OneRiot: Me.dium Goes Las Vegas

Me.dium, the social search plugin (see Social Search: Google And Me.dium), has relaunched its technology and branding as OneRiot. They have dropped the plugin part, and are using the base technology to support a search page, with results based on the actions of all the folks who are using their new browser search bar. Basically, they are now scouring the web for the most sensationalist breaking news. They have ‘gone Las Vegas’, churning up all the paparazzi news about Madonna and Hulk Hogan’s divorces, three headed kittens, Walmart employees trampled on Black Friday, and a girl injured by a dropped electric saw:

OneRiot.com - electric saw dropped on girl, originally uploaded by Stowe Boyd.

I look at OneRiot with a certain sick fascination.

Kimbal Musk of OneRiot and I spoke last week. I said basically that I didn’t get it: there’s a million places to find hot breaking news stories on the web. Musk maintains that people want to know what is hot right now, not getting Google links to old info about Madonna, but the new stuff.

Maybe. But I think that this could just be a feature that Google could whomp into search over the weekend. A search option: show me the stuff getting the most attention right now.

We’ll see.

PS Along the same lines, Cuil.com’s numbers are plummeting from a record 2M in July down to 250k in October.

Meanwhile, I don’t see anyone complaining that the old Me.dium is gone. That radar screen metaphor just didn’t work. So we add Me.dium to the deadpool, and put OneRiot on deathwatch.