lacking, it was my first thought as I scrolled down. OR use compressed headlines, and use favicons. But put up some pics, it looks very boring this way with text only.

As one of the commenters here pointed out, the default channels are so general as to be useless. You'll need to think of some interesting subjects. Right now you probably should concentrate on early adopters like us, so create some interesting channels like Python or Django or whatever is hip these days.

I'd consider rethinking the layout (I'm looking at /tech right now). It looks like a generic blog, but it should look like a CHANNEL, so make it look like one! Get rid of the noise on the right side (Sources, Subscribers), use the space for a layout that's not boring and makes me want to use the site.

I should be able to create a channel without signing in. It could be the hook for later signup.

Best of luck!

My $0.02: I think the concept is interesting, but the domain name makes it hard for me to love the startup. The domain name obviously has nothing to do with your vertical, has no story behind it, and was seemingly chosen only because it's pronounceable.

Likewise, the accompanying logo doesn't provide any insight into what your service does. What does reflected text tell me about your service? What does that odd, semi-rectangular polygon tell me about your service?

I read your FAQ: I don't think you should market it as a search engine, but rather as a social RSS reader. More people will be familiar with using RSS readers to get news than using search engines to do so.

Like I said, I think you created an interesting product, but I wanted to give you some food for thought.

PS Isn't the social news reader market fairly saturated? What, besides billing yourself as "spam-free" (in the FAQ) can you do to differentiate yourself?

Checked out the "Tech" channel and it's definitely not something I would use. I'm on a 1680 rez monitor and I can see three headlines on the "Top Stories" page. I can't handle Digg b/c I can only see six, maybe seven headlines without scrolling. As a first time user, I immediately close the page thinking, "#$#% that - I'm not scrolling just to read the headlines." FWIW I like the more spartan "headline only, please" styles of HN or reddit so I realize you may not be trying to appeal to me.

From a content perspective, I have no idea - wasn't worth it for me to check it out since I wasn't interested in scrolling x times to see what you offered.

I think your service is lacking "stickiness" Martin. If it's going to be a social news reader, there should be a "social" element to it. Add conversations to the mix, or maybe a retweet/reply feature. Or perhaps a bookmarking functionality. Something that will help me interact with the content and make me want to come back.

Also, I love the channel idea. Make finding, adding and creating channels the central focus of your service. Add more multimedia (video/audio clips etc) and exclusive member channels (subscriptions to these channels might be your business model). The static links look muy boring. Yuk.

If you call it a "channel", make it LOOK and sound like a channel!

TVitter.com: Joost, Twitter and Delicious in a blender. Yeah Baby!