People + Processors + Popular Content = Loud3r

What do you get when you add Technorati + Mahalo + Google? One part human led guide team, one part ranking of individual posts, and one part powerful algorithm that decides what's hot and what's not, based on what is fed into it.

Loud3r.

Today, Loud3r is launching 25 separate sites on 25 different niche topics that range from Motorcycles to Web 2.0. Big deal, right? There are content gathering tools everywhere these days, why bother with this one?

Each of the 25 niche sites is set up to kickstart its own community, with features reminiscent of Digg. You can give feedback on the stories, and it will help their algorithm get smarter. The more sources that the guide feeds the engine, plus the more you interact, the better user experience you'll get.
Loud3r's CEO and founder, Lowell Goss, was a head User Experience dude over at Yahoo! so he appears to be sewing some wild oats with this new project.

The one knock? All of the domains that they own are branded with the cute "3r", which is a tad cheesy in our opinion.

What isn't cheesy though is their absolute onslaught onto niches like Politics, Gadgets, Wine, Skateboarding, and even Dogs.

This is a clear play at mainstream news aggregation, using the Yahoo! portal approach with some new wrinkles.

Souped up technology with editors involved, and nice ranking on the front end. But will the community follow? "If you build it, they will come" rarely works, but maybe the Loud3r they are, the faster they'll come (cheesy, right?).

After speaking with their CEO, we were told that Mobile capabilities aren't currently available, but that and desktop options should be available in the next few months. This will be key for Loud3r's growth and adoption rates.

The content delivery competition is heating up!

Keep an eye on this one.

Tags: blogs, google, loud3r, mahalo, search, technorati