Read/WriteWeb reports on Tiinker, a news site that uses machine learning to figure out what sort of articles you're interested in, without messing around with all that social information that reddit, digg, etc. are based on.
I think this is a huge step backwards: machine learning is fine at figuring out topic, but lousy at *quality*. Further, how can Tiinker know your interest in something new that you haven't read about yet?
I'd be much more enthusiastic about an approach that would combine the social news of a reddit or digg with machine learning to create smart, social news. In a system like this, people would read news that they're interested in, based on what other people like them have been reading, and their own automatically learned profile.
What do you think?
John
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I spent about an hour on the
I spent about an hour on the site - I think it's a pretty sweet design. I read a bunch of interesting articles. I plan to visit it in the future.
I don't understand your critique. They have a feedback system, just like the community news sites (digg, reddit, etc.). Presumably they have some sort of collaborative filter behind the scenes to select articles for each reader.
p.s. The audio captcha system you're using for comments is crazy. I couldn't make out the text captcha, so I thought I would give the audio captcha a try - it wasn't much easier. I feel for blind people trying to take part in discussions on the internet.
p.p.s. Ok, now on my second attempt, I really don't like your comment system. It requires full-qualified URLs? I've never seen that before. And, as you may guess by the fact I'm attempting this comment a second time, I did not succeed at making out the audio captcha.
The claim is that the Tinker
The claim is that the Tinker feedback system is *personal*; that is: you are just adjusting your own text-based scores, not putting information into the common pool to help others. I think that will prove a lose long-term.
Yeah, I hate our captchas, too. We're using the reCaptchas, though, so at least you're helping the world read old books -- at least when you can read the thing. There is a little icon above the audio icon that lets you ask for a different one. For instance, the one below for me is *completely* unreadable. I can't even make out a letter in the ink blot. Here's hoping my next one is better ...
John