The Personal Bee got a couple of high-profile mentions in the media today:
Dow Jones's VentureWire carried a piece by reporter Clancy Nolan. VentureWire is a paid service, so we can't point you to it. But Nolan wrote in part:
"... With Personal Bee, users create and organize Web portals around topics like Headline News, Web 2.0 or Food and Wine, for instance. Users can subscribe to various existing bees, and can also create their own streams around specific topics, keeping their portal private or letting others subscribe. The company's software aggregates all the information from various sites and blogs, but relies on portal owners, or "beekeepers," to act as editors - vetting information as they go.
"The end product, [CEO Ted] Shelton said, is a group of well-organized news portals. Shelton said that beekeepers may be organizations that benefit from having a continuous source of specific news, or individuals motivated by their own interests.
" 'I think things like what we're doing is the future of news,' said Shelton. 'Staff reporters and journalists have a tremendous amount of value... but I think the way that consumers consume traditional media is changing.'
"Personal Bee is not alone in that thought. The company joins a handful of news sites that aim to help consumers make sense of the growing amounts of information online. San Francisco-based Rojo Networks Inc., which aggregates news and Web log feeds using RSS technology, has raised an undisclosed across two rounds from TPG Ventures and BV Capital.
"And a group of newer news aggregators is also popping up, and may look to raise venture money in the future. Of those, Memeorandum.com generates U.S.-based news summaries by pulling information from pundits, news outlets and bloggers. Another site, Tailrank.com, crawls through thousands of Weblogs and indexes highly linked and discussed articles, posting those stories on its Web site. Tailrank was formed by Kevin Burton, who previously co-founded both NewsMonster.com and Rojo."
The presence of so many existing and potential competitors prompted Matt Marshall of the Mercury News's SiliconBeat blog to voice skepticism over our prospects and those of other Web 2.0 social media/news aggregation efforts (see the Silicon Beat's item for a response from Ted):
Personal Bee, yet another Web 2.0 news site
"Personal Bee is yet another Web 2.0 news site where you can tailor your own news portal, or 'bee.'
"Personal Bee plans to launch publicly within the next thirty days. Right now, you can register to request to tinker with it.
"We will not quibble with their initial news judgment (SiliconBeat is first on their home page, at least as of this morning).
"To be blunt, though, we think there are too many of these sorts of sites out there, so we remain skeptical until we see more. We're a bit surprised Personal Bee, which is venture backed, is not slicker than it is, especially since it has decided to talk about it publicly ... . No slick bee logo. No, uh, buzz.
"Anyway, the idea is that it lets you, the editor, organize blogs, newspaper articles and other media on a particular topic. Others can subscribe to your topic feeds, and the "bees" continue to edit the topical offerings.
Congrats, guys. Keep up the good work. Cheers!
Posted by: Ben | March 12, 2006 at 08:43 PM
Belatedly: Thanks, Ben!
Posted by: Dan | March 16, 2006 at 05:41 PM