Category: Business Reviews

Day 4 Sites that Make you Say DAMN: Sphere

A lot of sites are hot today mostly with tech nerds and this is one of them. It has potential to go mainstream and I am excited to see where it goes. Luckily, I was able to talk with Tony Conrad, the CEO and get the words straight from the him:

The four of us (Martin Remy/ CTO, Steve Nieker/CIO, Toni Schneider/Advisor and myself/ CEO) felt like we could create a much better blog search engine to help readers more easily track the conversation and discover great blog content . Sphere enables:

• mainstream consumers to easily discover the highest quality and timely blog content;
• high quality bloggers to be more easily discovered; and
• publishers to integrate really good blog content into their website properties.

Sphere’s mission is to answer the question: “Blogs, what are they good for?” each and every day. Whether you want to read what people are saying or throw your two cents in, Sphere’s advanced searching algorithms make it possible for you to find high quality content that’s both timely and relevant.

I asked Tony how is he going to compete with Technorati and how will he handle distribution and getting it past the blog crowd. He Said:

One of the challenges that we and the blogosphere in general need to address is engaging a mainstream audience. we believe it starts by enabling people to find high quality relevant content (sort through the clutter) and track the conversation. secondly, we want to help people who are new to the blogosphere more easily discover great blog content, focused on topics that match their interest (ie, i like hip hop music, show me some great blogs on hip hop, etc). lastly, we’ve developed features (custom range, sphere it bookmarklet) and a site design that appeals to a mainstream audience. so far, we’re encouraged by what we feel is adoption by a more mainstream audience. as an example, our top searches are not as focused on tech and politics. on a typical day, you’ll notice that the top searches on sphere include sports, celebrities, movies, music as well as politics, current events and technology. since launch, our page views have tripled and continue to grow quickly.

Tactically, in addition to the site, we’re touching a broader audience through syndication deals with publishers like Time.com and through our Sphere It! bookmarklet (we’ve had tens of thousands of downloads) which contextually matches blog content to any article you may be reading on the web.  It’s our favorite app too so we’re pleased that others have quickly started using it to look for related blog content to the content they’re reading.

Lastly, because I get asked all the time, my favorite blogs include: Davezilla (my personal favorite), GoatRiders, GoFugYourself, GigaOm, Techcrunch, SouleMama, Chocolate & Zucchini, Stereogum, NaughtyCurry and JustJared.

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