Launching in beta today is MyCE, a community-driven network that aims to cross swords with the CNETs and GDGTs of this world when it comes to building places on the Web people gather to share news, reviews and knowledge about consumer electronics and gadgets. The site is a new venture from Amsterdam, The Netherlands-based RankOne Media.
Actually, it’s not entirely new. MyCE is in fact the rebranded version of CDFreaks.com, an online community founded in 2007 focused solely on optical storage devices. The existing community, which the company claims currently amounts to about 3.5 million unique monthly visitors, will be integrated and rolled over to the new platform it is debuting today.
Much like the recently launched gdgt, MyCE lets you create a user profile that includes lists of products you own and wish you owned. You can go to the site to discuss news about certain electronics and gadgetry, argue about what certain products lack and what they rule at, compare pricing and write reviews, but also to set up or join conversations centered around support and troubleshooting.
The site supports OpenID, so you can sign up with your Windows Live ID or Google, Yahoo, Facebook account (among others). Members can cross-post reviews to Twitter, Facebook, etc.
The content on MyCE.com is nearly 100% user-generated, the company says, and mostly consists of in-depth product reviews written by 70+ voluntary community members located all over the globe. The database is currently about 100,000 products strong, and the site will kick off with 450,000+ registered members it’s transferring from the former CDFreaks.com community. About 60% of its traffic comes from the U.S., and the rest is evenly split between the UK and Continental Europe.
MyCE is an entirely bootstrapped initiative and its parent company will continue to generate revenue through advertising and affiliate partnerships with online retailers.
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Congrats to the MyCE.com team. Looks very promosing!
There is an error in the article Cdfreaks wasn’t founded in 2007…I joined in 2003. Perhaps they meant 1997? Great online community.
Interesting. I’d be curious to know why they fail so badly at math though? “The database is currently about 100,000 products strong.”
Has anyone gone through some popular categories, like cameras, cellphones, or computers? There’s only a few dozen in each one.
Looks like there are only products being displayed that are more popular? Maybe they do have old products for Q&A, but not in their site navigation (yet)?
@JayBird: yes – I can imagine you think we fail, but actually there is a good reason. On the category pages, we currently only show products where we have a valid price for. Those pages are targeted to visitors and community members looking for new products, so this seemed like the right choice for us. As we just started including prices from webshops worldwide, not all products are listed there.
Our product table currently contains over 100k product (in fact, the database shows 107,832 in total).
You can check other products by searching for them in the top search bar. There, you will also find products which are not listed on the product overviews. We do provide community support for those products, and you can also write reviews etc for those
Expect more prices and updated product information the coming weeks as we roll out more shops and features. Working around the clock to make that happen!
Let me know if you have any further questions