DISQUS

What software are you using to autopost links to this post on Forums? It got through Akismet!

Did you use it to make an iPhone version of Mashable?

YouTube was about the 37th video sharing site to launch
and who needed Google when we had Alta Vista?

Everybody agrees that social powered search WILL be one of the next big things, but the only two to have really tried (to my knowledge) are Mahalo and ChaCha (and before DMOZ), all of which use a paid/professional -editor approach - which leads to quality, yet objective and editorialized content results.

Being that - the magic of social powered search is NOT going to be the Objective results it provides (google and wiki already do that)

it will be the subjective passionate results found by allowing people to share their personal links and interests. Ie... I want to see Joe the Plumbers favorite Plumbing Links because I bet that he can recommend better sites than Google on Plumbing Resources. Got it?

Furthermore by pulling from the userbase on a realistic 1/100 creator/browser ratio, YouBundle solves scalability issues.

and btw... Widgets are Cool.

Interesting enough, we didnt even know agglom existed until after our launch.
After examining the service, we are doing a number of things differently - specifically that we are really positioned towards getting the average internet user to share their information. Ie... no installs required.

In addition we are doing lots of nice things with the data in the background, working on creating
an authoritative user created database that can be filtered and sorted in every which way including an upcoming feature release of XML feeds for developer mashup

In our focus, the data of the links is very important towards the goal of winning the human powered search game.

The rest of the country aside, how this will effect his immediate tech sector will be a large weeding out of the me-too I know a VC projects, with a refocus on projects that fall into one of 3 categories

1. Built with a sustainable business model - ie b2b or something that brings monthly revenue

2. Planned long shots with serious commitments by investors who know exactly what they are getting into (not just MBA's with blank checks and a directive to find 1 out of 10 being a hit)

3. True entrepreneurs. Who in this case can be defined as one who spends money like they do not have any and takes personal offense to inefficiency and failure.

Vimeo. Clean and Beautiful.

Robert

Understood well all your points - you are a realist and your points are valid from that perspective.

All this being said - in what general field is there a pain that needs solving? or better put, If with your knowledge and experience, you were to found a startup - what would be the idea/topic/direction.

Neyma

DP is a Snakepit. Not surprising. If it is true then string em up. I have lost kk's to cookie snuffers over the years. Probably should be suing CJ too - but that is another long story.

Microsoft is going to be the AOL of 2009.

Discussing this same subject over and over, many will miss the point of the matter which is that Google cannot be beat at her own game. It has and will have the dominance in its niche- which is large scale computer indexing of web content.

What most are missing is that this is NOT the only method of search. The company that is truly the Google Killer will not try to beat google at her own game, rather they will vertically integrate from Google. meaning taking the data that Google collects and filters with AI and providing compelling toolsets that allows swarms of humans to better organize this data for consumption by other humans. When this is accomplished, Google will still be master at what it does, but in the grand scheme of the 'gathering information market' - will just be but a tool used by the populace who are populating the true and useful search results.

This is what we are doing at YouBundle.





That is what we are doing at least. Stay tuned.

Without excluding my earlier comments - I do actually agree with your rebuttals except for the Wikipedia part.

The Wiki model - though magnificent in many aspects also has 3 critical flaws.

1 - The fact that information is highly - almost overly editorialized (sterilized to consensous) on some subjects
2- Ridiculously biased on other subjects - meaning that sometimes its not the facts but the dominant editor groups/arguments that get the page
3 - At other times the front line battle of edit wars which can leave a web surfer who comes in at the wrong 5 miuntes with a skewed view of the subject. Even one usermis-informed by an 'Encyclopedia' is not acceptable for the 'authority' that they claim.


That all being said - these critical flaws leave a gaping (yet not visible to most) hole in the market where the correct startup with the correct angle can approach and claim that authoritative slice of the pie. now where did I put my startup...... Hmmmm/

In defense of YC...

They are fishing.
And we know that the only way to catch fish is to...go fishing.

They are throwing their net wide to stimulate ideas and see what comes in and filter from there.

It is clear the reasons that companies in this field continue to get serious funding is that a winner has yet to emerge as the king of social link organization. I mean Delicious was off to a great start - but growth has been stunted. Others are pushing and shoving for who can claim the title. And what is the Title?
More than some people realize.......

Meaning that the company that is truly able to define and go mainstream with social bookmarking/organization of link will then have the foothold in the next step of SEARCH game.

Meaning that the big G has mastered and monopolized SEARCH as they have Defined it- meaning the computer algo/human enhanced method

However the next evolution of search will actually be the human method. Just think that instead of G crawling every subject that there was a handfull of quality links submitted and sorted by the mass of users. To get an example goto Delicious or even SU and use the search function. For their limited subject range (things that 2.0 junkies like) the results are fantastic. now just imgaine this expanded and properly presented to the general populace and you have a VC drooling that a 2 million $ investment can dovetail into the basis for the human powered future of search with billions in valuation.

By understanding this, then we can understand why the spice continues to flow and will do so until a Leader breaks free from the pack

Its a fair purchase, and tells us interesting directions. Though the issue is that we are so trained to condense our searches into keywords, i am not sure if Natural Language search will take hold this round. However I do see when we reach the next level of computing - ie... the Star Trek era of standardized (common) voice interaction with not just computers but everything (home appliances included) . This is where Natural Language processing will really take hold and whoever had the foundation will dominate that era.