Startup Idea #87: Feeds as the next search

I normally don't try to link to popular articles or blog articles to maintain some degree of freshness for any readers that might come across my blog. However, this post by Fred Wilson's on the "feedization of the web UI" is too compelling for me not to mention it.

Feeds is always something I am mindful of. It is, to me, part of the next generation solution to the attention problem and this makes it an area full of potential. As pointed out by Fred, feeds represent an alternative or complement to search and it is interesting to note what happens when the Facebook generation uses more feeds than search.

Feeds however brings with it a new set of problems and that is in the diminishing returns when the feeds volume increases. To me, the solution is not better filters. Rather, it is to acknowledge that the front page of any news feeds is actually an attention market. As such, we need to design and develop 'market currencies' to make any news feed system effective.

Taking the current examples, Techmeme's currencies are the links, Digg's are the votes, Del.icio.us's are the tags. These currencies carry with them a 'price' and it is this price that will become a good mechanism to surface the most relevant news. Problem is that these currencies are easy to game and hence the appearance of link farms et al. Hence, for the innovators in the feeds space, it is worthwhile to spend some time thinking about how to improve the current feeds sustem using 'market currencies'.

Beyond market currencies, next post will suggest other startup ideas that can be done in the feeds space.

Posted in: search application,startup business ideas