If you decentralize you don't need to monetize. (It's good for everyone except entrepreneurs).

I've got plans in the back of my brain for combining linkblogs, the Atom Publishing Protocol and something like http://www.intertwingly.net/blog/2006/09/03/MeMeme into a decentralized version of reddit/digg/news.yc, but I already have too many projects on the go.

The really nice thing about the idea is that it allows for a lot more experimentation with the best ways of aggregating and sorting through the massive quantities of URLs that are available. Right now only big players like Reddit and Digg and have big enough data sets to really experiment, and they're naturally reluctant to mess with a formula that's working for them.

True; monetization requires big numbers. But why not split them into smaller communities? Rather than one huge home page, have a lot of smaller ones. And, then, allow the user to select the 5 or so that they like to participate in.

Restrictions are sometimes good. Compare Facebook to MySpace. With MySpace it's one huge community; everyone can see everyone. With Facebook, you can only join a small set of networks. You cannot even join San Francisco and Silicon Valley at the same time. True, people hate it, but it keeps the system manageable as it scales.

This is a subject I'm interested in and trying to build a startup to address it.

Do people really know which topics they are interested in? I mean, there's stuff I like, such as astronomy, philosophy, or politics, but would I want to choose a group to limit my discourse there? I like philosophy but I'd hate reading a thesis in the subject. But a little light rationalist vs. subjectivist or philosophy of science reading would be great. Except for those times I'd just like to see pictures of naked famous people. How would these sub-groups come into existence? I just can't see it being topic-based.

Edited: A web site doesn't have to cover ALL types of stories. This one doesn't cover politics or astronomy, for example. And, in fact, your point is more of an argument for a multi-community approach. Don't you think? For example, if you have multiple communities to choose from, you can read about marketing in the morning and about programming in the evening. Whatever you like.

Google News is organized this way, and it seems to work.

Edited:

I think my point was more that people have "favorite" topics, but it's a loose and free-flowing thing, not a rigid structure. Computers are really good at rigid definitions, while people may be amenable to all kinds of fuzziness. Perhaps my group is better defined as "people who like science, astronomy, politics, and startups" -- but that wouldn't be the topics of the articles! The topics of the articles I like could be anything. And over time, I might add or subtract the stuff I like, even without being consciously aware of it. Heck, I'm not even sure I'm able to give you a precise list of topics I'm interested in, much less self-select against a preconceived ontology.

I see your point. So how about this: a community for people who like science, and another one for those who like politics, and so on. And, then, you choose to be a member of the science, astronomy, and politics clubs, and I choose to join the science and startups clubs. At least this is what I want to build.

I'd rather not have to pick my communities. Also, if it's strictly topical, how do you keep communities with heavy interest from getting too big?

> I'd rather not have to pick my communities.

That's a true challenge due to how we make decisions. We, generally, don't want to feel that we're missing out on something. We want to get ALL the news. Although, in reality, we don't. By reading this site we're missing out on what's being said on many other interesting web sites, and we're okay with that. However, faced with the question: Do you want ALL the news or SOME news, we tend to choose the first.

So then you've articulated exactly the type of site I'd love to see. I don't want to be asked what to see, I want to know I'm seeing everything I'm interested in seeing. And I don't want to see things I don't want to see. And, as an added bonus, I'd like the appearance of my input meaning something, too.

And you want the site to respect you privacy, i.e. you don't want to give the evil site any private information -- for example about what you are interested in. Or?

Well said. I need to think about this hard and deep. Obviously, this is a perfect-world scenario. Let's see how close we can get to it.