coRank is another news ranking site, similar to Digg in style, but ranks the news according to how interesting your friends and other pre-selected sources find it.
There is a tour here.
Digg has the sheer numbers, surpassing a million registered accounts earlier this month, but it still hasn’t locked things up. As has been widely publicized, it is vulnerable to being gamed and influenced by cliques — and is mainly popular among the tech crowd. coRank removes the danger of gaming. However it isn’t clear how many people have such information overload that they need this intermediate filter — instead of going to the news sources they trust — or subscribing to them through an RSS reader.
We’ve tinkered with coRank, and it implements a clean design. It gives people the ability to tailor their reading pages. It also gives people more niche categories of news to choose from than Digg does. Founder Rogelio Andreo, who works in Silicon Valley, informed us of the launch last night.
Rex Dixon is a contributing author at VentureBeat
Tags: co:coRank, co:Digg, people:Rogelio-Andreo19 Comments
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Confused said:
Flat trading on first day…
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Rex Dixon said:
Confused - Can you explain what you are trying to say? - Rex
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michael arrington said:
silo style continues.
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Marshall Kirkpatrick said:
Well written, fair post Rex.
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Search EnginesWeb said:
Both Digg & Netscape are good - but one needs a system where there is less pull by Top Members or Editors and less support by Friends.
Reddit is also good - but their Karma algos are too mysterious and too impersonal
Every story submitted should have equal potential to stand on its own merit
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Zaw Thet said:
The problem is that I’m not sure my friends are really pro-active enough to post stories that I’m interested in. So will this work?? Digg works(I think) because it has a small yet dedicated group of users that do a lot of tagging/commenting that everyone benefits from.
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Rex Dixon said:
Zaw Thet,
Nice article that you wrote; nice blog you have going. I do hear what you are saying.
My short answer is - Would Pepsi exist if the creators had decided *not* to try to put a similar but yet different product - just because Coke was first?
Rex
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Matt Marshall said:
I agree with Zaw, it’s going to be really tough to rely on my friends/sources selecting content for me on this service because they’ve got to sign up for it too. First they have to have the bookmarklet that lets them give the thumbs up on a story for me. Then they’ve got to put in the work, rating each story as worthy or not of reading. Tough proposition.
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RBA said:
Zaw, as I mentioned in your blog, here’s the thing. If your friends aren’t the “submit and/or vote” type, you could still use coRank by selecting active users that either you’ve identified as people you know (even if they’re not your friends), or that you’ve found to have similar interests to yours - either by looking at the type of stories they’re submitting/voting or via the “Like-minded” page under your account (Network tab). That’s why when I describe coRank I talk about “sources”, not just “friends”.
Sure thing, there is no “power of the default” here. It takes some effort to personalize it, and that might slow growth, etc. but again, it’s a service for those who feel comfortable spending some time in it.
And of course, nobody argues that Digg works :-)
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Zaw Thet said:
I like the sources concept, still think it’s difficult, but it could work. I also think this platform could be very powerful if integrated into an existing social network (myspace) or news front (usa today) where my friends are already set-up. With the myspace news today it seems as if they are also headed that direction.
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Rex Dixon said:
I think that all the trends - Digg, Social - are currently the model of everyone’s new site. It’s not a bad thing. Even my latest post here the site was a search engine - but with a twist - Jyve. They bring the social aspect in.
The key is knowing “how much” Digg/Social to incorporate in your site, and then “how much” original thoughts and ideas to put in.
The reason that I “got” coRank was that I saw the “digg/social” — but I looked past it and tried to see where the originality was.
I guess I learned to tune out the influences from all those years playing in original rock bands; same concept, different art! :)
Rex
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celebritypwn.com said:
It is a nice idea. Its very feature rich as well. But it may be too complex for some to get their feet wet. At this point it’d be foolish for any of us to predict on effective sources and such will be. I personally don’t like the idea of friends on a news site like this. It adversely effects story promotion. But time will tell.
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Bubblegum said:
It’s difficult concept since you start off with no sources.
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Ali said:
If there is one thing that bothers me is the white background. Anything but white please.
Otherwise nice find and article. Off to try it out.
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Mantari Damacy said:
They’ve got the right idea. Use the wisdom of crowds for *finding* content. Crowds are good at that. Use friends or experts or trusted sources for *evaluating* content.
Where evaluating content is not a mass of 13 year olds, this can work out well.
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RBA said:
ALI, have you actually created an account? You can change the “theme” in just one click.
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Ali said:
RBA, like I said I was “Off to try it”. Thanks for the info though.
One click sounds good.
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Shredder said:
And what if you don’t have any friends? I think that it is funny that everything is about communities and friends and families….and most of the hard core geeky net crowd is so antisocial. ….well I guess anti-social in real life. Maybe these virtual communities can provide all that is missing.
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Shredder -
RBA said:
Shredder, coRank is not about having friends, but about selecting people whose opinion you value. You may be alone in the world but believe that Matt Marshall (the owner of this blog) is someone whose opinion you value. If Matt was a coRank user, you could add him as one of your sources, and you’re done. And don’t worry - Matt doesn’t need to agree or become your friend, nor even know you exist.
I happen to have met Matt in person but long before that I was already reading his blog. Why? Because I value his opinion. That’s what counts in coRank. I’m not saying is a straight-forward process. It takes some effort, but that’s how it works.
And again, this is not to say that you cannot add *friends* as your sources, just making the point that your sources don’t need to be people who are friends with you. This isn’t a new concept BTW. Del.icio.us’s “your network” feature is based on a similar principle.
