I published a post about launching Siliconverge.com in public on my blog Adeologue.com. Here it is republished again -
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I’m very excited to announce an interesting project - Siliconverge - A social news site for people from semiconductor industry. I’ve been working on this since quite some time, but haven’t really launched in public yet. Here are some details about what, why and how.
What is Siliconverge?
A place for people to share, discover and discuss latest and greatest news & stories only related to Semiconductor industry from different sources on the web.
It’s a Digg for Semiconductor related industries.
Here is how it looks like -
Why Siliconverge is started?
It is started to enhance the way people from semiconductor industry consume the news and information online.
Semiconductor industry is still miles away from the benefits of Web 2.0 revolution - sharing, social discovery, and better user experience, etc. Everyday, people from this industry still refer to approx. 5-10 different news sites to discover latest news or interesting articles. It’s still so Web 1.0ish. Most of the times, all they get is non-relevant stuff like product release updates and financial quarter results. Very rarely, they discover some quality news on these websites. The reason these news are boring or non-relevant because those stories are published by editors and can be biased.
Siliconverge wants to improve this experience in Semiconductor domain. It wants to democratize the way people from Semiconductor industry consume the information online.
How Siliconverge is different than other traditional news sites?
At Siliconverge, whenever someone finds some breaking news, exciting story, interesting blog post, research paper, valuable tutorial or design article on the web, she submits it on the Siliconverge. Then users on Siliconverge will find it, and will vote it if they like it. The more the number of votes, the better is the quality of story.
Thus, Siliconverge will provide you the best stuff to read as voted on by our users. You won’t find editors at Siliconverge because it’s a place where people collectively determine the value of the content. By using community’s voting power, you’ll always find something that is interesting and unique to consume.
How Silicoverge works?
Submit: Find a news article, research paper, or blog post online and submit it to Siliconverge.
Discover: Visit the “Upcoming News” section to discover recently submitted news.
Vote: Participate by Voting the stuff that you like best.
Comment: Share your opinions by commenting on news.
Who’s behind Siliconverge?
You, the community and somewhere in the background, myself, Aditya Kothadiya.
Why you started Siliconverge?
I’m a Chip Design Engineer and also a consumer of news from Semiconductor world. And I was frustrated for the way how I had to consume the Semiconductor related news online.
First, I wanted to filter out the signal related to semiconductor industries from other noise available on the web.
Second, I wanted to keep myself up to date with news by following 1 single best source and not by following 10 different sources.
Third, I wanted to read what my friends, and community find best, not some editor who decides what’s best.
I observed that there are many people from Semiconductor industry, who also have similar problems. So I decided to solve it on my own. I believe this project adds tremendous value to lives of people from Semiconductor industry. And I wanted to make difference in their lives by providing this solution to them. So I went ahead, and started Siliconverge.
Is this your startup?
Nope. Not yet. I prefer to call it as a valuable side project. I’m a Chip Design Engineer (Semiconductor domain), and also know Web Development (Web Domain).
I found that there is this incredible opportunity at the intersection of these two domains which adds tremendous value to lives of many people. So I started building this project. Currently, I wouldn’t jump into this for full time, so I wouldn’t call this as a startup. I’ll leave that spot for something else.
If it’s not a startup, then why there are advertisements?
Simply, to cover the server infrastructure and development costs. In case, if you find advertisements are too obtrusive, then please let me know. I will have a look at it.
What’s next?
Explore it. Use it. Submit news. Participate actively. Suggest improvements. Provide feedback. Report bugs.
Still, what’s next?
Since you are asking so much - Promote it your friends. Invite them to submit and participate.
Remember, the system shows marginal benefits when many users actively participate on a large scale, so make sure to do your part - Submit and Vote content that matters to you and Invite friends who are closed to you!
I want to be a part of this, can I?
Awesome! Of course, Yes! Shoot me an email at aditya AT siliconverge.com and we will sync up to see how we can work together.
As a final note, I believe that this project will help tremendously to Semiconductor industry people a lot. I will really appreciate if you could provide me feedback on issues, feature suggestions, or any damn thing. I’m open to listen and learn.
Please, if you also find this project interesting and valuable enough, then do let your friends from Semiconductor/Hardware domain know about this. Ask them to participate and take the benefit.
Once again, I’m open to your thoughts and suggestions!
Go check it out - Siliconverge at (http://siliconverge.com)