5 ms·

Ask HN: Should Yahoo have not followed Google, and grow their curated directory?

7 points by fairpx 9y ago

andreareina 9y ago
The problem with curation is that it doesn't scale. I'll take a list of links curated by a subject-matter expert over what Google thinks I want, the problem is (a) finding said expert and (b) convincing them that creating and maintaining said links are a productive use of their time.
- fairpx 9y ago
  I've been wondering about 'scale' too, but is that really the problem? Sure, we hear 'that isn't scalable' constantly in startup world. But if you look at Google's gazillion links, users hardly ever get past page 1. Most of them don't go beyond the 3rd search result. Shouldn't Yahoo have positioned themselves as the anti-Google, human powered search engine?
  - andreareina 9y ago
    It's a problem of breadth as much as depth. Finding the people to manually do this for then thousand, a hundred thousand, a million subjects is going to be a big strain. Another way of looking at it is that it already exists, as Reddit. The subreddits I'm subscribed to typically have a small collection of high-quality links that are germane to whatever the subject matter is. And when the link to what I'm looking for doesn't exist, asking typically gets me the answer in short order.
- AshishGupta93 9y ago
  That's true that its hard to scale human powered search engines. But on other side we've platforms like Wikipedia and Quora, who are using a right balance of tech and crowdsourcing for content curation.
- dazc 9y ago
  The problem, I find, is that Google results tend to be OK until there is a commercial intent. Then you just get the biggest advertiser, biggest brand (sometimes 3 links for the same thing) and most seo optimised results. A human curated alternative would, likely, end the same way as the urge to monetise such a resource would be overwhelming.
  - AshishGupta93 9y ago
    That's all about algorithms and platform rules. Every platform needs ads for monetisation. But, by giving power to humans like in hackernews and reddit we can remove that SEO optimization part. Crowd will get power to like/unlike or promote the content.
- gus_massa 9y ago
  I agree. Also, other people have tried and failed. I think the biggest similar project was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ
AshishGupta93 9y ago
This is interesting. We are creating a curated directory of websites. We are inspired by the content curation technologies of Wikipedia and Quora. Here is the link - https://www.cybrhome.com https://www.cybrhome.com Please review it and share your feedback :)

7 points by fairpx 9y ago

The problem with curation is that it doesn't scale. I'll take a list of links curated by a subject-matter expert over what Google thinks I want, the problem is (a) finding said expert and (b) convincing them that creating and maintaining said links are a productive use of their time.

fairpx 9y ago
I've been wondering about 'scale' too, but is that really the problem? Sure, we hear 'that isn't scalable' constantly in startup world. But if you look at Google's gazillion links, users hardly ever get past page 1. Most of them don't go beyond the 3rd search result. Shouldn't Yahoo have positioned themselves as the anti-Google, human powered search engine?
- andreareina 9y ago
  It's a problem of breadth as much as depth. Finding the people to manually do this for then thousand, a hundred thousand, a million subjects is going to be a big strain. Another way of looking at it is that it already exists, as Reddit. The subreddits I'm subscribed to typically have a small collection of high-quality links that are germane to whatever the subject matter is. And when the link to what I'm looking for doesn't exist, asking typically gets me the answer in short order.
AshishGupta93 9y ago
That's true that its hard to scale human powered search engines. But on other side we've platforms like Wikipedia and Quora, who are using a right balance of tech and crowdsourcing for content curation.
dazc 9y ago
The problem, I find, is that Google results tend to be OK until there is a commercial intent. Then you just get the biggest advertiser, biggest brand (sometimes 3 links for the same thing) and most seo optimised results. A human curated alternative would, likely, end the same way as the urge to monetise such a resource would be overwhelming.
- AshishGupta93 9y ago
  That's all about algorithms and platform rules. Every platform needs ads for monetisation. But, by giving power to humans like in hackernews and reddit we can remove that SEO optimization part. Crowd will get power to like/unlike or promote the content.
gus_massa 9y ago
I agree. Also, other people have tried and failed. I think the biggest similar project was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMOZ

AshishGupta93 9y ago

This is interesting. We are creating a curated directory of websites. We are inspired by the content curation technologies of Wikipedia and Quora. Here is the link - https://www.cybrhome.com https://www.cybrhome.com Please review it and share your feedback :)