The concept is reminiscent of the "good old days of the Web." Instead of having a staff of editors to review submissions to the database, NewHoo allows anyone to become an editor. This open approach has two advantages. First, since there is a potentially unlimited number of editors, each responsible for the categories of their choice, it should be possible for the directory to grow quite large without overloading the staff and forcing new additions to grind to a halt (as seems to have happened at the more famous "hoo"). Second, since each editor presumably signs up for a category that he or she is interested in and familiar with, insider expertise can be brought to bear in deciding which sites to include.
In today's Internet business, no good idea goes unacquired. NewHoo has recently been gobbled up by Netscape, and renamed the Open Directory Project. It now resides at http://directory.mozilla.org/. The NewHoo folks explain their decision thusly:
NewHoo was approached by several web portals who discussed possible partnerships or acquisitions. But we had the best feeling
about Netscape -- they were very enthusiastic about our vision to build the biggest directory on the web, and NewHoo's
community-editing approach fits well with their pioneering efforts to support the free software movement through Mozilla.org.
Although Netscape will make use of Open Directory data in their Netcenter web portal, directory.mozilla.org will remain a separate site. The Open Directory Project now includes over 100,000 sites, and some of the categories are very comprehensive indeed. It all depends on the category editor, and how motivated they are.
Won't lots of people sign up as editors for the sole purpose of touting their own sites? Of course, but the bosses are on the lookout for that sort of behavior, and will revoke the credentials of any editor who abuses his or her power. Also, being an editor is not exclusive - any number of people may sign up as editors for the same category. I imagine the "weight loss," "work at home" and other traditional get-rich-quick categories each have about a hundred editors, and lists of sites that scroll into next year. This is all part of the Internet. The Open Directory Project is no more or less than what we Internet users make it!
The major Web directories are all hopelessly swamped with submissions, and some are naively attempting to require sites to pay to be listed. Such a site is not a directory, but a list of advertisements, and few users will trust these sites. This business model won't work, because the Internet simply isn't set up that way. The Open Directory Project is the way it should be done. This is an excellent resource, and we strongly encourage everyone to support it, by using it for your searches, submitting your sites, and perhaps becoming an editor yourself.
NewHoo also encouraged sites to link directly to their search engine, using the little form below. They say that this type of free and open access will continue, but I imagine it will be repackaged with the new name and so forth, so the form below may stop working at some point.
