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Wikio.fr
Wikio is available in French and several other languages. It combines elements of Google News, Digg, and other popular news aggregators. |
What might the perfect online news service look like?
Google News,
Digg,
Newsvine, and the recently launched
Daylife each represent their special take on this.
In Europe we have a fourth variation: Wikio. Originally a French site (wikio.fr) it also is available in German (wikio.de), Italian (wikio.it), Spanish (wikio.es), and -- since early December 2006 -- also in an English-language U.S. version (wikio.com).
This venture capital-backed enterprise, based in Luxembourg, was founded by Pierre Chappaz who started the site because he thought Europe needed a Digg of its own. Wikio describes itself as being "a personalized page of news, including a news search engine that searches media sites, blogs and member publications." Like Google News, it automatically compiles news by crawling a lot of news sites.
Wikio also includes blogs, takes content suggestions, and lets users rate stories. You can create personalized sites by just typing in tags as search phrases -- a much more "natural" and easier way than what many personalization services I've seen to date. You also can write your own news.
I really would like to hear your opinion: Wikio looks great on first glance. But can one news site be all things to all people?
Although this is a US model, I still think it...
