Persai, meet Findory and Thoof

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Posted by Mathew @ 11:14 pm on January 30 2008 | |

Okay, so the guys behind Uncov — the hilariously snarky and bitchy tech site that reminded me of Suck (for those whose memories extend back to the first bubble) — have launched their own tech company: a personalized news aggregator called Persai that is currently in beta. Why do I have the overpowering feeling that this is going to end badly? Oh, I know why. Because at least half a dozen other companies have tried to do exactly the same thing and failed miserably, that’s why.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to say that just because someone — or even a group of someones — failed at something, that means the guys at Persai can’t succeed. Maybe they can. Maybe they’re that much smarter than Greg Linden, who founded Findory, or Ian Clarke, who was behind Thoof. Maybe they have some kind of secret sauce. Not to mention the fact that I’m only going on what has been reported about Persai.

All that said, though, I have to think that the odds are stacked against these guys. A personalized news aggregator is an idea that has been around forever, and plenty of people have tried to make it work, and yet — well, it doesn’t. Not as a business, anyway. Still, more power to you guys at Persai. I still think you should have stuck with the hilariously bitchy blog idea. Maybe not a big moneymaker, but way more fun.

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Mathew posted this article under Blogs, Media, Social networks on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 11:14 pm. . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed, and you can also view Technorati Linkbacks or check for other responses using YackTrack.

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R. S. 7 months ago 1 point
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I'm not sure why people want to compare persai to all of these other so called "personalized" news sites. Both findory and thoof aren't personal at all, their recommendations are based on what other users liked. And thoof with "wiki -like" functionality to edit articles? gimme a break.

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