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Wading Through Weblogs, One Idea at a Time

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the navel-engagement dept.

candot writes "Remember the recent slashdot story on NASA cancelling the moon hoax book? Wonder what other weblogs are saying about the subject? Launched today (in beta), the Waypath Project is an attempt to network the weblog community, connecting weblogs that share common themes, ideas, and topics. The Waypath Project's Related Weblog Navigation engine analyzes weblog entries to determine their core conceptual makeups, compares them with one another to find out how related they are, and presents you with its best guess as to what's related to your original input. This is done all automatically. Look for the disclaimers about varying quality you'd expect from an automated classification system, such as at Google News. You're encouraged to embed WP results in your weblog pages. Be the first on your block to try it out, today -- unless it gets slashdotted, then tomorrow. Resources are limited, so pace yourselves."

10 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Beta? by thing12 · · Score: 1, Interesting
    Even though it doesn't feel slashdotted yet, searching for "NASA cancelling the moon hoax book" yields this lovely error messge. Way fun...
    An error has occurred. Please notify the system administrator. exception details: java.net.MalformedURLException: no protocol: NASA cancelling the moon hoax book java.net.MalformedURLException: no protocol: NASA cancelling the moon hoax book at java.net.URL.(URL.java:579) at java.net.URL.(URL.java:476) at java.net.URL.(URL.java:425) at com.thinktank23.waypoint.text.TextArtifact.(Unknow n Source) at com.thinktank23.waypoint.text.TextArtifact.(Unknow n Source) at com.thinktank23.waypoint.text.TextArtifact.getTran sientTextArtifact(Unknown Source) at com.thinktank23.waypoint.text.TextArtifact.getTran sientTextArtifact(Unknown Source) at com.thinktank23.waypoint.docsim.DocsimQuery.create Query(Unknown Source) at _rwn__jsp._jspService(_rwn__jsp.java:226) at com.caucho.jsp.JavaPage.service(JavaPage.java:74) at com.caucho.jsp.Page.subservice(Page.java:476) at com.caucho.server.http.FilterChainPage.doFilter(Fi lterChainPage.java:176) at com.caucho.server.http.Invocation.service(Invocati on.java:277) at com.caucho.server.http.CacheInvocation.service(Cac heInvocation.java:129) at com.caucho.server.http.HttpRequest.handleRequest(H ttpRequest.java:216) at com.caucho.server.http.HttpRequest.handleConnectio n(HttpRequest.java:158) at com.caucho.server.TcpConnection.run(TcpConnection. java:140) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:536)
  2. The focus of the different weblogs are different by akincisor · · Score: 2, Interesting

    ... for example slashdot is a news and discussion site rather than a genuine^H^H^H^H^H^H^H out an out weblog. It may not have been such when the site started, but a large number of slashdot subscribers look at this site as a source of nerd news, not trivia, and definitely not to peek into other peoples diaries.

    As for the hoax, the less discussion on the subject the better. It cannot be conclusivey proved that it was a hoax, and those who believe it was one will not listen to reason.

  3. Combining with E2? by Psychic+Burrito · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I always thought that combining the setup of Everything2 and a massive amout of blogs would create something great. This is a step in this direction. Is there anybody else agreeing that combining E2 with Waypath would make the best reference source ever?

  4. Re:'blogs' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I use mine as an online work journal, as do many others. Many engineering jobs require a work journal, so I've kept up the habit by keeping mine online and accessible from anywhere. Here's one (a systems programmer) that has links to a lot of other mostly work-related journals.

  5. Take a look at memigo by costas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    [This is a plug]

    Memigo spots memes and interesting news ahead of weblogs, including Slashdot, instead of relying on trailing metrics like blogs. How? it monitors how users rate individual articles and creates personalised recommendations for each user (yep, kinda like Amazon).

    The sites and articles are also inserted into a web of trust, so when a new article/meme shows up, it inherits the trusts of its author and recommenders. The point is to be a leading indicator of interest and sniff out interesting news first...

    To be fair, memigo parses a few blogs too (that tend to make news, rather than follow them, such as /.); but really it can use anything as a trust metric.

    Try it, you will be pleasantly suprised --yes, you need a login for the personal recommendations, but there is no requirement for any personal info, including any sort of e-mail address...

  6. About the Waypath Project by mattsmigs · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For those who can't be bothered to go and read it/for when it gets Slashdotted:

    What is it?

    The Waypath Project is an attempt to network the weblog community, connecting weblogs that share common themes, ideas, and topics.

    How does it work?

    The Waypath Project's Related Weblog Navigation engine analyzes weblog entries to determine their core conceptual makeups, compares them with one another to find out how related they are, and presents you with its best guess as to what's related to your original input. This is done all automatically, using available technology.

    Where does the data come from?

    WP makes use of public weblog update lists, which it crawls several times each day. We use a custom spider to grab changed files from individual weblogs. We make our best effort to grab new weblog entries the same day their posted, depending on resource availability. Learn more about data selection here.

    Why does quality vary?

    What the Waypath Project is doing is not trivial. Sometimes Waypath results are amazingly on target, sometimes you can kind of see the thread that relates weblog entries, sometimes you're left scratching your head. We're constantly working to make results better, as time allows.

    Why isn't WP open source?

    The core of WP is based on a proprietary, commerical technology that Think Tank 23 has generously donated to this project. However, the tools developed by the Waypath Project will be released into the open source community as time allows.

    Who funds WP?

    You do, along with others. Check out the donors page for more info.

    Why is this site so spartan?

    This site is run by two guys in their spare time (a couple of hours each week, if we're lucky). Most of that time is spent massaging and enhancing the spider. Ater that, we spend as much time as we can making the results better. You can help by donating, so we can spend more time on everything, including adding more info to the site, if that's your thing.

  7. Sounds like a grim idea by melonman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If an infinite number of bloggers write an infinite number of postings, and a search engine cross-references them all, does this give us anything more than Word Salad? If the site wasn't broken I'm curious enough to try it, but I'm sceptical. Most blogs are (possibly) interesting if you know the people: otherwise, they are about as thrilling as someone else's holiday snaps. And the most used category is going to be me me me...

    Also, newsy weblogs such as /. end up being cross-referenced anyway, because sooner or later someone posts a 'hey have you seen what they are saying on...' message.

    --
    Virtually serving coffee
  8. But does it actually work? by Flamesplash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So just as a test I plopped the URL http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20021107. html from the /. story Could Eolas End Microsoft's Browser Dominance? into the search field on the Waypath Project page and well all it ended up giving me was a bunch of Microsoft related hits, nothing to really do with the specifics of the article itself. Maybe the word "Microsoft" is too prevalent and therefor overweighted?

    --
    "Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
  9. I suppose by mao+che+minh · · Score: 5, Interesting
    that this would generally be a good idea, except for the fact that there are already thriving weblog communities that: A. Are nice to look at (or in the least, have an efficient design and layout), B. Have a working search engine in operation, C. Are not built on dog slow, closed projects.

    Slow news day, huh /. ?

  10. BlogStreet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    What about BlogStreet. http://www.blogstreet.com/ They had introduced this concept called Blog Neighborhoods months back and seem to be doing a much better job at finding related weblogs. I also like their weblogs search engine, now that daypop has been down since forever.