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I used Yahoo back in those days, and it literally proved the point that hand-cataloging the internet wasn't tractable, at least not the way Yahoo tried to do it
by adrianmonk 7y ago
I used Yahoo back in those days, and it literally proved the point that hand-cataloging the internet wasn't tractable, at least not the way Yahoo tried to do it. There was just too much volume.
It was wonderful to have things so carefully organized, but it took months for them to add sites. Their backlog was enormous.
Their failure to keep up is basically what pushed people to an automated approach, i.e. the search engine.
- bitwize 7y agoI found myself briefly wondering if it were possible to have a decentralized open source repository of curated sites that anyone could fork, add to, or modify. Then I remembered dmoz, which wasn't really decentralized -- and realized that "awesome lists" on GitHub may be a critical step in the direction I had envisioned.
- insulanus 7y agoI think this could work for small, specific areas of interest. For example, there are only so many people writing about, and interested in reading about, programming language design. Those small communities could stand ready with their community-curated index when an "outsider" wants to research something they know well.