Boxxet is a Burlingame, Calif. company that creates information sites for popular topics, such as the SF Giants — carrying relevant news, blogs and photos.
It has just opened the site to the public, having raised a seed round of $900,000 from New York’s Ascend Venture Group.
It is breaking the rules of Web 2.0, moving away from the trend of relying on user input. The company emerged last year, in testing mode, and we described its mission as wanting to be the About.com of Web 2.0. At the time, it hoped to rely on users to create these sites. However, the rise of other sites, such as Wikipedia, Wikia and Digg, all reliant on user participation, forced Boxxet’s founder You Mon Tsang to change his strategy. Users lack time to participate on many sites, he says, so he automated the generation of content at Boxxet’s pages. Boxxet does let users rate an article, say about the giants — a positive rating pushes that article up on its SF Giants site (see screenshot of SF giants site below). However, it isn’t relying on users to create and manage sites.
Boxxet’s chief competitors, he says, are the search engines, which are beginning to display summarized content for popular searches. Search Ask.com for “SF Giants,” for example, and you’ll find news, scores, and other things on top and to the right of search results.
Still, if you want the latest scoop or other info on the Giants, or on the Sharks, or on one of 450 other topics, this is a place worth trying.
2 Comments
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You Mon Tsang said:
Thank you for making the important point about user participation, Matt.
There is no doubt that there are a small percentage of users that can move mountains, but we felt it was wise for us in the long run to real focus on automation with machine learning on user actions.
Only time will tell if we are doing the right thing and staying ahead of competition.
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Bryan said:
Being a huge SF Giants fan, I loved seeing this post. It reminds a lot of what ESPN has with their MyESPN page. I’m curious to see if Boxxet will go the way ESPN went allowing users to have all of the favorite teams’ content showcased on a single page.
Being a small company, I believe Boxxet has the ability to offer a richer package, but it will be hard for them 1.) to get the users 2.) to get access to content that rivals ESPN’s. With their millions of users and tons original content from videos to articles, it’s going to be tough to compete.
Either way, this site is now on my list of places to get my bay area sports content.
