If you are not finding comfortable enough to copy a web page URL and paste it on Siliconverge.com, then we’ve got a one-click solution for you.

You can easily submit stories to Siliconverge while visiting other website using some browser based tools. Just bookmark the link below in your favorite browser. After that, the only thing you have to do to start submitting a story is to click the bookmarklet in your browser while you are visiting the website that you want to submit the URL.

• Internet Explorer: Rightclick the link below, choose “Add to favorites.”
• Firefox: Drag the link below to your Bookmarks Toolbar.
• Opera: Rightclick the link below, and choose “Bookmark Link”.

The Bookmarklet: Submit to Siliconverge!
This is how it will look like once you install that bookmarklet in your browser.

Sometimes using this bookmarklet doesn’t help to populate the required data like ‘news title’, or ‘trackback URL’ properly. This is because, the website URL you are trying to submit doesn’t have that data easily accessible. In such cases, you may have to edit the title manually on your own.

Let us know if this little tool is helping you are not.

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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)

1. Share.

Submit. Find a news article, research paper, or blog post online and submit it to Siliconverge.com. Your submission will immediately appear in “Upcoming News,” where other members can find it and, if they like it, they will vote for it.

Become popular. Once a submission has earned a critical mass of Votes, it becomes “popular” and jumps to the homepage in its category. If it becomes one of the most popular, it qualifies as a “Top Today”. If a submission doesn’t receive enough Votes within a certain time period, it eventually falls out of the “Upcoming News” section.

2. Discover.

Learn new stuff. Visit the “Upcoming News” section to discover recently added news. And you can subscribe to RSS feeds of of popular/upcoming sections to stay up to date with latest news submissions.

3. Participate.

Vote. Participate in the collaborative editorial process by Voting the stuff that you like best. As you vote, you contribute to the popularity of any given item. You also build a history of voting that you or your friends can view.

Bury. If you find stories with bad links, off-topic content, or duplicate entries, click “Bury.” That’s how we get the spam out of the system and let the good stuff rise to the top. The system only works when users actively participate on a large scale, so make sure to do your part and Vote and Bury content that matters to you!

4. Socialize.

Build a network. Invite your friends or find them on Siliconverge and add them to your friends list. Then your friends can track what you’re voting and you can see what they vote as well, enabling you to collectively find news together.

Email. Send your friends the stories that you submit and find best on Siliconverge.com.

5. Discuss.
Comment. Share your opinions by commenting on stories as well as Voting and Burying comments by other users.

As you can see, there are numerous ways that you can participate in Siliconverge and can be benefited by it.

There are literally hundreds of different places where news or latest articles related to semiconductor industry get published everyday. And it’s impossible to catch up with all these sources by a single human. So usually we limit the number of news sources we follow on daily basis. But, it’s not guaranteed that we will get the best or very useful news from these handful sources. In addition, all those sources are controlled by editors of respective news agencies so we still don’t get unbiased updates.

Democratizing the semiconductor news on the web

At Siliconverge.com, we are trying to democratize the way we consume semiconductor related news on the web. Our readers who follow different sources on the web, collectively follow hundreds of news sources. People who liked what they read on different sources submit those news or stories on Siliconverge for other people to discover it who usually don’t read news from those sources. Then other users on Siliconverge decide if they also liked that submitted story by voting it up. The more the number of votes, the better is the story. Such best stories get promoted to Popular News section on Siliconverge. So it becomes very easy for other readers to just read such best news voted by the community. At Siliconverge, we don’t have editors to control which news is best or not.

But what’s in it for me?

Another good question from my friend - what’s in it for me if I submit the news on Siliconverge?

He understood the importance of submitting the news that he liked for other people to discover. But he was not sure how he would be benefited from it?

Simple - you will also discover latest and greatest news submitted by other users. If all users work collectively to submit and vote best news on the web, then we all will get benefited by it. It’s the community working together for the benefits of the community. The way we just consume information on Wikipedia, there are enthusiastic people who are producing the content for us. Their motivation to produce content is, at one day, they will also be benefited by information which was produced by other suers. Similar concept can be applied to Siliconverge as well.

Snapshot

In short, at Siliconverge, we are trying to find the best signal related to semiconductor industry from other noise available on the web in the shortest available time. I hope saving time and finding quality stuff is a great incentive for you to explore and participate in the Siliconverge.

This sorting is also visible on the sidebar column. This will also help to navigate to different categories very easily. See below how it looks -

We hope that such kind of small improvements will help you to browse easily on Siliconverge.com

I’m starting this service to filter out the signal related to semiconductor and allied industries from other noise available on the web. It’s very hard to keep ourselves up to date with available different news sources of Semiconductor industry on the web. Also, it’s very hard to find the best stuff on the web in the short time. Siliconverge is created to change the way people from semiconductor industry consume the information online.

When you find some breaking news, exciting story, interesting blog post, research paper, valuable tutorial or design article on the web, then submit it on the Siliconverge.com. Once any news or story is submitted, it immediately appears on the “Upcoming News” section for other people to notice it. Then they vote it if they like it. If your submission rocks and receives enough votes, it is promoted to the front page for the thousands of our visitors to read.

You can submit latest and greatest news content from existing online magazines, company websites, University research papers, conference proceedings or even obscure blogs.

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 content. By using community’s voting power, you’ll always find something interesting and unique on Siliconverge.

And it doesn’t stop at just discovering the great content. Because Siliconverge is all about sharing and discussing the content. We’re are providing the communication tools for our community to discuss the topics that they’re passionate about.

So go ahead, and submit some interesting news, stories, blog posts…and discover new stuff by reading what others are submitting!

For any suggestions, bug reports, or any kind of feedback, please send an email to feedback@siliconverge.com. I’ll be very happy to know your views and improve incrementally as you suggest.