Your design seems perfectly good to me for what your site does. It has a library-like feel. To get more attention, I think you should check out the FriendFeed

Your design seems perfectly good to me for what your site does. It has a library-like feel. To get more attention, I think you should check out the FriendFeed API. Although it would mean more comments that aren't on your site, it would make it easier for people to share summaries.