Silobreaker responds to Copenhagen
Jinfo Blog

11th December 2009

By Penny Crossland

Item

News aggregators have been getting it in the neck in recent months, with print publishers accusing them of contributing towards the demise of their industry. LiveWire has been reporting on the debate between free versus paid-for news throughout the year (see http://www.vivavip.com/go/e23924, http://www.vivavip.com/go/e22212, http://www.vivavip.com/go/e26538), which seems to have manifested itself in spats between representatives from News Corporations and Google. But what of the other, less vociferous aggregators? Silobreaker (http://www.silobreaker.com) has been around for several years now, but does not seem to get a lot of attention (see Gary Price’s posting http://www.vivavip.com/go/e20361 and VIP’s product review http://www.vivavip.com/go/e6726). Its service is a cut above more conventional aggregators in that it finds related data in the form of articles, blogs, audio, video and graphics when presenting results to queries. There is even a section with relevant quotes – very useful for that soundbite you may need for your report or presentation. Silobreaker’s topics have been divided into verticals on global issues, technology, science, business and world. Now, in keeping with current events in Copenhagen, the aggregator has added an energy vertical and special news pages on the conference commonly known as COP15. (http://www.silobreaker.com/energy-7_1569 and www.silobreaker.com/cop15--un-climate-change-conference-2009-11_49448372) The energy section is broken down into sub sectors (fossil fuels, alternative energy and energy storage) and provides readers with a through coverage of the issues, combined with analysis and graphics. The fact that Silobreaker is presenting these complex issues in manageable formats makes this a compelling online news source. Much has been made of the need for online news providers to add value to their sites in order to build loyal readers – maybe they should pay more attention to sites such as Silobreaker, which is making news searching more relevant to our needs.

« Blog