A couple of days ago, a new news aggregating service (and, at the same time, traffic metric) SpotPlex got featured on TechCrunch. It has received a very positive review from them (and a more moderate one from franticindustries), and it definitely got the attention of site owners with their limited offer of 1000 invitations for the service. A perfect start, really - not all startups get (unjustly, but still) lauded as the new Digg, picked up by most the relevant media publications, yet still retaining a vague notion of exclusivity.
Also, while it is hard to predict whether Spotplex will truly become a hit in the long run, their unique concept should at least give them a steady influx of fresh news.
Yet, a couple of days later, what do they offer? A stuttering, slow, frequently dying website with 2-3 days old news on the front page. The articles with lots of hits (Spotplex weights popularity by measuring actual hits to articles) sit stubbornly at the top although everyone has already read them at other news sites. At the time of this writing, the first news item on both the front page and technology sections is TechCrunch’s story on Barenaked Ladies’ new DRM-free album.
TechCrunch itself published exactly 24 news articles after that one.
SpotPlex, this is your wake-up call - fix your algorithms. Nobody wants to read old news. And there probably won’t be a second chance.
A page view is not the equivalent of an endorsement or a vote.
@everythingisok: I agree, I’ve specifically pointed that out in my initial review of SpotPlex.
I wonder why techcrunch gave such a positive review about the service when it clearly has issues with only popular blog stories being at the top.
In which case the site is nothing but an ego booster for Arrington.
@Ali: I don’t resent the positive review from TechCrunch. The man has a right to his opinion. However, the bombastic comparison to Digg sounded really weird when I realized that the site has absolutely nothing in common with Digg.