Ginx: Pierre Omidyar's Stealthy New Social Recommendation Service
eBay founder Pierre Omidyar has joined the executive team of a stealthy new startup called Ginx, according to financial filings unearthed by PEHub. Very little is known about the company but based on passing whispers from early testers of the private data we have have some guesses about what the service does.
Ginx appears to be a people and news recommendation service built out of a Twitter publishing tool and a URL shortener. We think that sounds great, those lightweight technologies hold huge stores of valuable data. The company has raised about $2 million in funding so it's the real deal, not a fly by night operation. Check out a screenshot below and our full coverage of Omidyar's new gig over on Jobwire, our blog covering new hires in tech and new media.
Update: Omidyar pinged us on Twitter this afternoon to point us to a very short press release confirming that Ginx "is a Twitter client that aims to provide Twitter users with a rich experience for sharing and discussing links. Ginx was created to enable people to become more actively engaged in the news and topics they care about."
For the rest of what we've been able to find out about the service so far, please see our post on Jobwire.
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Hot, hot, hot!
Posted by: Sarah Perez
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January 14, 2009 8:57 AM
Nice teaser!
Posted by: Edwin Khodabakchian
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January 14, 2009 9:03 AM
These "greasemonkey-like" tools send NoScript into fits with their use of XSS. This is the "new" browser plugin, it seems, but could present security issues if users become accustomed to such practices. 10 years ago this would've been considered spyware, now it is social.
Anyway, this looks like an interesting way to capture Google search history (as well as other web activity) in a way that Google doesn't presently allow (one can view and alter, but not export and/or share).
Coldbrew - I think that's the case for a whole lot of stuff these days. used to be considered spyware, now it's social. heh. well we opt in now!
Can i get an invitation code? :D
coldbrew, you can easily export your search history out of Google if you want, assuming you've enabled search history. Do a search for [export data from google services] to find a really nice blog post from Google OS that tells how to do it. Essentially there's a nice "/history/lookup" url on Google that you hit, and it will export your search history as an RSS feed. I just tried it and verified that it works.
Google doesn't want to trap your data, so if you want to export your search history and go do something with it, power to you. :)
Kirkpatrick,
I don't normally opt-in, I still believe in the concept of TMI :)
Cutts,
Thanks for the clarification (and verification). I didn't intend to imply Google wanted to trap this data, I just assumed the feature didn't exist because its use-case was not clear to me (i.e. I will not be using it). While writing this comment a use-case did occur to me, but I wouldn't be the target user.
where are the codes!???
how to get an invite code, please? thanks
Posted by: pestwave
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January 14, 2009 11:49 PM
Interesting would love to use the service, perhaps for a client. When does it go public ?