Discovering personally relevant content online shouldn’t be so hard.
I sometimes go to a bookstore with a particular novel in mind that I would like to purchase. I’m focused on that task and my goal, in that situation, is usually to complete the transaction as quickly and efficiently as possible. The online equivalent to this experience is a search on Google. Search engines help me find things when I have a specific task or query in mind. There is another side to uncovering content, though, that I believe is largely unsolved online today. I’m working on building a company to assist in personalized content discovery for all sorts of content from across the web including articles, sites, videos, music, photos, and more.
Most of the time I spend in bookstores isn’t focused on a particular task. I’ll often walk into my neighborhood bookstore with no particular goal other than to discover something interesting. I wander the aisles for a range of topics that interest me: new fiction, classics that I never got around to reading, books on architecture, beautiful coffee table books, or whatever else strikes my fancy. Overtime, the store staff learns some of my interests and they occasionally make recommendations. This is not a search experience. It is not about finding a particular book. Rather, it is about discovering things that I did not know to search for.
Most of the sites I find myself using more and more lately address content discovery in some way. I view my Tumblr Dashboard to discover interesting things from a limited group of like-minded strangers who I’ve added to my Tumblr follow list. I visit Last.fm on a regular basis to view recommendations on new artists that match my particular tastes. I subscribe to certain keywords from Delicious that are interesting to me. I also use a number of vertical specific sites like Techmeme, which while not personalized, tend to focus on a particular topic like geek news.
All of these sites are great, but the process for discovering content that appeals to me is painstakingly inefficient. I shouldn’t have to read through hundreds of articles, sites, blogs, and emails to discover the one or two pieces of content that pique my interest. I shouldn’t have to wait for a friend to send me that hilarious online video she stumbled across. It takes me months, or in some cases years, to identify a handful of quality web sites on a particular subject. It shouldn’t be like this. I want a discovery engine. I’m willing to divulge a lot of information about myself in exchange for personally relevant recommendations. If a site like this existed, I would visit it everyday and I would be willing to pay for the service, either directly as a subscription fee or indirectly through some form of ads.
I have a creative solution to this problem. I’m creating a company focused on connecting people and their passions through personalized recommendations. If you’re a talented engineer with interest in content discovery and recommendation technology, give me a holler.
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