About Nuzmo

[Will <Nabble>]

What?

Nuzmo ("news & more") is a place to post and find the good stuff in news.

Why?

I read news everyday, but it's hard to find the good stuff in mainstream news. For example, 95% of CNN news are of no interest to me, and the remaining 5% may be of some interest but they are mostly generic or shallow. As for alternatives, Digg is limiting; Slashdot is editor-driven; Wikinews is difficult to participate.

The interesting stuff exists in blogs, forums, hobbyist and niche sites. I always love it when friends email me meaty articles from places completely obscure. There is no way that I would ever find that stuff by myself.

We all have a few quirky places for news and we all bump into interesting stuff occasionally. Wouldn't it be great if we share them? That's why I want to start Nuzmo.

How?

Links, links, links. The mainstream news don't link out because they want to lock you in, and each article pretends to be the entire universe. But there are so much more out there. There are the deep stuff from obscure hobbyist sites; there are commentaries from blogs by people living the news; there are vibrant debates in forums and mailing lists; there are pictures, videos, surveys, history, biography, raw documents and source materials ... What you see in the "news" pales in comparison with the meaty stuff out there. A good link is as valuable as writing a good post by yourself. If you stumble upon the good stuff, please post. You can post one link or you can scoop up multiple links to cover different aspects of a topic, and other users can follow up on yours to go deeper or wider. This is more flexible than Digg because you are not limited to one winning link per topic and you can write a full article if you want. Also this is more structured than bookmarks because the "meats" are tightly threaded by topic.

Big fat page. A nuzmo page will NEVER be squeezed by ads or fragmented by pointless pagination. You can insert large pictures and many pictures, embed videos, upload raw documents, write, edit html, discuss, follow up, link out...

No editors. No one dictates what's publishable. You are free to post anything, like a blog, but you will be rated. High ratings will attract eyeballs and subscribers; low ratings will cause your posts to disappear. As a reader, you can easily filter posts by ratings, and thus avoid the worthless users and posts. We plan to add collaborative filtering when we have more users. This will narrow the universe by your taste (rating), not the average taste of the crowd.

Other news options

Mainstream? "Everyone and his pet goat has noticed that the media do a poor job of covering the news. The facts frequently aren't facts, the reporters conspicuously don't understand their subjects, and the spin is annoying ..." This quote is by a journalist who worked in the news profession for 30 years, and he tells you why. The mainstream news produce an astronomical amount of content everyday, but where is the meat? Most of the headlines are of no interest to me. The content is generic and the reports all the same. Occasionally I bump into the interesting stuff by good people, but there is no way to subscribe or track writings by author. They are the best of the mainstream but they are buried by many mediocre things. This reminds me of a famous hamburger TV commercial called "Where is the beef?".

Digg is limiting. Voting never appeals to me because I know I am decidedly non-mainstream. If I'm interested in a news topic, I dig around. For example, I heard PFL (Pillow Fight League) in radio and dug up its official site, history, pictures, video, and put them into a post. Can Digg do this? I don't like voting because, one, I know my vote won't go anywhere; two, even if it goes anywhere, I don't get much out of it. I encourage you to write a little post about some news you dug out, compare it with using digg to vote. Posting gives me more satisfaction because I can control the output. Also I can write more or write less depending on my level of interest. What's more, I or other users can follow up with each other to really dive into a topic. For example, this thread on Chavez. Voting can promote, but posting can build. I get more kick out of building something than promoting something. If you blog, write wiki, hang out in forums, or make open source code then you know what I'm talking about.

Slashdot is good but it's editor-driven. I can submit a story but the editors decide to run it or not. Editors are probably all good, but this type of moderation turns me off. As an author, why can't I just do my thing and let the world judge? As a reader, why should an editor decide what's best for me to read? I understand the practical side of this, for example, a user may spam or submit duplicates. But isn't that a fun problem for programmers to solve? The Nuzmo nerds use a rating system for this. As an author, I can write what I like and post, but the catch is that I will be rated, and bad ratings will carry over to my future posts. If I am no good, my rating will drop below the default 2-star threshold and will be automatically filtered out. Meanwhile, as a reader, I can filter posts by any threshold rating I choose, and thus I can narrow my universe to any quality level I like. We use a simple aggregate rating for now because there aren't many users. But as we grow, we will do collaborative filtering to allow separate universe in each category. As for duplicates, it won't be a problem until we get more users. By then we will offer a feature to merge threads.

Wikinews requires writing original content and be neutral. Is writing original content really needed? When it comes to news, Internet has no shortage of original content. There are facts, raw documents, surveys, history, biography, gossips, commentaries, blogs, discussions, pictures, videos... Finding the good stuff and linking to them is easy and useful. Why write? Also, "being neutral" is not easy. For example, I am happy to write what I know, but in order to "be neutral" I have to spend a lot more time reading different views and examine my own bias, then I have to write as a different person. This is a lot more work than natural writing. For Wikipedia this is okey because each Wikipedia article has a long-term value, but how long does a news article last? For news, I think it's better to let writers write naturally and let readers come to their own judgement.

Contact: [e-mail], or post suggestions here, I am very responsive.