Thoof: Digg Meets Wikipedia Community News Site Coming

Another Attempt to Match Readers and Relevant News from the New York Times reports on a new social Digg-like site with an element of Wikipedia to it named Thoof.

The main attraction with Thoof, which is beta invite only now, is that it will tailor the news based on your interests and not just based on the community interest. In addition, it adds a Wikipedia element, allowing users to submit stories and then other users to edit those stories with better sources. Then users can vote on the best source for the story.

Ian Clarke created Thoof so that members active in the community can Thoof “alter the contributions of other users, changing headlines and even substituting a link to a better article on the same subject. The community will then vote on the changes,” said the New York Times article.

Thoof uses “collaborative filters” to make predictions about a user’s interests. Thoof adds to it, enabling a personalized approach on your first visit, said Clarke. Clarke also adds that Thoof is considered a mix between edited newspapers and a Digg and Reddit approach.

Thoof is currently accepting beta testers via a sign up form at http://prelaunch.thoof.com/.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.