MySpace Takes on Google News and Digg

cyberianpan writes "According to a Times Online article, MySpace is going into the news business. They'll soon be premiering a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure. This approach blends elements of Google News and sites such as Digg and Netscape, which rely on readers to submit stories and determine their prominence. One could see where this might be the 'holy grail' of internet news. Not only will you be able to tap into the wisdom of the crowds, but ultimately your recommended stories could be influenced by the likes and dislikes of your friends/heroes."

Comments

Re:Uh, "the wisdom of the crowds"?

[CastrTroy]

However, I would love to be able to mod a story down on google news. Don't you hate clicking on a news link on google, only to be brought to some advertisement covered page, where every other word is highlighted such that when you hover it, another ad shows up. It would be really nice if you could mod a story down, so that other users wouldn't have to deal with pages like this, and also so that websites with enough negative karma wouldn't show up in the links at all.

Inflated hopes

[Aeron65432]

I think the very fact that we are all posting on Slashdot shows that user-driven-content isn't necessarily good, there needs to be some kind of editorial control. I read Digg for a while, it had some cool postings and seemed like a good idea. But it has just turn into pseudo-mob-rule now. Diggs trolling for advertising show up all too often (and while a similar story may appear on Slashdot we generally bitch it into obscurity) and it's news stories, IMHO, have watered down significantly. It's no longer a news site per se, I certainly wouldn't go there to read insightful comments. (Complain about /. moderation if you will, but Digg's comment system is awful and not worth reading)

So not only is user-driven news sources inherently flawed, but as we all know, giving any sort of voice or power to Myspace users just screams OMG PONIES, "OMG NEW SHOES AT ABERCOMBIE" and "People- DO U ACTLY THINK IM HOT?" all over the front page, daily.

Re:Maybe I'm wrong here, but...

[Rob T Firefly]

That's why it's perfect for Rupert Murdoch. A locked-in audience of people who don't give a tin shit about the news unless it's pre-packaged and spoon-fed to them in a trendy way must have been an irresistable target to someone who is mainly known for pre-packaging the news as he sees it and making a pantload of money in the process. A step like this was pretty obvious from the moment News Corp. signed on the dotted line and bought MySpace.

My "friends"

[Plutonite]

ultimately your recommended stories could be influenced by the likes and dislikes of your friends/heroes I, for one, want to say that everybody on myspace is a "dislike" of my friends and heroes. What was the submitter thinking anyway? How could he possibly have the nerve to stride up here to slashdot and claim that 14 year old girls experimenting with their socks can somehow serve as a newsworthiness filter? Is it not enough that our dear uber-geek editors, who toil day and night, and who bring unquantifiable knowledge to use in their judgements, STILL consistently fail to satisfy our critical eyes and are slandered mercilessly by our hefty crowd?