Fark, the news aggregation site with humorous headlines, on April 1st launched "The New Fark Experience."
The new experience is about bringing the concept of a social graph, as well as collaborative filtering, and other snazzy Web 2.0 implementations to Fark users.
"With the advent of Social Networking and the growing market for 360 degree user-to-service interaction, we’ve realized that there is far more to be had from the Fark Experience. Using the power of the cloud, we are able to deliver a Semantic Web approach to the long-tail aggregate of the Fark Experience," wrote Drew Curtis, Fark CEO and founder, in a blog. "We’ve realized that the way users interact with Fark is just as valuable as the stories we report. So now, every interaction, comment, idea and even thought our user has about the information delivered in the New Fark Experience is now an integral part of the content we deliver."
Fark users have always wanted to know other Fark users. This has been quite upsetting to the Fark community, so it seems. Now, it's all changed. Starting today, when you're on the new Fark page, you can see Farkers you may know, much like Facebook.
In fact, following in the footsteps of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Curtis' new Fark experience looks eerily like the new Facebook. The response from the community -- "This is horrible! How can you like this? This is totally against everything Fark stands for -- is also quite similar.
Fark also launched its Fark Feed, called FrEED, as well as other cool buzzwords, like FarM and FRAK.
"With the new Fark Feed (FrEED), we are much more than just funny headlines; we are now an organic database of user reaction. On the Fark Mosaic (FarM), we display the content most relevant to user interests as gauged by their activity," wrote Curtis in a blog post. "Photoshop contests are now voted on through the Fark Rendering Analysis Kernal (FRAK) and displayed on Fark’s new Contest-Originated Webshows. Now, stories and concepts don’t just appear on Fark - with the New Fark Experience, they’re FrEED on the FarM to FRAK the COWs."
Something tells me this new Fark look isn't going to last very long.
Nice April Fool's joke, Fark team. A special thumbs up to Joe Peacock for a nice job putting the page together.
