CoRank Launches Twist on Social Bookmarking
Michael Arrington
17 comments »
CoRank launches out of private beta this evening. It’s best described as a cross between Digg and Bluedot. It has a Digg-like user interface where users view stories, but by default you are only shown stories bookmarked by other users you’ve added as friends.
To see the whole feature list, watch the tour, here. I like keeping track of stories bookmarked by my friends (which is why I prefer Bluedot over Del.icio.us), and this may appeal to some users. For others, they’ll be just fine sticking with the services they’re already using. It’s going to be very tough for services like CoRank to get the foothold they need to grow.
Before you count CoRank out, though, it’s worth noting that the founder, Rogelio Bernal Andreo, is both a former manager/engineer at eBay and Netscape and, more importantly, is the founder of eListas and eGrupos, one of the largest social networking site for Spanish speakers. Andreo says that he plans on introducing CoRank to the eListas audience, which is 20 million strong.
so many new social networking sites described as a “cross between this and that”
im not sure there’s enough space in the market?
Thanks for the post Mike.
Although the feature list link you added explains it in greater detail, just to clarify, coRank isn’t so much about getting stories bookmarked by your friends, but about you selecting people whose opinion you value (like you’d do with the network feature of del.icio.us), and then, out of what all of your sources do (marking entries up or down), you get those stories that seem to be favored by most of them.
So in a way, it’s like a personalized Digg where you decide who plays the game when it comes to build *your* front page (if one source marks one story up, but the others mark it down, chances are you won’t see it in *your* front page). There’s more to it, such as discriminating your sources by topic “because I care about how Mike rates tech stuff, but don’t care about his taste in music or politics”.
In the end, I didn’t write coRank to build an empire (not even a little one) but to have fun and to build a site the way *I* would have liked Digg to be. And if in the process some people find the service to be useful, great. I know it works for me (got my sources, we’re all using it, done).
For those who can’t wait the last few hours, you can already signup and login. See: http://lunchpauze.blogspot.com.....eview.html
I don’t use Digg, or any of the many other digg-like services that lay around.
I use del.icio.us to store my bookmarks, but that’s all.
I had the opportunity to try coRank as a beta-tester (disclaimer?), and I like it. It gives me just the stuff I’m interested in, and if something doesn’t suit me I just vote it down and it looses weight at *my frontpage*.
It also helps me to *keep the conversation*, as the last items I voted or commented have a place in my frontpage so I can always track if somebody made a comment on them or if other people have found it interesting.
I hope it gets enough critical mass to keep up and running.
This is something nobody has yet to take to mainstream. So a good opportunity. You would think feed readers would go after it. Delicious even does a horrible job promoting this among its users.
I was pessimistic until the last sentence.
Way to go RBA !
AWESOME! This looks like what I wish Digg was, but I’ll wait to see how CoRank’s “groups” functionality works out. I think this is vital and could make CoRank a HUGE success.
I consider Digg to be for one group already: young American male programmers. For people whose interests don’t match that group’s, Digg is not very useful.
Imagine groups based around different web communities — a “TechCrunch” group where the top stories include Web 2.0 stories that don’t necessarily make the cut on TechCrunch. An “Etsy” group with stories of interest to Do-It-Yourselfers. There could be all kinds of smaller groups — say, someone is interested only in social networking sites or only MySpace or crocheting or only vegan crocheting or whatnot.
I can see potential challenges — ie, what if I’m interested in vegan crocheting AND social networking sites, but don’t want my bookmarks to apply to both groups? If this is functional and slick, I think the userbase will follow, since bloggers and communities will promote their groups. I’m going to be rooting for CoRank!
Looks good. Wizag already has the functions of an enhanced Digg for private groups. http://wizag.com/Groups/tabid/70/Default.aspx
Our focus is on providing private group functions and enterprise feedback management for enterprises and websites and have paying customers in US and Asia, but we also offer a free version on our site. A user can join or start many groups, one for each interest or social network, see and manage all your groups on one page.
Luks gud . Great design . Logic . But don kno how so many people still are left behind in the market to test upcoming social network sites ( be it combination of various sites ) . hhhmmm … lets wait and see
I got a chance to see the demo at meetup. It is a good concept and looks interesting. Here you get to see topics based on the opinions of the people you care.
There’s also idearef http://www.idearef.com a cross of tinyurl, archive.org and del.icio.us.
H Dursuzu
Excellent Bookmarking site thanks for share it.
RBA: Looks good - nicely done! Simpy has a similar feature, but calls it Watchlists. People you watch are your Sources. People who watch you are your Fans. Like in coRank, no consent is necessary, and visibility is bi-directional (I know who is watching me). Watchlist Filters provide additional focus on “just the stuff I’m interested in”.
Otis, same goes to you: great job with Simply!
coRank still has a long way to go, but I’m hoping there’ll be some cool things coming up along the way.