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NowPublic – Yet another News Web 2.0 site
Jan 31st
Haven’t we got enough already?
Another News Web 2.0 site launched the other day… NowPublic
My take is we have too many already. The space is crowded. No more News Web 2.0 sites please! Here is a post I wrote earlier about the space.
Pete Cashmore from Mashable! writes a good blog about NowPublic here.
Seekum Web 2.0 Search Engine
Jan 30th
Seekum is a Web 2.0 search engine that appears to have launched in Beta some time in late 2005.
It is still in Beta and its visual appearance looks very ordinary… ie: they haven’t bothered with the design yet. It appears that they are mainly concentrating currently on its functionality.
It has a similar strategy to Wink which I wrote a post on earlier here. Wink is mainly focused on tagging, where as Seekum is mainly focused on the user voting listings up or down based on wether the user thinks the particular listing result is relevant to the search query. Note: Seekum also does provide tagging ability, however this is not its main focus.
I have conducted a very quick test on Seekum and found that voting down a result, made the result disapear from future search results. This was pleasing as I felt as though I was helping get rid of bad results… however I am concerned about website owners playing with the system.
So I guess my main concerns for Seekum would be…
- Fraud: Website owners playing the voting system.
- The look and feel: they appear to have released the Beta version to early.
- Do they have the funding required?
- Search is a tough market. Will Seekum be noticed?
Good points in my opinion…
- I am a big fan of social applications. I think giving people the power to influence results is a good thing if executed correctly. Have got the fraud detection in place? Who knows… I guess we will see.
Great Web 2.0 blog
Jan 28th
TechCrunch is a great Web 2.0 blog. Highly recommended you subscribe to its feed if you are interested in anyway to Internet businesses and Web 2.0.
Yahoo! to buy Digg?
Jan 28th
Also from Social Networks…
Rumors are flying around at the moment that Yahoo! will buy Digg.
The problem with this rumor is that it just seems to be a rumor.
Could it be true? Well Yahoo! have been buying pretty much every other Web 2.0 business, so it is quite possible that they would buy one in the News space.
I wrote a post the other day about the News space and all the Web 2.0 companies that are crowding this space. In that post I mentioned that Digg was my favorite… well it was 2 days ago until NewsVine launched to the public. NewsVine in my opinion has a better look and feel, and functionality than even Digg does… so I have changed my favorite.
Looking for a Job… Indeed
Jan 28th
This is a post I posted very recently on Social Networks…
Indeed is a cool web 2.0 site if you are looking for a job.
What is different about Indeed? Mainly the fact that you do one search and it basically pulls results from everywhere that you would expect to be able to find a job advertisement.
Here is a snapshot of what Indeed says on its about us page: “Indeed is a search engine for jobs – with a radically different approach to job search. In one simple search, Indeed gives job seekers free access to millions of employment opportunities from thousands of websites. Indeed.com includes all the job listings from major job boards, newspapers, associations and company career pages – and we continue to add new sites every day.”
Indeed also saves the searches you conduct, and allows you to receive email alerts or an rss feed for those searches.
Another cool feature is that you can easily save a job, which goes to “my.indeed” list.
To find out the latest about Indeed – you can read its blog here.
Also interesting is that the Venture Capitalists (Union Square Ventures) that were behind del.icio.us are the Venture Capitalists behind Indeed. Their own blog is here.
A Search Engine called Wink
Jan 28th
Here is another post I posted on Social Networks the other day…
Wink is a Web 2.0 Search Engine which uses tags and allows you to “star” a listing in the results. These listings that you “star” are then stored as your favorites in your Wink account.
I do like Wink – but why do I keep using Google primarily? I don’t know the answer to this question yet… is it because Google provides better results? Maybe when Wink gains more scale I will use it more? Maybe Google will introduce tagging and selecting favorites anyway? I guess I will wait and see.
Keep your eye on Wink.
News Sites are Taking Off
Jan 28th
Here is another post I posted on Social Networks the other day…
There has been a lot of activity lately to start up a Web 2.0 “news site”.
What is a Web 2.0 News Site?
Good question. Here is a *very* quick and dirty explanation: People watch out for news stories. When they find one they like (or they think is new) they create a short post on the News Web 2.0 site and link to the original article. People can then vote on the quality of the article… whether it is a good read or not. The more votes it gets the higher up the rankings it climbs.. until it reaches the News 2.0 homepage.
My personal favourite is Digg.
However “some” others (not all) include…
Memeorandum
Newsvine
TailRank
Gather.com
Findory
All of these sites should give Google News, Yahoo! News, CNN etc a bit of a jolt, however I dont think it will be long before they also allow you to vote on news. Having said that there is probably room for one of these sites to sit alongside those already established leaders.
One suggestion… they should add the “Alert” feature like Google Alerts.
Travel and Accomodation Sites
Jan 28th
This is another post I posted previously on Social Networks…
Here are my favourite Travel and Accomodation sites. They are both social applications/web 2.0 sites.
1. Virtual Tourist
2. Trip Advisor
Members write reviews, and visitors can rate the advice. I recently used Virtual Tourist when I was in New York and it was a big help!
They are great for reading reviews on…
- What to do in a city.
- Where to stay.
- Restaurants to eat at.
- etc…
They are very comprehensive and have an extremely large and active member base.
In my opinion they blow Lonely Planet and World66 away.
Selling your house? Consider HomeThinking.com
Jan 28th
Here is a previous post I posted on Social Networks 2 weeks ago…
This post is regarding a Social Application/Web 2.0 business that someone referred me to today, I hope it is up to your high standards.
HomeThinking.com is a web site which helps you select a real estate agent to use to sell your house. It is still in Beta (appears to have launched in Beta on 6 Dec 2006), and caters for the US.
You are able to view possible real estate agents and read reviews from people that have used them to sell their house previously. The main rating is a 1 – 5 star rating (5 stars being the highest).
An example of a real estate agent is… Michael Martello who currently has 8 reviews. One of his reviews reads… “Baron & Chestney were professional. knowledgeable, and a pleasure to deal with — they sold my house very quickly, for more than asking price, AND I paid a very low commission, too! Who could ask for anything more?!”
What a great way to select who you should use, to get the best price & to sell it fast!
I believe there is great potential for this business. Some of the main reasons why I like this business are…
- Real estate agents receive good commission so are willing to pay high dollars to be promoted. Could charge for inclusion in Directory… featured listings etc.
- Adsense (PPC) ads would be high.
- Users want to select agents based on others experiences. It is one of the big decisions in life so you want to make sure you select a performer!
- The web is a great way to browse for real estate. Now you can also browse for your agent.
- To my knowledge HomtThinking is the first to launch in this space (please let me know if not the case). First mover advantage.
First post
Jan 28th
Hi there!
This is my first post to “Blog by Clay Cook”. I wil be posting my opinions on particular Internet businesses. Click here for more information about me and this blog.
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