Blogger David Cohn had an idea.
Last month, using the Ning platform, he launched Social News Central.
Bringing together the users of Twitter, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Technorati, Digg, Reddit, Propeller, Pownce, Sphinn, Newsvine, del.icio.us and more, in one place.
A casual place for the 'bookmarking crowd' to hang out and exchange ideas.
Visiting the site a short while ago, there were quite a few names I recognized. The reason should be obvious. The social 'voting' sites are having are much larger influence on the blog and website visiting counts than any of us first anticipated.
Earlier today, Social News Central hit the 250 member mark.
Should we discount 250 members? Passing fad?
The answer is NO, because Social News Central is different.
In fact, it's different from the new crop of lifestream apps, it's different than TechMeMe, Mahalo, Alltop, and certainly different from any of the existing popular social networking websites.
Social News Central (or something like it) is exactly what some of the well-known websites have been fearing (and commenting heavily on this past week, one way or another). A community of bookmarkers. They're joining for a reason.
I've said it before. This blogging platform is far too dynamic for ANYONE to truly predict what will happen next, and it's just fascinating to watch.
I suppose it may not be too fascinating to some that have spent the last 3 years building something they thought for sure would be around forever, and/or their investors.
In this environment, you have to be constantly thinking outside of the box, almost all of the time.
There's no doubt, from what I've been able to gather so far, that this is just the beginning for David.
My advice? Go for it Dave. It's all fair, and none of us really know who (or what vehicle) will bring the important stories to the top each day. We certainly can't find it all ourselves (any of us!), and too many of us are spending way too much time on numerous platforms.
You may have the beginning of a solution .... at least for now.