Hacker News Reader

I'm surprised this is from the government. It comes across as very spammy - like an affiliate marketing site. The copy reads like a content farm and most of the links are basically ads for different services. Surely the government can't be that strapped for cash?! Good idea, horrible execution.. (Though the site design is quite nice).

View on HN

It has govt. backing (maybe funding, not sure), but this is from the private sector.

I am slightly suspicious of the fact that the people listed on the "About Us" page appear to have things to sell in this field. For example a link to a "startup kit" with a book by Emma Jones is linked from the first page.

It's fine if this is killer material and good stuff, and I hope it is, but it gives me pause for thought.

You remind me of the early 2000 Business Link companies. You rang up looking for advice, thinking it's a government initiative, but spend 70% of the time getting a hard sell for their web development sideline.

I met a BL person once with my then business partner to discuss bis-development ideas/options, and, yep, it was a total hard sell of the services; they couldn't "get" that our total capital was about £1,000 of our own money and there was simply no way I was going to pay £250 for X useless service ;P

Reply on news.ycombinator.com