OK, I want to say a few words about directory technology. I know that a lot of directory owners will be reading this, and you may be offended. But you will also grudgingly admit that what I say is true. Directory technology sucks. Even the top two directories - DMOZ and Yahoo! - are really, REALLY crappy. The DMOZ is maintained (sort of (every now and then)) by an army of volunteer ants, most of whom never log in. It's really, really old technology, straight from 1994 - a hieararchical, manually maintained static directory. The Yahoo! directory, if you can find it, and I can't because it's not even linked from Yahoo!'s front page, is basically the same. Meanwhile, the hundreds or thousands of directories you find in the solicitation forum here at DP, are nothing spectacular either. If I'm not mistaken they all rely on one of two scripts. Some are good, some are bad, some have widgets, and some have PR, but the technology driving all the directories is essentially the same. It's old and it's boring and it's simplistic. Users have to select categories from a loooong list, and the links have to be manually administered by the directory owner. If the directory is not actively maintained by an energetic owner, it dies. That's so last century. So where are the hot directories with cutting edge technology? Post them in this thread. I'll go first, with Qascade. It's a cascading tag-based directory. Fully automatic, built once every 7 days, no manual administration whatsoever. Cascading categories are determined based on the tags added. Sites get screenshots and dofollow links if the user has enough points, which have to be earned. Complicated, but at least it's hi-tech and the content is reasonably relevant, and always fresh. I know a few more, but let's see what y'all got first. ;-)
Fully automatic and no manual administration whatsoever will create a few smiles. Are you sure the adsense will be ok with some of the content, seen as no one is dealing with that by hand? Il resist pointing other things out, il let others do that.
only from people who haven't seen it or bothered to understand the concept behind the technology driving it. i asked if you knew of any other innovative directories. apparently, you know of none, so just stay out of the thread and do your trolling elsewhere. thanks.
You have been sarcastic in the start of your thread, rather than just ask for good examples, which is a cool idea and id love to see some good examples too, but its not cool to run down everything else in order to make your example stand out. Were not all chumps because were not doing the same as Qascade. Lets see what other people say anyway, dont get upset by my opinion alone, the others might love what you showed.
Hmm there is nothing new about that site it is qassia reincarnated - even the domain qassia is redirected there so the first attempt must have failed. Looks to me like it has just been rebranded and the same ol qassia is back again. qassia.com In fact here you were back in Aug 2008 hyping up qassia http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=997821&highlight=qassia This thread seems more about self promotion than anything imo
I'm not saying you are. But in any case if you were doing what Qascade is doing, it wouldn't be innovative on your part. There are many ways to be innovative, Qascade is just one example. Copying existing technology isn't really innovative. I'm flummoxed by the fact that there aren't more people applying out-of-the-box, interesting, and new thinking to the web directory concept. Sure, the site isn't new - that doesn't change the fact that the technology is cutting edge and innovative. Doesn't change the fact either that Qascade is the ONLY directory that's innovative and cutting edge. Huh? It's common knowledge that qassia.com was rebranded. DUH! The directory is quite successful, as you can see for yourself, so it isn't a failure by any measure. The thread you mention dates from when it was launched - it was relatively empty then. It isn't empty now - 9,779 sites, all intelligently categorized by an algorithm. Who else has got that? The bottom line, at least according to this thread, there is no other innovative directory other than Qascade. No real programming talent has gone into directories. Qascade is the only completely self-generating directory and despite what the troll a few posts up says, it's spam-free. If someone comes across some other directory that is doing something interesting with advanced algorithms and cutting-edge coding in the backend, I stand corrected. It's actually quite sad that nobody has done anything with the "web directory" concept. All the VC money has gone into search, and so has the media attention.
Of course it is different! What does price have to do with it? With a manual directory the guy who runs it adds your sites, or approves them. He is the one who determines categories and filters out spam. With Qascade, it's clever programming that does all that. Whether Qascade is free, or charges $5, or $5,000, is so totally beside the point. This thread was supposed to be about innovative technology, not pricing, or value, or what have you.
Possibly true, but editors go on holiday, or move on to other projects, or get busy with doing things other than zealously categorizing thousands of websites. Moreover, human editors have inherent bias, so categorization and ranking will be subjective even with the best editor in the world.
I will post one other innovative directory here soonish. Sadly it's also owned by the company I work for. I don't want to run into any "self-promotion" criticism again, so I hope that in the coming weeks someone will find an innovative directory somewhere... Even if it's small and not particularly successful, as long as it's not the same-old same-old cookie cutter directory, I'd love to hear about it.
Evidently. I picked a tag at random - 'Food', out of 7 links 3 were nothing to do with food and as for natureshelicopter.com I don't know as the server couldn't be found [edit - it's about hummingbirds]. 3 out of 7 - so much for your 'clever programming'.
Good editors edit objectively and the technology running most of my directories would knock your socks off.
It's sad that your only definition of innovation relates to automating the review of sites when it is that human review that makes the true value of a directory. I would wager most here, including myself, see innovation in directories mainly relating to the quality of the information they provide. A whizz-bang back-end doesn't matter very much if the information provided is lacking. I didn't spend a great deal of time on your site but if innovation means using the title or just 4 or 5 words for the site descriptions, I proudly will remain stuck in 1994 and continue to do my reviews by hand and post descriptions that actually promote and explain the sites.
Are you kidding me? Directories with no administration are called link farms. I have seen the so called "directory" and the submissions are horrible, and I didn't have to look passed the first page. If you Google free for all links you will find tonnes of these, it's not a new concept - but it is a bad one. There are a lot of things that can be done to innovate directory scripts, but automatically accepting links isn't one of them. I would say at least 60-70% of submissions are bad, and a computer system isn't smart enough to decide which are good and bad - nor can it edit submissions - which is vital for unique content on a directory. This is a step backwards - not forwards.
The example looks interesting but isn't as good for those who submit the sites regularly, i.e. SEOs. To make this thread less personal and without self-promotion, examples, etc. I'd like to think about how a better and modern directory could look like. I am thinking adding lots of auto-generated stuff about the submitted site, not just what's done now, title, description, keywords, screenshot, sometimes PR and other SEO stuff, but how about adding videos, user comments, RSS feeds, tech details, associated sites and we can brainstorm lots of other cool features here. What do you think, guys?
Now you're talking about something totally different. Directory means exactly what it says a Directory. Main role of directory is to provide basic information and let web site to do the rest. Why would any one would want to go to web site if directory already spitted all the information? fastreplies
Some blurbs from your directory (nice spam post btw...red rep added for that) No human labor required = link farm / spamdex Why would any legit webmaster want to be listed on such a site? A list of these not-humanly-maintained categories: What lovely category structure you have! I especially love the non-sensical categories like "229 Steps" and "jGibney"...and the vague categories like "New" and "random". Yes, you are true innovator. No one has ever built an automated link farms before...and they never EVER get banned from the search engines.
Yep, sorry mate. On my first visit I didn't see anything special and had to go back a second time to make sure that I didn't see anything special. I don't like being negative, but I think you've really hyped up (in your mind) something that just isn't there. I mean, if I had the choice of listing my site in your directory for 5 bucks or listing in say www.everyquery.com or www.wowdirectory.com for $100...I'd choose either or both of the latter.