Instant Content.  Effortlessly curated.

Completely Redesigned LOUD3R Curation Platform Advances Online Publishing Technology

This month we are proud to announce the launch of our new Curation Platform — the first and only enterprise-level content solution that lets editors dynamically tune content streams in real-time…

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1. Does the solution deliver a comprehensive view of the topic to the reader? A comprehensive view includes Tweets, Blog posts, News articles, Photos and Videos.
2. Does the solution effectively improve the signal-to-noise ratio of the reading experience?

At Loud3r we have been tackling this problem for almost three years. Our platform addresses the needs of three important actors. Here’s how we’ve defined their primary goals.

• Publisher – Increase monetization by increasing engagement and improving distribution.
• Curator – Build a brand through selection and commentary of cool and relevant content.
• Reader – Consume a rich and relevant stream of content using my choice of device, time and format.

So what are the tangible things Loud3r does to deliver great curated content to readers via our publishing partners?

Track concepts, not just keywords. The software needs to be able to accurately place Robert Smith of the Cure in a different bucket than Robert Smith, Rep NH. There are a number of methods to accomplish this, but consumers should not be expected to do the grunt work of disambiguation.

Ranking by relevancy. Despite Google’s massive search engine prowess the Alerts product is simply a list of keyword matches. This does not tell the user what’s happening and important for a given topic. The output of the engine has to order the results by relevancy and not just by time. A user needs to be able to glance at the stream and know what’s really important.

Curation tools. Editors and users need to be able to take a list of candidate stories and share, comment and publish the ones that really stand out.

Source quality/relevance. A key component of story relevancy is an awareness of the quality and authority of a source. Google uses Pagerank for search. What’s the equivalent for news where linking behavior is slower than news churn?

Deduplicating. There’s not very much unique content produced every day. I know that seems like heresy, but 90+% of the content is simply sharing, reposting and duplication. A usable content stream hides the exact and near duplicates.

Breadth. News is no longer concentrated. An RSS reader or Twitter lists creates a very narrow view of the world. Loud3r tracks over 300K sources, plus Twitter.

Anyone looking for great travel tips and deals should check out Daily News Travel, which Rob Dominguez blogs for and curates using LOUD3R’s platform.

And LeBron James fans who can’t see the NBA superstar anywhere but in the Big Apple donning a Knicks or Nets jersey must visit GetLebron.com, your one-stop source for all things LeBron.

Read more: http://mashable.com/2010/05/18/innovative-news-websites/

The rapidly changing economics of publishing continue to be the core issue. The core activities of content businesses, content acquisition and content distribution, are simply too expensive to continue in their current state.

Retaining a large staff of writers to recapitulate the same story as competitors is nonsensical in an age of ready access through search and perfect copies. The economic incentive is very strong to simply license any non-core content. If licensing increases content volume and reduces costs, what will publishers do to add real value to their offering to readers?

I would argue that many publications have suffered from a diminution of their capacities to add content value. This trend predates the explosion of the internet.

Discovery, Filtering, Commentary, Fact Checking and Distribution

I think these are are the five pillars of 21st century journalism. No single player in the market really has all five nailed at this point-in-time.

Discovery requires significant technology resources. Ideally a publication would use a system to “listen” for new opportunities. This is not the same as following a few Google Alerts or Twitter streams. It means a real investment in aggregating the flow of the real-time web.

Filtering (and de-duplicating) reveal that there’s not actually that much news in the world. Within the massive flow of data, how many unique “posts” happen in a given day? Most are reposts or other forms of sharing. More importantly is using filtering to understand the “sense” of what’s happening. What’s new? What’s trending? What’s being discussed? What’s relevant?

Commentary is a key area where bloggers have the mainstream media beat. The value for the reader has to extend beyond the headline and lead. J school practices may place journalists at a huge disadvantage online. The reader places value in more than just facts. News needs to acknowledge POV. Fox News seems to have figured this out for cable news.

Fact checking plays directly into the existing strengths of traditional publishers, but no one seems to really be grabbing this opportunity. Publications should use their resources to tell the reader what is true. A story endorsed as “correct” by the NYT or Washington Post has real weight and value. They don’t have to write it. Just tell us what’s factual. NPR seems to do a pretty good job of this. As an instrument for democracy this is the most significant contribution journalists can make.

Distribution roughly lines up with monetization. Paper was a very efective monetizable medium for decades. The product is easily distributable, but hard to share and very hard to copy. The trend away from this pre-dates the explosion of the internet. Technology makes creating perfect copies, sharing copies trivial. From an economics perspective this means that supply has gone to infinity. Despite a significant rise in demand, (Newspaper websites have MUCH larger audiences than print ever did.), the equation is now permanently broken.

The Loud3r client list has expanded to include…
- NY Daily News
- Source Interlink
- Fox Digital Media (social media management)
- NameMedia (170,000+ domains)

During January and February the Loud3r team has also added three key hires. Tom Balamaci is our new VP of Business Development. Joven Matias has joined us a Sr. Technical Producer. Jens Jonason started as Director of Product Design. We are currently looking for a great Python Developer.

After two years of being a virtual company, Loud3r has moved into office space. The new Loud3r address is…

Loud3r Inc.
87 E Green St, Suite 301
Pasadena, CA 91105

Many thanks to our families, friends and investors for their help and support.

Thank you,
Lowell Goss

We’re always launching new features, so it’s about time we let you in on the latest exciting changes to the LOUD3R network.

Twitter Integration
LOUD3R brings you all the best of Twitter. Our software now discovers all the most-tweeted, most relevant stories in the Twittersphere and organizes them for you. And our new comments section taps into the conversations happening now about the topics you want to explore. Check out the right hand column on SNEAK3R for the latest tweets about Alife.

Word + Image
Our new designs and updated software bring in more great content with more photos and inline video. As long as you’re stopping by for the latest news about cars, watch a monster truck attempt a backflip on ROADST3R.

Breaking News:
We’re bringing in more content than ever, and our improved filtering and scoring means we’re also bringing in better content. With increasing speed and organization, LOUD3R allows you to get an up-to-the-minute, web-wide view of your interests.

Read all the latest gossip on the SLAND3R front page, or slice the view by topic with Today’s Buzz and Quick Links on your left and see what’s new with Angelia Jolie.

Facebook Connect

Find a great story about parenting on TODDL3R and can’t wait to share it with your friends? Join the conversation! Now you can comment and share directly from any LOUD3R site to your friends on Facebook in one easy step.

News and Conversation As They Happen
Our goal is to make your time on the web as meaningful as possible. Every improvement we make is designed to provide better access to the most relevant, highest quality content out there. We’re launching new software all the time. Stay tuned for the latest news about the topics that matter to you.

Thanks for your comments, feedback and support.

Best wishes,

LOWELL