MeeHive is a new service launching today that is looking to give users a custom-tailored newspaper composed of stories from sources spanning a vast number of blogs and news sites. The site leverages the power of Kosmix, a universal search engine that pulls data from a variety of sources to produce comprehensive topic pages.
Upon entering the site, new users are invited to enter some of their favorite topics, which range from mainstays like Sports and Technology to more specialized areas, like Stem Cells. Users can also specify certain companies or keywords to monitor. From there, MeeHive builds a digital newspaper, using content from a variety of sources including news sites like CNN as well as a wide selection of blogs (the system uses an authority algorithm to help weed out the best content). The Kosmix algorithm works well, pulling in relevant stories without any false matches (at least for common topics) and ensuring that the same story isn’t shown multiple times.
The layout of the site is well done, presenting a large amount of information without becoming overwhelming. Alongside the collection of stories which are broken up by subject, the site also shows the most recent Tweets regarding your favorite topics. Unfortunately, for the time being the layout of the page is also static, though a future update will allow users to rearrange their panels as they’d like. Aside from the web edition, users can opt to receive daily Email digests of their newspapers, and can view them on the site’s iPhone application.
All in all, MeeHive works pretty well, but will people use it? Personalized news sites aren’t new – it’s an idea that has been tried many times, and haven’t typically fared well. But unlike some of those efforts, MeeHive also incorporates a social element to the site, allowing users to share the items they liked with friends, which could help surface stories more interesting to you better than any algorithm could. That said, the site is going to face lots of competition from numerous RSS aggregators, ‘memetrackers’, and similar personalized news hubs.
It looks very pretty, but yes, I would like to be able to rearrange different content blocks. It is 2009 after all
and this is now fairly simple Javascript.
Anjali Sen
Im functionality I dont see any difference from an iGoogle or myAOL. The basic principle remains the same. Showcasing style is changed. is it just an old wine in a new bottle?
I like it.
Today we also launch Techfuga 2.0 that incorporates all news around the topic -Tech – . Still I agree some users like personalization and some others just wan to go strait to the news aggregators such a techmeme or Google news and get all the latest most discussed new. Try out Techfuga.com for tech and let me know. Joao-TechFuga
I’ll have a go with it. I do wonder if it could out do my happy iGoogle / Twitter combination though.
It always comes down to knowing enough about what you want (or more precisely need) in order to set your preferences accordingly (we don’t know what we don’t know). I think it is a good start for the “smarter web”, but it needs to go further. Sort of like what I talk about here, http://www.rodn...gnon.com/?p=146
It’s actually quite cool, you can manually add RSS feeds that aren’t listed, too. The movable features will be a nice addition, although I feel it will lose out to the more popular aggregation services – which is a shame.
I set up the service by listing a number of dating sites that I was interested in tracking (I run a blog that covers dating industry news) and Meehive successfully pulled in the top news with only one duplicate of a press release.
The service can certainly double as a clip tracking service and personal news delivery system.
I’d like to have listed the link to the custom news page here, and on my blog, but alas, that wasn’t possible. Meehive should allow people to create personals news portals to share with the entire world. I’d like to list the link so anyone can view my custom internet dating news portal.
Mark Brooks, OnlinePersonalsWatch.com
can i put it on my site too?
i think it is great idea instead of visiting all newspapers
the old fashioned reason why i don’t believe in 100% personalized news per se is simply the fact that you lose the feeling that x other users are enjoying the very same headline at the very same time, just like your favorite tune playing on the radio vs. clicking indecisively through your itunes library.
not speaking of the discrepancies of general news abundance, realtime demand and the fact that the social consensus narrows your scope with every iteration.
How does this add any value over news.google.com and google reader?
I guess I’ll have to try for myself and see
Looks clean and organized but is there anyway I can set-up personal preferences ?
They need to work on this site. It’s so beta, it should say “beta of beta”. Within just 3 minutes of using this, I noticed several “ugly” things to steer me away:
1. New RSS upload – sorry but I am not going to copy and paste all of my RSS feeds over again. That’s just insane. Why can’t I upload my feeds?
2. RSS feeds look different than the “searched topics” – it seems that the RSS feeds that you save are secondary to when you save a searched site. The searched sites are very pretty but the RSS feeds are fugly. And there’s no settings to allow me to read a # of lines on my RSS feeds. It literally forces me to click on the link and it takes me to the site anyway. WTF?
I think this site is made for people that don’t even know what RSS feeds are. For someone that already uses RSS feeds and have their own reader, this site is a joke.
Sorry to be blunt but there are so many useless sites out there the promise so much but then it just fail miserably. It’s like the start of a new year and all the movies that are released is just crap.
Many Congratulations to the Meehive team on a successful beta launch
@Chi – average internet user doesn’t know much abt RSS feeds and readers. That doesn’t mean they should be deprived of personalized news paper.
-Jyoti
I tried building a news portal with meehive but you can’t publicise a URL for a specific portal. So this is really built to be a personal portal.
Check a cool video interview and presentation at the Meehive/Kosmix office:
http://vator.tv...eehive-launches
What do you know about I-News?
Nice article! Check out my site too at http://macmaniapodcast.com
A lot of movement in this area, and a push for customization of offline, hardcopy news as well. I talk about one patent in particular, 7,330,828: System and process for the production of a customer individualized print product.
Best Mode http://www.gilm...ividuated-news/
Checkout our review of the
Meehive iphone app
http://www.fone...app-review.html
FIFTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS??
Browser: FAIL.
iPhone: Possibilities.