Dorthy.com just launched a new version of their goals and ambitions site, and you’ll be happy to know they’ve lifted the waitlist.
This release makes it easier for you to create living pages about anything you’re interested in, want to learn, or achieve, which is why Dorthy is also known as the “Dream Search Engine.”
Each page you create searches the web 24/7 for the most relevant content providing collaborative and actionable results that learn from your activity, enhancing and customizing with each interaction.
Some of the new features that Dorthy is introducing include:
A New User Interface and Messaging
In this release they redesigned each page with new messaging, increased usability, and faster load times. This makes it easier to navigate throughout your search pages and discover new pages that other users have created.
A New Community Area on each dreampage
Each page now has a Community section where you can subscribe to similar search activity and learn from others who share your interest. They also made commenting global rather than unique for each page, so now you can see what others have said about each search result.
Sharing Features
Now you can sync your Twitter and Facebook accounts and share content you find, and the pages you create. They also created their own Tiny URL system so you won’t be bogged down with long URL’s on your posts.
Introducing Twitter Search and Twitter Communities
Once you sync your Twitter account, they conduct Twitter searches on each of your dreampages and show you the Twitter activities that are specifically related to your interest. The new interface allows you to reply to and engage in these conversations – filtering through the irrelevant clutter of the typical Twitter experience. This allows your social experience to be topic driven rather than the personality focus of traditional social networking services.
Open Authentication
They’ve launched a new Discover section that allows you to browse through public search pages other users have created and see their shared activity. These pages are available and indexed by traditional search engines.
Registering to use the site
They’ve also implemented Facebook Connect (see above), making it easier for you to sign up and login.
Dorthy says, “Coming soon we’ll be integrating a new way to browse the blogs and articles that Dorthy.com’s Living Search finds for you. We’re also in final testing with new learning technologies that help each page get smarter from your activity and find customized results more quickly. As you know, Dorthy.com’s power to deliver results is due to its enhanced artificial intelligence search engine that uses natural language processing, common sense reasoning, semantic understanding, and machine learning technologies. Each of which we have built from the ground up over the last two years.”
And Google will buy them in 3…2…
But seriously, this does look like a cool way to search!
Cool site, though lots of work required to make the site usable intuitively.
So, did anybody create some dreams and would like to share with us?
dorthy.com stumbles at the first hurdle. Why do they require so much personal info just to sign up and check out their service?
Cool site. I had never heard of it before.
and BTW, I created two pages.
I want to finish my movie script
http://www.dorthy.com/discover/h1fbd/i-want-to-finish-my-movie-script
I want to learn Russian
http://www.dorthy.com/discover/h1fbd/i-want-to-finish-my-movie-script
My problem with the site is that its not really a goal achievement platform. Inundating me with all sorts of information is not helpful, I actually find it to be a hindrance. In fact, I think I’m less likely to achieve things using this site, as it makes it quite easy to procrastinate while paging through search results. I use mysomeday.com and I find it much more focused on actually getting me to take steps. Dorthy looks very pretty but don’t really think its a good tool for achieving my dreams.
The reason why Dorthy requires so much information up front is not necessarily to help you but to help themselves. I read in some recent press that they intend to sell the information of their users as part of their revenue model. That is in their own words.
I like the site, but agree that it is a bit confusing & labor intentsive. It would be great if there was a video tutorial. That being said the more you go on it and the more you learn to use it, the more it learns about you and easier and more accurate it becomes.
@Susan A: Hi Susan. Thanks for your comment. We just wanted to clarify something. Part of what makes Dorthy.com different is that we do want to help our users by connecting them not only with information about their goals and interests, but also, with people. So for example, if you live in Chicago and want to run a marathon, it would be cool to meet others who want to run a marathon – and who also live in Chicago. But, we can’t do that without knowing things like your location :)
As far as selling the information of our users, Microsoft and Google have been doing this for years. Dorthy.com only is looking at trends around the kind of content people like within various communities such as “running”. We use this information to serve better results, and help content creators understand how they can produce better content. As our privacy policy states we will never read your mail or look at individual activity.
@Jack Hanson:
Hi Jack. Thanks for checking out Dorthy.com! One thing that makes Dorthy.com unique is that each of your dreampages uses our Living Search that works 24/7 to find you information that is relevant to your interest. This means that we do the searching for you. Our goal is to focus on the quality of the information being returned and not the quantity. You can read more about this over at our blog: http://www.blog.dorthy.com/2010/01/we-have-increased-the-value-of-living-search/
As far as helping you to take specific steps to achieve your goals, that’s what our Actions section is for. The actions section allows you to make plans and notes about what you need to do to make your dream happen. You can read more about Notes (http://www.blog.dorthy.com/2010/01/new-planning-tools-notes/) and Plans (http://www.blog.dorthy.com/2010/01/new-planning-tools-%E2%80%93-plans/).
The Community section for your dreampage is also designed to help you take steps to achieving your goal by connecting you with people who have a similar interest. So you can learn form each other’s experiences.
@oni:
Good question. Most of the information we ask for is required to help enhance your experience on Dorthy.com. For example, let’s say you want to start a small business. By providing your location, we’ll be able to recommend to you other people on Dorthy.com who also want to start a small business in your area. This could be pretty valuable as you could share resources and learn from each other.
We realize that it could seem like a lot of stuff to provide. So, that’s why we implemented Facebook Connect which can greatly speed up your Sign Up process for Dorthy.com. To get started, go to the Sign Up page here http://www.dorthy.com/signup and click the Facebook Connect button :)