At Morris DigitalWorks, where I do have a day job, we have another project in the hopper that we'll unveil next week.
Publishers create websites. But there's another approach, one that grasps the basic truth that the Web is already full of great content. That approach leads to metasites, and there are some great examples: Slashdot, Newsvine, About.com, Topix.net, Digg, and Beta.netscape.com.
Each, in its own way, is about a particular type of subject matter. But it's powered by OPC -- other people's content. It's all about linking, and the links in many cases are provided by/discussed by/graded by members of a community interested in/passionate about the subject that's on the table.
These sites often are mistaken for user-driven content engines. But the more important technique is a user-driven context engine.
Anyway, that's background for the thing we're going to unveil next week.
Consider it to be the equivalent of a concept car -- a technique the automakers use to learn whether an idea has legs or not. Only this concept car will have an engine. We'll let people drive it and see what happens.
Comments
Community filtering
Steve,
We had a conversation about blogs at Web+10, and I remember you saying at the time that they were a 'complex social phenemenon' that we were just getting our head around. Well, you're really hit on part of it with this user-driven context engine. Blogs, including yours, have become a very important part of my media diet because either smart people say things that I find useful or they point me in the direction of useful things. Tom Coates, with his plasticbag.org, here in the UK is constantly either saying or showing off smart stuff and always linking to smart stuff. I call it community filtering.
A few years back, my web use had gotten predictable apart from the Google-driven search part of it. I read a few publications and sites. Now, I'm constantly following the links from smart blogs and discovering new things. Can't wait to see the site.