Sean says:

"So I know other folks have tried ratings systems before, and some like bloghop are still in use today. But they seem to suffer from the inverse problem of cross-linking ... there's no feedback loop that accounts for weighting more heavily the opinions of the well-respected in the community. It's a problem with many layers; what is cool about the slashdot solution is that you get the benefits of moderation without the overhead or the "clique" effect."

My feeling has long been that the slashdot approach is a bit over-complicated for most non-geek folks. So, my company has been putting together a solution that relies more on technology, in particular, Bayesian statistics, which is used to eliminate some of the complexity from the user's POV. That is, we use math to move the complexity from the front end to the back end.

On Feb 4 we'll be opening a beta site to the public which uses this technology to help discover the best new music (our motto is "Uncover the undiscovered"). We're considering the question of whether it would make business sense for us to apply it to the the blog world. At this point we aren't sure.

This technology is the result of years of work and thought and I'm thrilled that it is soon to come into the world! Will say more (much more) later... :)
4:01:54 PM