Archive for: directories

Crenk Showcased In Top Wordpress Galleries

In the last couple of days Crenk has been fortunate enough to have been profiled on some of the top Wordpress galleries.

WeLoveWp – Crenk page

CSSbased – Crenk page

Front Page of Digg Impossible? Try HYPick For Better Results

Often, users of Digg comment how they enjoy some of the content, but that readers notice that the same individuals get their

stories on the front page time and time again. Users that try their hardest to get their stories on the front page fail more often than not, leaving many to wonder if the site is truly leveraging the wisdom of the crowds or if the system is being gamed.

I won’t get into that discussion, you can find plenty of content on that if you search. What I do want to focus on is an alternative to the Digg’s, Reddits, and other supposed community news sites. Enter HYPick, from the creative mind of social media strategist, Oren Todoros. His vision of truly representing the wide swath of internet users is visualized with this social news site that heavily encourages it’s users to HYPE their favorite stories and articles.

On HYPick there’s no specialized voting system, or fancy magic attached to stories, it’s purely at the  mercy of the community. Articles with the most activity are ranked higher. So as users come and go, read and comment, links and pass on, the article gains momentum as something the community feels should be read by others.

No good vote, bad vote system, just real people participation!

There is no doubt that the passions of the community will have a voice. Many would call this a level playing field, that will remain to be seen. For now the HYPick community is alive and well and already gaining momentum.

The Purpose

Putting power into the hands of the users has been what most community news sites have been after. Accomplishment is iffy at best, but no one can deny the current reign of those sites that have dominated this arena for several years. HYPick’s unique approach will truly test the vision that Oren and his team have put together.

In order to make HYPick the next attractive playground for user submitted news stories, they have integrated two HYPick specialized widgets for their users.

The first:

The reader widget which can be placed on the right side of your site. It provides easy access for your readers to see what is being ranked and spoken about on HYPick, but also gives you the ability to quickly jump to the post of interest.

I can even appreciate how the posts can also show imagery when they appear on this list. HYPick did a great job with this widget ensuring that users of their service will always have instant connectivity to the happenings in the community. Detail wise I’m not too sure if there are limitations to the articles listed on this widget, whether they are selected as highly ranked posts rated by the community, or if any post that is put to the community is automatically listed here. Still, HYPick wants to make sure that the community is always involved.

Of note the widget is customizeable to a point, but again, it shows HYPicks dedication to the opinion of its readers!

The second HYPick add-on is this:

In it’s continued effort to ensure that readers and users alike are constantly connected to the community, you can integrate the HYPick icon onto your site, similar to what Digg and Reddit due with their icons. This will notify readers that your post can be placed on the community site for involvement by all. The icon is set up to be unobtrusive yet functional in its duty.

Overall the entire system seems pretty sound. It’s a new playing in the user submitted news community, but it also provides a platform for those that are frustrated about their lack of appearance on the front page of some of the major players. Now I can’t personally vouch for these individuals, I don’t know what their content is, but HYPick seems to be an open forum for a wide variety of possibilities in the news community. I look forward to seeing what this player can do!

Who Is The King Of Startup Directories?

Startup directories have long been the main place to head to find information about upcoming and established startups. Directories tend to be matched nicely with leading technology blogs, but recently I have noticed that there arent too many standalone directories anymore. Thus, I thought I would put together a list of directories to see which one is actually used the most.

Go2Web20.net is a web directory of everything web 2.0. From Advertising to Widgets, Go2web20.net has it all there for you to find. The site is setup in a unique style which allows a user to browse the logos of all the startups or even drill down by category.

KillerStartups is a startup directory that is updated daily. The site is based around a blog style format in which users can vote up startups to put them at the top of the tree. Killerstartups shows very basic information about each site, but seems to show too many Google ads and also only premium members can see more specific data.

SimpleSpark has to be one of the sexiest directories around! The site is very easy on the eye and has a lot of features to match. One of the key issues is that you have to register to be able to add a startup to the directory, hmm 10 min of your time. However, as the registered users grow, so does the interactions on the site.

Tradevibes has to be the newest directory on the block. They aim to provide indepth information on startups from all over the world, all on a free basis. The majority of this service comes from the users or company owners themselves, but there is still minor inputs from Tradevibes direct. Look out for Tradevibes to become the major player in this market.

CrunchBase is one of the products in the Techcrunch stable. Crunchbase is a wiki based tool that divulges information from some of the world technology startups. CrunchBase is the free directory that anyone can edit, currently however it is closely moderated by the Techcrunch team.

CenterNetworks Company Index is our final product in this list. CenterNetworks is a growing technology weblog that is dedicated to profiling technology news and issues. Allen has added a nice feature to his drupal based site, which shows a list of basic companies. Once a user has selected a company it only shows the most recent posts, which is a tad disappointing.