It just depends on whether you believe niche sites have value. I do.

The value we provide is we sift through the hundreds of websites to find the nuggets so you don't have to. I'm not aware of other Christian content aggregation websites that do *exactly* the way we do. The issue with aggregation has always been the mechanism for filtering signal-to-noise. Digg was super successful because they created a feedback loop by way of the Digg button to crowdsource popular content.

I've seen some Christian aggregation sites that tried to do this but they've all failed because you need significant traction i.e. have everyone install your vote button in order to succeed. Then there are those who just aggregate RSS feeds and throw everything out to a feed. Not too useful as I can do the same with my Google RSS Reader and its customized to me.

Our approach is to side-step the chicken-and-egg situation of crowsourced voting by directly monitoring what's happening in Facebook and Twitter. Since Twitter re-tweets and Facebook re-shares are essentially very strong signals of value, we can directly rank the content without a need for voting buttons. Hence we overcome the chicken-and-egg that other Christian site aggregators could not.

To put it in another way, if I were to vote or give a thumbs up on an article I obviously believe its of value. But if I share it to my friends on Facebook/Twitter then I'm not only saying its of value but I'm putting my reputation on the line. Since we directly monitor Facebook and Twitter, publishers do not need to install any badge or button.

Even if you disagree with our approach, at the very least you'll know what Christian article/video/story/news is currently having the most impact on social networks. At the end of the day, we just want to be able to present the most relevant stories that impact your life as a Christian.

I hope I have not misunderstood your question. Hope this helps

Colin

just kidding.

When is the official launch date? How are you going to create exceptional value outside of your stated ones? I don't see much original with what you're doing. Is it just perception?

Allow me to address some of the comments made here. One of the main reasons we did Zoecity was to address the *perception* that there is either no good Christian focused content or much of what exists is cheesy. We wanted to find a way to aggregate the best Christian content intelligently. So its not a straight matter of aggregating RSS feeds and pushing them. We wanted to be able to filter and rank the content in value as well.

We're sorta similar to Digg but we see ourselves as going to the next level. Instead of having users explicitly vote on content, we feel that the act of sharing is a much stronger signal for value. You can "digg" an article, but if you share it to your friends/family on Twitter/Facebook, you're putting your reputation on the line.

So content on Zoecity is ranked by the aggregation of Facebook share and Twitter RTs. The more sharing activity an article has, the higher it is ranked. We track content from hundreds of Christian focused websites. We also allow you to submit content either by directly sending the URL to us, or just by adding the "#zoecity" tag in your Twitter post.

From there we push the best of the best out on our feeds. Daily Top 12 Christian articles are pushed out on our Twitter, Facebook and WordPress plugin feed. The Weekly Top 20 is pushed out on our newsletters. And so forth.

Zoecity is still very much a "beta" product. We welcome your feedback and hope to hear more from you guys

Colin

;0

you'd have to create some super-unique high value for this network for me to visit…