Socialmedian’s Jason Goldberg is trying to create, in his words the “second-generation social news site.” Think Digg meets FriendFeed meets Drudge Report. The first generation social news sites were like Digg, which were about the popularity of news sites, said Jason, in this Vator Talks interview with Ezra Roizen and me. Socialmedian, which raised some $600,000 of which $250,000 came from the Washington Post, is set out to make news more personalized, so people can get highly-personalized news that fits their “information DNA,” he said.
The method through which people learn about what other people find relevant to particular topics is through submissions. Think Digg that’s divided into topics, such as “social networking,” and “venture capital” or just about anything. After launching in early August, about 2,000 networks have been created, said Jason. Each person can choose networks that interest them and get a news feed of what people in that network are saying or reading.
Additionally, people can find a person they consider a newsmaker. This is the functionality that will enable anyone to be the next Matt Drudge, said Jason. Matt Drudge is the founder and owner of the Drudge Report, a popular conservative news aggregation site, and the precursor of news aggregation models.
In this interview, Jason also talks about the other functionalities he’s weaving to build what may seem to be a complex Web of feeds. For instance, if Soicalmedian members link stories on Twitter or FriendFeed, or if they Digg a story, those activities will appear on Socialmedian as an automated feed. If Socialmedian members link stories on their profile on Socialmedian, that activity is automatically sent to FriendFeed in a feed.
Jason doesn’t talk about business models. He’s not concentrating on that just yet. But you’ll get some good insight about where he wants to take the company, and what he’s trying to build.
