Filtering through the noise to find news on discovery sites can be daunting. Social bookmarking sites like Digg and Reddit have been doing very well, and memetrackers, like Techmeme, are also growing in popularity. The newest trend in discovery tools, it seems, is semantic search engines, like Powerset (recently bought by Microsoft) and Hakia.
LOUD3R offers a network of 30 topic-specific semantic search engines. Some of the topics include venture capital (FOUND3R), fashion (GLITT3R), internet business and technology (BUZZ3R), men’s fashion (DAPP3R), politics (VOT3R), and many more. The network has received 200,000 uniques since their launch last month.
For each site, LOUD3R gathers and publishes content (including photos and videos) from blogs, news, and editorial sites. Each site has a source list and a semantic glossary of terms that teach the engine how to identify the best content. The content is ranked with a point system, pushing the highest ranked to the top. The engine also learns from user behavior, community feedback and human editors.
On the front page of each site, is the highest-ranked content for the site’s central topic. Users can search the content and topic-specific results will be presented. The results are listed with tags and related stories. Users are given the option to comment, share, or flag the results. Users can also narrow down the results by news, photos, and videos on the top of the page, or decide to show the highest ranked, the most popular, or the newest entries.
There is also a topics page, where popular topics are listed by category. For example, on FOUND3R, the venture capital website, the topics page is populated with topics under categories Venture Capitalists, Publication/Blog, Venture Capital Firms, Financial Groups, Finance, and Business Terms.
The sites are very easy to use, and are feature-rich, but there are some drawbacks. There is little to no crossover between the sites, so you may be missing out on some key content. For example, if a user was browsing investments on FOUND3R, the latest news about those recently-funded companies might not be there, because they would be on BUZZ3R, the tech news site. It’s also a tad annoying to have to sign up on each site, so a network-wide login would do wonders.
LOUD3R claims to own 500 domains with the 3R ending, so it’s safe to say that eventually there will be a site for just about everything. They are rolling out six new sites soon: PREGG3R (pregnancy), TODDL3R (parenting), AMPLIFI3R (guitar), SPINNAK3R (sailing), ROOST3R (motocross), SHUTT3R (photography), and SUMM3R (a Bejing Summer Olympics site).
I’m confused as to we got from semantic search to content discovery.
I also like how this company wasted their money on buying domain names. Crush3r should have a talk with them.
The listings are essentially semantic search results for a defined set of terms.
Funny that you should mention Crush3r — the founders of both companies have worked together on and off for a dozen years.
Alaska Miller makes nasty comments all over the web cause he/she hates herself.
* As to how we got…
I dont like the fact that you can miss important information. I would suggest a global ranking system and having a front page with the most popular content from all themes.
This way the most popular content in let say technology or startups could appear first no matter the category.
I believe I’m going to start a FuckedCompany-esque website regarding news like this and call it STUP1D.
Don’t you mean “SUMM3R” on the last one?
Is this a jok3?
I own a H3RALD.com domain… oh, wait, 3R is in the wrong place!
It cannot get any DUMB3R. LOUD3R is just lam3r and crappi3r.
- TechcrunchR
Stumbleupon is also a wonderful tool to discover some news, and I think the most powerful product is the the toolbar plugin.
this is weird…3R, http://blabtech.blogspot.com
d@mn numb3rs
i w0u|d st1cK 2 stuMb|3uPoN …
Thank you for the thorough review. Your feedback regarding site crossover and cross-site login are spot on. The reader comments regarding global ranking and a toolbar are also great ideas for us to consider.
The cross-site login will be coming very soon. We do have a universal profile system, so you only need one account, but right now you have to sign in separately for each site.
Comments and feedback are important to us. Please let us know what you think and how we can improve the product. feedback@loud3r.com
Checked it out and my first response would be that attribution is a little fuzzy. For example, the TC article about G’s Russian company acquisition cites, “Full Article At TechCrunch Web 2.0″, while it should be just, “Full Article At TechCrunch”. Further, all the text is the same color.
It is very important for me to be able to quickly scan where these articles are coming from.
I found it interesting that clicking an article’s title takes one to a page with the same summary where comments are encouraged. This competes with friendfeed and fav.or.it (and hackernews, to some extent) in that there is an attempt to make the convo happen there.
Another advert monetization site? good luck.
TechCrunch comments are a lot like where YouTube comments have gone
I’ve been watching the evolution of LOUD3R since pre-launch and I’ve found that every time I check out one of the sites I get distracted and read a bunch of stories — a testament to the quality and timeliness of the content. With the voting, ranking, and socializing that dominates Web 2.0 these sites stand out in their simplicity and focus — they catch the most interesting stories of the day in each category, which is no small feat.
One thing the review fails to mention: Lowell, the founder, used to be in charge of user experience for the Yahoo front page, so he knows a bit about building for mass appeal.
Do they really catch all the most interesting stories? Not in my experience. My RSS reader does a better job for me. And for somebody that does not know how to use RSS I find something like alltop.com almost better.
What’s a “memetracker”?
T3CHCRUNCH
“Discovery” will highlight the next wave of internet innovation - not just with news. Discovery means being suggested something (content, products, services, news, etc.) that you would of never thought was relevant to a certain topic you are reading about. This will be done based off meta-tag relationships, users trends, and other various criteria… this is coming and its the next wave. Look here for more info on this blog I came across… http://www.gothamtechminute.blogspot.com
Hmmm. Surely in the long run, these horrible domains will hinder them.
I don’t exactly see a New York Times or another big media company putting their branding all over new3r.com
Yeah, stupid names never work for web companies. Stick to smart, meaningful names like Google or Yahoo.
the trend comes and goes, i personally don’t see a future for it as it’s not done right, the branding is horrible and typing the domain name is even harder and unnatural.
also this Lowell Goss (founder) dude is freaking annoying with his commenting. he needs to brush his teeth! have you see his dumb pic. ok that’s enough, lets move on…
One of the dumber sites on tc for awhile, although the tech may have some potential.
I went to the LOUD3R website (THEY SHOULD CHANGE THE NAME TO SHOUT3R) and I am now blind. Thanks TechCrunch.
I checked out the sites a couple of weeks ago. The content that I am really interested in, I tend to check at the original sources, and then I am just annoyed to find the repetition on the Loud3r network. Also as simple as their design may be, there is just not enough information on there.
The way it is now, it does not convince me, lets see what they make happen in the future.
Innovative concept LOUD3R has gotten there. I think it’s better than he previous one. Outrageous!