It's like someone is writing about me and my previous job. Almost makes it kinda funny that someone is so easily able to compile a list like this and yet there are still far too many workplaces who almost seem to follow these rules.
I don't believe Reddit will be the last big social news website but I don't expect them to accomplish much more. They seem afraid of making changes and losing users like what happened to Digg.
It leaves the whole market open to whoever else can do a better job. I doubt anyone is going to leave seemingly overnight like Digg -> Reddit but if someone was to start small and grow.. there's a lot of room to accomplish better things.
I'm working on something like this with a couple of others but it's too early to say whether we'd ever be a viable competitor. There's certainly a possibility though.
Perhaps job wasn't the best word to use but I think you understood what I meant anyway. As for going round in circles, I think browsing Reddit is like being stuck in the same conversation day in, day out.
Our centerpiece is the discussion system/self posting. We're still working towards a mvp so it doesn't offer much more than what Reddit/HN does at this moment in time.
The site does still revolve around a list of stories, we toyed with the idea of having a grid-like view but ultimately we think that a list is still the most efficient way of finding something you want to read. I'm open to suggestions but I really can't stand are websites that try to be smarter than the user by trying to anticipate what the user would want to read.
This seems to be often done through really basic methods such as a "What are you interested in?" tickbox questionnaire. If the recommendations suck the first time, I'm not going to keep using the site to even begin improving those recommendations.
I believe the real centerpiece would eventually be the community though. Hopefully we'd attract a similar level of interesting and thoughtful users as on HN but cover a wider range of topics.
