[lsanger]

The news on the front page looks a little weird because a bunch of new people from Hacker News just arrived and ranked the news very quickly and sloppily. So it's OK. In a few days when things have settled down (??), you'll see it's much more plausible. As for being U.S.-heavy, we will of course have a U.K. version, other national versions, other languages...but that'll be post-launch and post-second funding round.

In the long run our platform will make it possible for you to get the news ranked according to your preferences and interests, which will be made possible by the fact that we break the news into facts that people can rank differently. So your friends' (and compatriots') rankings can be up-weighted and what you're shown will be different.

I know this isn't what you see on the site yet...but in 2001 and 2002 you wouldn't see what you'd have liked on the front page of Wikipedia, either. :-)

Sorry, no API yet. We will have one; we're open content. We're not even hard-launched. We've built what you see on a shoestring...