Rough start for Truemors site
Guy Kawasaki's new startup is counting on community to sort out the true from the false.
Truemors, a new social information site from former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, went live this week, but has suffered some early growing pains.
The site is sort of a combination of Twitter and Digg; users can phone, text or e-mail in rumors, and they're posted to central page. Then other users can vote them up or down.
While the launch of Truemors was widely anticipated, opening day didn't go entirely well. Spam posts quickly appeared on the main site, and bloggers wondered whether its lack of focus would hinder its ability to find a community.
Blog community response:
"Of course, there's no such thing as bad PR on the blogosphere. Well, except silence. That's the most damning thing of all."
--Scobleizer
"There's a lesson here. The site had no focus, and thus no community. A moderator is also a good idea for such sites, because otherwise spam will prevail. There may still be hope for the "greatest" section of the site, where the most popular posts are ranked, and thus presumably only the best material is sifted. When we last looked, however, the top post was about how terrible Truemors is."
--VentureBeat
"I like the idea of truemors but they are launching very broadly. Digg became popular based on focusing on a tech niche to start (and it may be stuck there as it tries to expand). Truemors launches with ten different categories. The content may be too varied to appeal to any distinct audience."
--TechCrunch
