ReadWriteWeb

Dorthy.com, a site we've been hearing about since late last year, has just raised $4 million from angel investors for their "new agey" concept of a search engine for dreams. Currently in private alpha, the site makes fluffy claims about how they're "reversing the traditional search process, continuously filtering and focusing the Universe of online content, to connect you with the best stuff around your interests and aspirations."

If you're not clear on what exactly that means, don't feel bad... but don't write them off either. Instead, think of Dorthy.com as a new take on the old 43Things, the site which encourages users to list goals, share progress, and cheer each other on. Dorthy does the same but gets you there by making interesting use of Web 3.0 technologies like AI and natural language search.

Dygest.net is a fascinating new service that looks over hundreds of topical sources online, finds out what the hot topics are and publishes excerpts of coverage that help tell the whole story succinctly on one page. It's like Cliffs Notes for meme-tracking and it appears to work quite well.

At first glance Dygest looks like the work of one more computer scientist who's trained a robot to hunt for hot links. There are a lot of those now. This one uses natural language processing algorithms instead of tracking links between sources, though, and the summaries from multiple sources are enjoyable to read. Demo sites have been set up for technology, environmental, film, Chicago-area and San Francisco area news.