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Thoof - Personalized Social Bookmarking

Sponsored Post

If you’re looking for a new social bookmarking site, Thoof might be worth a try. It’s a bit different than the mainstream sites like Digg, since Thoof focuses on delivering personalized news.

How it’s different

I’m definitely not an expert here, but it sounds like Thoof is a bit like “Digg meets StumbleUpon.” You get to submit and read stories on a website; the site learns your preferences, and shows you similar stories. Thoof only shows you stories that fit it’s “collaborative filter” based on YOUR reading habits. Nifty!

One cool difference is that you don’t have to “vote” on stories you like. Just click the story’s link. Read the story, and Thoof interprets that as a “vote” that you like that type of story. If you end up not liking it, you can click the “not interesting” link next to the story on the Thoof main page. That essentially retracts your vote. Yep, it’s handy.

Here’s what the about page tells us:

What makes Thoof unique is a sophisticated algorithm which discovers a reader’s interests and tailors the stories to each reader’s individual tastes. Every Thoof reader will see a personalized page with stories he or she will find interesting. All that you, as a reader, have to do is simply read what you like, and Thoof takes care of the rest!

Current content

Thoof is starting to get a good foothold, so content is pouring in. There are some great stories and videos posted already. I enjoyed the one about strange sights in Google Earth. There are some cool shots of our humble planet from high above.

A big advantage to jumping on board now is that you could help form the site and community before it gets huge. You might be able to gain credibility early on and be a power user later. It’s worth a try, anyway.

What do you think?

That’s enough of me rambling on. What do you think of Thoof? Is it worthwhile? Or is it just a mediocre site?

[tags]thoof, social bookmarking[/tags]

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July 16, 2007 by Andrew Flusche

Comments

3 Responses to “Thoof - Personalized Social Bookmarking”

FacingTheSharks
July 17th, 2007

To me it looks like just another blog type site that wants to make it a “community blog” and compete with the big boys, like YouTube.

I don’t see anything special about this site and the word “thoof” isn’t something appealing I guess.

Are they trying to create a new household name or something? I don’t get it. I don’t get the site. What’s the point?
FacingTheSharks
July 17th, 2007

Not to mention, I can just see it filling up with teenybop “wannabestars” stuff.
Andrew Flusche
July 17th, 2007

Hi FTS,

From what I understand, Thoof is a bit different from YouTube and other social content sites. It’s really about YOU, and your personal reading tastes. Thoof remembers the types of articles you have read and shows you future articles like those. Likewise, it won’t display things that you ignored in the past. So everyone’s Thoof homepage will have different content. Someone who reads articles about Paris Hilton will see lots of other content about her. But if I ignore those articles, they shouldn’t appear in the future.

I’m with you on the name. It will take some marketing to make it stick. Although I’m sure they picked it because it was an affordable, short domain name. And it’s pronounceable and easy to spell. Those are hard to come by these days.

Thanks for commenting,
Andrew